National Defence Committee on Feb. 21st, 2019

[LGen Jean-Marc Lanthier]

We're talking about diversity and official languages, but there are other languages and cultures.

For example, during the last week of January, I was with 32 Canadian Brigade Group. The group is part of the reserve force, in Toronto. Over one hundred languages are spoken by members of the brigade.

This is an incredible strength, because along with language comes ethnicity, culture and a way of seeing things. This is an advantage, because it helps us reach the communities. It increases our genetic potential to recruit, because we can reach more groups. In addition, from an operational standpoint, it gives us an advantage when we deploy an expeditionary operation. We can count on the second or even first generation members who come from the countries where we travel.

This aspect goes far beyond the two official languages. I think this aspect is an incredible strength that, in the case of the army, lies mainly within the reserve force, because the reserve force remains local. The reserve force is based in over 127 communities across the country.

[RAdm Luc Cassivi]

I want to add that it's also important to ensure that, as part of the review of our policies, we also consider Canadians who join us and whose first language isn't English or French.

They face greater challenges, both in meeting the standards required for professional development and in reaching higher ranks. We must ensure that we have supportive policies to address these barriers so that these members can progress on their own.

[Richard Martel]

My next question is for Ms. Patterson.

I know that the mentality and culture with regard to women is currently changing in the Canadian Forces. I want to know how we could assess the improvement in the situation. We're told that the situation is already much better and that assault cases are identified more often. However, how could we know that mentalities are changing? We know that there's a deep-rooted cultural issue.

Is there a way to measure this improvement in terms of a percentage? We're dealing a bit with the unknown, even if we believe that things have improved. We need to believe this.

[Cmdre Rebecca Patterson]

If you don't mind, I'll answer in English.

[Richard Martel]

Go ahead. Absolutely.

[Cmdre Rebecca Patterson]

You have certainly pointed out something that is a challenge: How do we evaluate and measure cultural change and a change in attitudes? I'll point back to some of the work that is being done to reinforce the values from the moment a recruit goes through basic training, where we talk about what acceptable behaviour is. We know that we can tell people to do things, but how do we actually measure that it's done? We use surveys.

I'll use my current work in sexual misconduct as an example. We do qualitative surveys, “Your Say” surveys and Statistics Canada surveys, that measure people's attitudes and beliefs towards various topics.

I've received a white card, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you for noticing.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I'll yield the floor to MP Hardcastle.

Welcome.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome. This is a really intriguing discussion.

I'd like to continue on Mr. Martel's theme but go a bit further.

The difficulty is measuring and evaluating, but I've also heard us talking about our diversity strategy in terms of recruiting diverse people from diverse communities and bringing them in. Does something exist or is it still emerging? What are we doing about recruitment in general to evaluate and measure any new recruit's level of understanding of diversity culture, let's say, in terms of where they're starting off and how much work the organization has to do?

I heard that there is some research being used or being tapped into in terms of the human condition, but that's a difficult question, isn't it? It's not just about educating people inside. It's not just about educating a diverse community to demystify the armed forces and say, “Oh, we are welcoming. We are changed.”

How are you measuring? Do you recognize that this is a challenge that has to be done? I'm willing to take the rest of my time to have that loose conversation. It's extremely intriguing. I don't know; I think that's the first time I've seen it written as carefully as “inculcate a culture of diversity”—at the recruitment level, I would say. That's where I'd like to stick with my time, if we could.

[LGen Charles Lamarre]

I'll jump in on that one and talk about the recruitment level, just to close off, because it will become important. You're asking about how we measure as well, and it's a follow-on to what Commodore Patterson was putting in there.

We also do the measure by a survey that's called “Your Say”, and that occurs twice a year. That would go out to the Canadian Armed Forces and we ask people to answer a number of questions. They can range over a broad number of things, such as, have you ever been exposed to racist behaviour, or do you have confidence in your chain of command to be able to look after a complaint if you bring it forward. That's, indeed, to help us to figure out what it is that's going on and how are members are perceiving it.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Is that a mandatory survey, if I may ask?

[LGen Charles Lamarre]

It's not mandatory. We ask for people do it. But we get a great rate of return on it. Over 10,000 people answered the last one. When you're looking at that, it's a pretty good sample size for the research that's in there.

