National Defence Committee on Feb. 21st, 2019

[LGen Charles Lamarre]

I can't just leave it lie like that either. We do encourage people from all ethnic backgrounds to celebrate where they come from. We do that in a manner of ways, whether it be Black History Month or whether we have visible minority awareness groups or events. We do encourage that. As Jean-Marc Lanthier was indicating earlier on, we also benefit from it tremendously.

When we sent a contingent to the Phillippines after that horrible typhoon a few years ago, we were fortunate to be able to do a call-out and get 34 Tagalog speakers within the Canadian Armed Forces so that the first helicopter that showed up, hovering over a village that had not been reached by any force whatsoever, a Canadian helicopter, had a crew on board and a Tagalog speaker who could at least be understood for the dialect.

We embrace that in a great way. I think it's one of the great strengths in the Canadian Armed Forces, and that's why we're putting such an emphasis on it as well.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

I just want to reiterate that I do congratulate the work that is being done, as I said earlier, with respect to visible minorities. There's clear progress in the number of people who are serving. I just want to underscore that my concern really is that when we hear people say that they do not self-identify as belonging to a particular group, then we have to reflect on why that is.

[LGen Charles Lamarre]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I'm going to move to MP Gallant.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

I have a quick question.

Does the existence of having an allergy to nuts and fish preclude potential recruits from being accepted into the Canadian Armed Forces?

[LGen Charles Lamarre]

Yes, it can.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Can you give some rationale for that?

[LGen Charles Lamarre]

Absolutely.

It's the concept of universality of service. We expect that all our members will be able to deploy and go on operations when we tell them to, and oftentimes on very short notice. It is our mandate to have folks who can do it.

Whenever we have individuals who present themselves with a medical situation that would make them very vulnerable and when it comes their being able to deploy, then at that point, we have to be conscious of what that would mean in terms of their ability to conduct the mission, but also what it would mean in terms of who would have to look after them if they became incapacitated.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you very much.

I'll give the rest of my time to Mr. Bezan.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Thank you, Ms. Gallant.

I want to come back to General Lanthier. You are in charge of the indigenous recruitment. No?

[LGen Jean-Marc Lanthier]

No, I'm the champion. He's responsible for recruitment.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Okay. You're a champion for indigenous members.

You run the summer primary reserve training program. I know in my first nation communities, they've had some members who have gone to Bold Eagle, Black Bear, Raven. Not all of them stayed. They did the training and had a good time, enjoyed the experience, but then didn't stay on as either members of the armed forces or as members of the reserves.

What number of people who participate actually become members?

[LGen Jean-Marc Lanthier]

I can share later the exact numbers, but I give you, for example, in Raven last year, 27 started the course. Sorry. I'll go a year back because the data is now old. Forty joined the course, 37 finished the course and five went into the reserves. The numbers varied from year to year. The previous year there were actually eight who joined the forces. Bold Eagle is a much larger program in the Prairies. Out of the 114 who started, 102 graduated from the course and 30 were retained. Turning to the east coast, in the Atlantic programs, out of the 40 who started, 32 graduated and 50% joined—16 joined. So, the numbers vary.

I see the trend. Last year's numbers are not finalized, but I expect a growth in retention—i.e., they joined and stayed in the forces—by about 30% across the two main army programs, for different reasons—the experience, as the word goes around and they see the success.

What I was told by the first FISM...when I was there for the graduation last year is the simple fact of having on your CV that you're a graduate of Black Bear is a mandatory key to employment in the civilian world. A lot of people join with no intention whatsoever. They want to acquire skills. They want to learn about leadership, ethics, ethos, to exceed their own limitations so that they don't perceive limitation by doing a military program. That explains a lot about those we do not retain when we do what we call the exit survey discussion: “Why didn't you join?” “Well, I wasn't interested. I wanted to get the experience.”

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

In trying to recruit more indigenous members, you used some of the stories of very successful indigenous military members. Sergeant Tommy Prince, the most decorated indigenous soldier in Canadian history, grew up and died on Broken Head Ojibwa Nation, in my riding. He was a member of the Devil's Brigade and was incredibly brave, and after World War II went on to serve in Korea.

His community, because of his legacy, has at least a dozen members who are currently serving either in the Canadian Armed Forces or in the U.S. armed services. A lot of them are rangers. They really do take pride in the fact that they have such a powerful leader from their community who served so well in the Canadian Armed Forces. By promoting him, you promote their own pride and they see themselves in the Canadian Armed Forces when you do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you.

I have MPs Dzerowicz, Hardcastle and Robillard.

Julie.

[Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Let me go back to my notes here. I'll direct a question to Commodore Patterson.

How do women support each other to get where they want to go?

