National Defence Committee on April 4th, 2019

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Before I was elected, I sat on the board of governors of the Royal Military College. One of the challenges we identified was that there are higher recruitment numbers from military families. There's a tradition that I'm sure is the same in the U.K. where, if the father, mother or grandfather served, there are higher recruitment rates from those families, which tend to reinforce traditional recruitment groups.

Have you done any outreach within the veteran community trying to engage them to reach out and engage with new under-represented groups?

[Brig Nicholas Orr]

I don't know the answer to that question, but yes, we have a very similar dynamic. My son is en route into Sandhurst, I think, fairly soon, but no, I don't know if we have statistics or if we're trying to follow that up in any way.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

You also mentioned under-representation, and this is something we worked on when I was in a recruiting capacity, under-representation from Chinese Canadians and Sikh Canadians, for example, trying to get community leaders to become familiar with the college or with the Canadian Armed Forces.

We also had some institutional challenges, like you represented, left over almost from the regimental traditions. We had a Copper Sunday parade, where the cadets would split into the Catholic group and the Protestant group for church services.

Are you accommodating all faiths into traditions within the regimental structure? That obviously creates some friction because people like traditions staying the same way for the purpose of continuity, but it doesn't engage important groups of the country to feel welcome and included in these traditions. Have you done anything that we could learn from?

[Brig Nicholas Orr]

I think this is an area where, again, we are very closely aligned. My answer to you is, yes, it is acceptable to be any faith within the armed forces now, and that's exactly what our policy states. The enacting of that in certain circumstances is trickier, particularly when you're dealing with small numbers of a minority faith. It's incumbent on both the individual and the organization he's with to find the solution that the individual is comfortable with and allows him to carry out his faith, but it's not always an easy route.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Building on what—

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I'm going to have to leave it there and yield the floor to MP Gerretsen.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, sir, for being here today.

I'm going to follow up on the conversation you were having with Mr. O'Toole, in particular about how we're able to further diversify and normalize, or “familiarize” would be a better term, the operations of our military within our communities.

I apologize that I don't know the answer to this, but I'm curious to know for my own purpose. Could you tell me what the relationship is like in the U.K. between civilian and military personnel and what you think might contribute to that relationship of understanding, or if there are complexities around it, there not being a full understanding?

[Brig Nicholas Orr]

That's a very big question. Obviously, we reflect civil society. We recruit from the civil society. The diverse nature of our recruitment means that everybody has a slightly different story. Interestingly, we have a slight debate at the moment about where we should base our regionally recruited regiments.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Right.

[Brig Nicholas Orr]

Should they be in the regions they're recruited from, so that they can easily integrate with the families they've come from?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

That's what I'm getting at. I'll let you finish that thought.

[Brig Nicholas Orr]

Or actually, there are some people who are joining the military to get away from that community. Some people come from a background where they're exposed to extreme violence or from a drug environment and they feel that they want to extract themselves from that. They're saying, “Please, military, don't put me back into that region where I'll almost be obliged to get back into it.”

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

At least in Canada, as we see migration towards urban areas, there are fewer and fewer people living in rural areas.

Where in the U.K. are the bases where you would interact with military personnel located? Are they closer to urban centres, or are they further out into rural areas that are separated from the urban centres?

[Brig Nicholas Orr]

They're mainly away from the key urban centres.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I'm from the riding of Kingston. We're about an hour and 45 minutes from here. Mr. O'Toole referenced RMC, which is located in Kingston.

One of the things I've seen over the 40-plus years I've been living in the community is that as the community has grown, it really has grown around the base. As a result of that, we've been able to see our military personnel no longer living outside the city. They're right in the city now.

As a result of that, what we've seen is more personnel from within the military community become active in the civilian community. We're seeing military personnel who are coaches of soccer teams that their kids are on, and they're getting involved in other activities in the community. That has really created an environment that allows for a greater understanding of the military and it's familiarizing people with what military personnel actually do, rather than what they might only be exposed to on TV and in dramas they see there.

I would assume that it's going to be anecdotal at best, but I wonder if you could comment as to whether you've seen similar experiences in the U.K. in terms of where the military personnel are geographically located.

[Brig Nicholas Orr]

Unquestionably we've seen a very similar dynamic. We now have very few overseas bases. Our largest overseas base is about to be Cyprus, and that's only a few thousand service personnel. For the first time in a long time, the majority of the U.K. armed forces are U.K. based.

One of the dynamics we're looking at is the fluidity of postings, how frequently or not we need to move people around. Therefore, the integration of people within their communities and actually leaving them static in those areas and those locations for the majority of their careers is something that we're looking for.

Again, the provision of service housing doesn't need to be so much onus on the military, on the Ministry of Defence—

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I'm really glad you said that.

Just to confirm, you were saying that you're looking at how you can reduce the amount of moving around of the military community.

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Brigadier, thank you very much for coming today and for contributing to this very important conversation.

[Brig Nicholas Orr]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I want to remind members again of the NATO reception that's basically going to start right away, over at 330 Wellington, and then, of course, there's a vote. The bells will be at 5:15 p.m., and the vote at 5:45 p.m.

The meeting is adjourned.