But if I can come back to how we evaluate a recruit's understanding, when the recruits go through the process of joining, they ultimately go through a Canadian Forces aptitude test which measures their cognitive abilities. They also have to go through an interview process. As part of the interview process, we indicate to them what it is that we expect as behaviour in the Canadian Armed Forces. There has to be an acknowledgement from them that it's a place where you cannot discriminate based on a number of things. You can anticipate what they are. It's your sexual orientation, your gender, your age, those types of things.

After that, when they come in to the recruiting school, the leadership and recruiting school in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, they then have to undergo a number of things that relate to training, inculcating the aspects that we consider to be the values and ethics of the Canadian Armed Forces. Every single soldier coming in as a regular force soldier undergoes six hours of training over three different weeks that look and make sure that he or she understands what our values are, but also understands the tenets of Operation Honour. That's taught not only by the section commander, but also by the commandant of the school in the fifth week of the course. For the officers it's 6.6 hours during that same period of time. The training for those two groups is 10 weeks and 12 weeks, respectively, for the junior NCOs and for the officers coming in.

Along the way, we make sure that we not only expose the recruits to what is expected behaviour, but also that they get taught what the expected behaviour is. If they actually run afoul of those behaviours, then we have the administrative and disciplinary measures available to us. Every now and again you will have folks who come in and display the kind of behaviour that's unacceptable, whether it be racist or whether it be sexualized behaviour that's not conforming with our ethics and values, and if we cannot correct it we'll get rid of those individuals before we invest too much time in them.

[RAdm Luc Cassivi]

What's important too is to follow through. It's great to have six to 6.6 hours of training, but then there's a reinforcement through career and through exemplary leadership, through leaders speaking openly about a situation that happened in the workplace where bad behaviour takes place. It's reinforcing our code of ethics, to respect the dignity of all persons, but also having candid discussions when a situation happens to reinforce what good behaviour is, why we need that respectful environment, and point out the negative impact it has on the unit, it has on the people, and that we can't do that to each other. We all volunteered to serve this country. That is worthy of a high level of respect by all right there.

It's this constant reinforcement. What we're trying to do is to continue to equip those, particularly young leaders, who are the first line as supervisors with new folks, to feel confident in having those discussions. We want them to have the tools, to have the framework, and to feel confident to advance that forward. That will take time.

In measuring it as to the results, I think we're still trying to find what the right metrics are. As we advance our defence analytics framework, there's an opportunity to exploit that and to understand more of what's happening under the surface.

[Cmdre Rebecca Patterson]

I'd also like to add, too, that when you're actually talking about going beyond the organizational climate to cultural change, using very traditional models we know isn't successful. Coming from my domain, I know some bits are but other bits aren't. Therefore, one of the key pieces is engaging those that do and basically using our junior leaders at the most coal face level and having them talk the talk, walk the walk, model the behaviour. As we move forward, at least in the domain I'm working with on a day-to-day basis, we're actually looking at it as one of our primary prevention tools: leadership modelling, creating that climate because it sets the conditions in order to actually start measuring what the change is going to be down the way.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

That's good timing.

MP Spengemann.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Chair, thank you very much.

I would like to thank all four of you for being with us and for your service, and through you, I thank the women and men whom you command and represent for their service.

We had previous testimony from witnesses who raised the question with a debate on whether diversity and inclusion is about the right to work and serve in the Canadian Forces or whether it's about improving the operational effectiveness of the armed forces. Is it one? Is it both for you? How is that debate shaping up inside the Canadian Forces as you go through diversity, inclusion and cultural reform?

[LGen Jean-Marc Lanthier]

I can start.

[LGen Charles Lamarre]

Maybe I will still go in there. But you can tell there's an eagerness to be able to do it.

Is it a question of a right to serve or making the armed forces better? It's really a combination of both. By law, if you're a Canadian citizen you have the right to serve. We want you to serve. We're always on the search for talent. That's the important thing.

I think making it stronger is what it is. We keep talking about talent. Our responsibility is to have a 100,000-person force that can fight at the far end of the world and look after Canadians here in Canada. We want to get the folks who can make this happen.