[Cmdre Rebecca Patterson]

I've been part of the Defence Women's Advisory Organization since it started a long time ago.

One thing we do know about women, no matter where we serve, is that networking and how women network is quite important. In a force where you can be a minority in the group, losing that network can make you feel very isolated. I come from health services, so I've come from a fifty-fifty split throughout my career. What we end up doing is creating informal networks of professional support. That's on the support side. We've also done it—I'm going to go back to the comment about mentoring.

Women have been mentoring women for a very long time. It does not necessarily know the barrier between “I'm a public servant” and “I'm a member of the Canadian Armed Forces”. We tend to network as groups and we create networks. There are networks that support, as well as share questions like, “How did you tackle this problem?” I think one of the key things, moving forward, is to carry on looking at a gender-focused mentoring approach, where we're talking about how we confront and overcome issues in life, and asking each other's experience. That has actually been my experience in my career.

The last thing I'd like to add is that, as a member of the Canadian Armed Forces and as a woman, I have been supported by men and women in my life. As I have grown up in this organization, I have been very fortunate. I have been mentored from a very young age, before it was popular to do so. I've also carried on to having mentors who are men, as well. So I've been able to get a broad view.

I thought I'd like to share that.

[Julie Dzerowicz]

I appreciate that.

Again, I've only been in the business and the political worlds. In my opinion, we actually don't have.... It's not as developed as it is for men. Whether it's networks or supporting each other automatically, it hasn't been as developed in the two areas that I've worked in. That's the reason I've been asking.

How do you actually evaluate it, ongoing? I don't have a lot of time now, but if you have additional suggestions on how we can help women be more supportive of other women within the Canadian Armed Forces, I'd be very welcoming of that being sent to this committee.

There is another question I have. I was just remarking on my colleague's research of the AG report, which said, "the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) should establish appropriate representation goals for women for each occupation”. When I was in Mali, I was a little bit surprised to hear that there were a number of positions that didn't have qualified women. When you're talking about a medical technician, health care administrator, traffic technician and aviation system technician, these all sound like areas that, in my opinion, are not like those of engineers or pilots for which you need lots of hours and years of training. Sometimes I feel that you have to go to the people who exist who are women in these positions and ask, “Why are there not more of you? What might be some of the roadblocks?” Is that something that might actually be done right now in the Canadian Armed Forces?

[LGen Charles Lamarre]

Yes, actually we do that specific research. You raise a very good point of what we have as a potential block.

Again, DGMPRA does research on diversity and inclusion, to find out about it. One of the research projects I just finished in 2018 is about recruiting and employing women in the regular force, CAF members' perspective of what brought them in, what obstacles they've found and how they find they're supported.

We've done a similar thing in the primary reserve. That one will be published in 2019. After that, we have a number of other ones that are related to racism and harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces.

We work with NATO to find out about factors for diversification, to take advantage of that network. I have a network of Five Eyes partners as well, the English-speaking nations, where we do the same exchange of information.

All of that is to make sure we can look at employment diversity and how we measure the inclusion aspect of it.

[Julie Dzerowicz]

It sounds as if you have research but haven't acted on it yet.

[LGen Charles Lamarre]

No, this is the point, and I won't belabour it as I see the chair's white square.

It comes down to how we're structuring Operation Generation, how we're actually going to get people to fill that, based on what we're finding in this research. It's almost like the intelligence aspect, to make sure we know how people are affected, so we can overcome those specific deficits that you're mentioning.

[Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

MP Hardcastle.

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

Just on that, if you're going to overcome specific deficits, how exactly are you going to tap into or leverage these external organizations and bodies that can help with the answer instead of circling the wagons, since we're talking a little bit about demystifying what happens in the CAF, from the top down, and there's no acquiescence of authority? With regard to the chain of command, there's no discretion that comes from what would be an external source. I'm sure you've had time to think about that, because you have a very aggressive plan to achieve certain targets. When you look at them, they seem minuscule, but hearing you speak, I think it's very significant. How are we going to not just demystify but actually authentically and genuinely tap into external resources?

What are your thoughts on that, Commodore Patterson? We'll start with you because you were nodding.

[Cmdre Rebecca Patterson]

I'm probably going to say what General Lamarre is going to say, but we were already engaging civilian organizations through our research programs, through DGMPRA, that look at what our best practices are. How do we actually identify barriers? I'm using external academic institutions, but I'm also going to say other departments. With regard to wages, looking at gender-based analysis plus has been very interesting, because it's something that makes you shake up your thinking. Have you thought about this? We are now using external pieces to say, “We can't think anymore on this issue. How should we progress?”

I'm going to pass it to General Lamarre. He'll be able to give you some more details about some of the studies they are doing.