National Defence Committee on Sept. 29th, 2016

[LGen Christine Whitecross]

I would say yes, sir. At the recruit school just in the last month, a report came up of a recruit who felt uncomfortable about behaviour by one of the staff. It was dealt with immediately and that recruit is still with us. I am sure, anecdotally, though we don't have the stats, that some recruits would have left because of that kind of behaviour, but because they are seeing that the leadership at the leadership school in Saint-Jean are doing things about it at the moment, immediately, they're remaining and they're getting the support that they need. I believe that has a lot to do with the education.

I would just preface that to say we're not where we need to be. We still have a lot of work to do, but I am comforted that we're making gains.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Keep up the good work on it and I trust that you're headed in the right direction.

[LGen Christine Whitecross]

Thank you, sir.

[RAdm Jennifer Bennett]

Could I just add to your first question, sir? Over the year that the SMRC has been open, we've had 29 investigations opened as a result of people calling the centre and being transferred that we wouldn't have had before. I think we're having those indications as well about confidence in somebody reaching out first to a counsellor and then going to military police.

I would add to the discussion in your later questions that, like society, we still struggle. One of the members mentioned earlier people coming in with a different set of values and norms, but it's important that we establish right from the beginning what is acceptable and what isn't. We are dealing with young people who are finding their way and coming in with different values.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thanks, Admiral.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Mr. Fisher, the floor is yours.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As other members have said, it's an honour to have you here today, so thank you very much for coming.

I'd like to talk about post-complaint reintegration of victims. Can you outline some of the success of reintegration? Is there ostracization? Is there a feeling of inclusion still there, or would you suggest that there are some problems reintegrating?

[LGen Christine Whitecross]

Sorry, sir, are you speaking of the alleged offender or the victim?

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

The victim's reintegration post-complaint.

[LGen Christine Whitecross]

The reality is—and Madame Deschamps characterized it—when men and women who have been victimized, they are ostracized when they go forward, for a whole bunch of the wrong reasons in my humble opinion. We're trying to turn that around. It is not that we're stating that we need to ostracize the alleged offender, but we need to rally around the victim.

General Vance made that very clear. I know my colleagues—the commanders of the army, air force, and navy—are also fundamentally online with that need to ensure that we give support emotionally, intellectually, and mentally, that the chain of command trusts everything, and that we rally around the victim as a priority. That's what we're trying to do, but it's difficult for them to feel like they can go back into their work environment. It all depends on how we've treated the alleged offender, knowing that due diligence is required as well for them. We need to ensure that we turn that around, which has not necessarily been the case in the past, so we are working on that.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Do you have any examples of success, or do you have any feeling that it's working?

[RAdm Jennifer Bennett]

We are integrating our victim support, not just to encourage the reporting but through the process. One example of that is that we do have a single point of contact for the military police assigned to the SMRC so that victims don't have to repeat their story to numerous people, depending on when they call. That is being extended through the military justice system as well so that the director of military prosecutions is now giving priority to sexual-related offences so that they are tried much more quickly. The same prosecutor is assigned, again helping that victim to understand the process and have consistency of the treatment there.

Our support services were increasing the awareness and the education of our support workers so that they understand the impact of trauma. We'll extend that back into the unit level in the communities, much as we've done with mental health initiatives so that we better understand what that person is going through and how we can support them.

Our greatest challenge still, though, is in very small units, or on board a ship, or on an operation where it is a very small and close community. We are looking in our judicial system about community impact statements beyond victim impact statements, about sharing with the community the impact of that. We are borrowing from some of our other initiatives—from mental health in particular—looking at how we reintegrate and assist members who've been affected by trauma of this nature.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I certainly appreciate the effort. Perhaps in the future we'll be able to see whether there's a success or a win in this.

General, you spoke about the sexual offence response teams launched on Tuesday. Then you stated that every report of a sexual offence, new or historical, will be investigated independent of Operation Honour, and then you mentioned the military judicial processes.

Is there a separation between the military and judicial processes and Operation Honour? Could you maybe outline what that looks like, that separation? Are they running parallel? Are they running in collaboration? Is there collaboration between those different processes?

[LGen Christine Whitecross]

The judicial system and the military police system are outside the chain of command, and for very good reasons, as you can understand. They have very much taken on the recommendations from Madam Deschamps and the Operation Honour requirements and objectives. They're looking within their organizations to see how they can support and ensure that they're working in concert with us. SORT, the sexual offence response team, is one of the results of that collaboration. Here the military police, part of the national investigative service, have additional training on sexual offences. They are far better trained in investigations and in the treatment of victims and the like, so they're the only ones who will be dealing with this. They are highly trained, whereas a national investigative service investigator may be doing a number of other things.

This will give us timely investigations, which is one of the issues Madam Deschamps talked about. It will also give us the ability to create almost subject matter experts in this area. That's required in order to help out the victims.

It's the same with the director of military prosecutions through the military justice system. As Admiral Bennett said, they're looking at ways to help victims through the process: only having to speak to one person, only having to tell the story once. In fact the director of military prosecutions must agree with the investigator that charges can or cannot be laid. In the past, they both had an ability to yea or nay the military police, the investigator, or the director of military prosecutions. Now there has to be one point.