You can see how it is getting challenging all around the world to get that search for talent, if you will. We need to be in the thick of things and make sure we can get that talent.

If anything, that's one thing that comes to the question you were asking about recruiting.

How important is it to broaden this? It's very important to us. We realize we've had an under-representation of women in the Canadian Armed Forces. Yet if you look at Canadian universities and colleges and stuff like that, most faculties now are bulging with women as opposed to men.

We need a combination of all sorts of folks, intellectuals who can bring us forward in a number of areas, but also hands-on folks who are going to make other things happen. Just robust Canadians to come and join.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

That's all?

Okay, good. Thank you.

Picking up on that, the chair mentioned our recent trip to Mali. Again, it's tremendous work; tremendous teams are doing difficult work. It's a complex conflict in Mali.

This shift from state-to-state conflict to essentially interstate conflict is popping up more and more. I might be asking the obvious, but how has diversity and inclusion called for or offered us an opportunity to do work that is qualitatively different in those types of conflicts?

What kind of strengths are you seeing on the ground, in the field, with more diverse and inclusionary Canadian Forces?

[LGen Jean-Marc Lanthier]

I've spent over 18 months in Afghanistan, working directly with the Afghan National Security Forces.

In late 2000, the concept of female engagement teams came forward. It was deployed initially mostly by our allies. The understanding, despite what appears to be initially a very patriarchal society, is that the role of women in society in Afghanistan is critically important. What happens in a compound is that the rule of the house is led by the ladies. To be able to break that cultural barrier through the use of a female engagement team allowed us to understand culture and influence over and above the military's traditional means. Here's a clear example of where gender really matters.

As I mentioned, it's the ability to have a diverse force not only just in operations, but when you come into an organization with different beliefs, different paradigms and different approaches. I'll speak as the champion for indigenous people. They were looking at medicine credentials and medicine and healing, which is highly based in spiritual offers, things we don't necessarily explore. It brings new avenues, new ways of looking at critical things. It makes us more effective, more efficient. For me it plays a tremendous role.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you very much.

I'm going to shift gears and talk about two things that are less frequently talked about but very much fit into the topic under discussion.

One is age and the other is gender diversity. Often the reflex is to talk about LGBTQ2+.

What about Canadians with non-binary genders? In that context I want to acknowledge the approach we've taken in the Canadian Forces compared to some other militaries that have banned certain citizens in their jurisdictions from serving.

Do you want to say a few things about age, experience, the Canadian Forces as a potentially second career outside the reserves? In the reg forces—and Canadians of non-binary gender?

[LGen Charles Lamarre]

I'll offer a couple of comments for both and after that pass it on to my colleagues.

First of all, on the age, we don't discriminate on the basis of age. We have folks who have joined the Canadian Armed Forces later on in their lives, oftentimes having had successful first careers and then having the chance to consider things. These folks, though, have to meet all of our aptitude tests, and that includes physical fitness. For universality of service, you have to be fit and able to be deployed to wherever you're asked to go. We have folks who continue to serve and who serve very well. Some of them have joined as late as in their fifties.

On the issue of gender diversity, we do have a policy that recognizes we will have folks who might be at the point in their lives of changing, and we support them when they do that. That starts right from the time they identify themselves to their chain of command, as well as a medical chain that is familiar and attuned with what the process is. It's a very disciplined approach, too, to make sure that these folks going through this are being supported properly when they go through it. We have people in my headquarters who have gone the whole range of switching from being men to being women and who continue to serve with us and do very well. Young officers and troops scattered throughout the Canadian Armed Forces go through this process.

I believe there's a recognition within that community that you will get a fair shake if you come and join the Canadian Armed Forces.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

That's excellent.

Would anyone else like to comment?

[RAdm Luc Cassivi]

If I may, as a member of one of the communities, I think we've made tremendous progress in this, which is measurable both on the aggressiveness with which policies were adapted and in the way we've been able to then evolve from what initially was being lesbian to the growing segments of the spectrum of identity. The non-binary spectrum is just another...I won't say it's just vocabulary, but it's just another complement to what we've already done. I think the ability for us moving forward there is quite easy. We're one of the principal employers of transgender and non-binary people in the country and we're proud of it.