These are the sorts of things we've brought on. A number of other initiatives are just being started. There's the court martial review, and a number of other ones are happening. We're very much working in collaboration.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

You're out of time. I think we'll have time at the end, so we can circle back.

Mr. Garrison, you have three minutes.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

I left off talking about families on base. I was very glad to hear of the greater co-operation between the military police and civilian authorities. I saw how, in one particularly egregious historical case, that co-operation did not take place, which has to this day left the victim without the justice they're seeking. I think that's another very positive thing that you're working on. The extra training for military police in sexual assaults is very important. Congratulations on that. I'm not sure what we do about some of those historic injustices. They have to be dealt with in another forum.

As I said, I understand your emphasis on serving members. To that end, I have three quick questions.

The first question is about civilian employees. In my riding I have just as many civilian employees of DND as I do serving members. They're often in mixed workplaces. How have you been dealing with the question of those mixed workplaces?

Second, with regard to reservists—I have just as many reservists as I have the other categories—the Auditor General has expressed some concerns about training for reservists. I wonder if that also applies to the training in sexual misconduct.

My third and last question has to do with peacekeeping deployment. There has certainly been a reduction in peacekeeping training within the Canadian military. I wonder whether you're confident that those about to be deployed on new missions are getting the training they need in terms of sexual misconduct with civilians populations abroad.

[LGen Christine Whitecross]

Sir, if I may, I'll take the last one first, because it's actually a fairly easy question. Sorry: I don't mean to call it easy. It's a very difficult question.

Anyone who goes off on deployments, peacekeeping or NATO or the like, gets additional training in culture, depending on where they're going. They also get the women, peace, and security UNSCR 1325 training on gender issues going into the theatre of operation. So yes, absolutely there is training, and it will get better as we progress.

In terms of civilians and reservists, we are working hand in hand with Mr. Kin Choi, the ADM for HR for civilians, in ensuring that our policies are aligned. I know that Admiral Bennett, on our behalf, and a member of his staff are working very much not just on harassment issues but also on the whole well-being of members in the department—military and civilian, reservists, contractors, all peoples. We're dealing with not just what I would say are the harder social issues, as we're discussing today, but right through to pressure in the workplace, stress relief, resilience training, and all that kind of stuff so that we can have a more comprehensive approach to all members of the defence team. I know that Admiral Bennett is very much seized with the work we're doing there.

For reservists it's very much along the same lines. We don't characterize reservists as anybody different from a military member. Whether you are on reserve duty, on full call-out duty, or a regular force member, the expectations, as a member of the military, are the same.

[RAdm Jennifer Bennett]

I can add some specifics on training. With the pre-deployment training, there is a greater effort now on the women, peace, and security gender considerations on operations. We have assigned gender advisers to all of the operational commanders, and they will deploy when we go on operations. We're not alone in that. It is both a NATO and a UN initiative, and at the forefront of nations in those two alliances.

With reserve training, and with the engagement in Operation Honour, it is for all Canadian Armed Forces members. While there may be differences in the delivery to Canadian rangers, those in the cadet organization and administration training service, or the primary reserve, basically, all Canadian Armed Forces members are engaged in this training. It is being developed for particular use at the local level and at the unit level, so that resources are readily available. It's not just for full-time members; it's also for part-time members.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you.

We're done for our scheduled questioning. I know there's still other questions out there. I'd like to go around the group again. I'm going to try to limit these to five minutes, so we can make sure everyone gets an equitable amount of time. I'm going to start off with Ms. Alleslev. You have the floor for five minutes.

[Leona Alleslev, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much.

I'm wondering if you could shed some light on how this program is being incorporated for the women in the military program, in particular with officers.

Sometimes culture change also comes through leadership and the ability to attract and retain, and have women in leadership positions. What kind of progress are we making with the percentage of women officers in senior leadership positions, particularly in operational roles as MOCs?

[LGen Christine Whitecross]

General Vance has made it clear that we're to grow by 1% per year for the next 10 years to make the 25% quota given to us by the Canadian Human Rights Commission. That, quite honestly, is where we need to be. We're at 15% right now, and it's about the same for officers as it is for NCMs.

Some occupations have a far higher percentages than others, as you can appreciate. The more non-traditional occupations have smaller numbers versus the traditional occupations. We need to get rid of that lexicon “non-traditional versus traditional”, and we need to start speaking about military occupations as they're meant to be, which is gender neutral or parity, whichever words you choose.

There is a lot of work happening on that. We have our first Canadian Armed Forces diversity strategy. It's just been developed this year to help take us out to more of an enduring process. We're working hard with the recruiting centres to ensure that we're getting more women in, for all the good reasons. We're encouraging men and women of visible minorities, and aboriginals to self-identify so that we can ensure we have the right numbers of people within the Canadian Armed Forces that meet our diversity numbers.

There's a lot of comprehensive work being done on training, education, and recruiting, but more so on retention. Women tend to get out at particular moments of their lives, for very good reasons, whether it has to do with family or geographical stability and the like.

We need to create the environment where they feel as though they can remain in the Canadian Armed Forces and we will meet their personal needs.

Admiral Bennett and I are examples of this. Public opinion research shows that women in Canadian society don't understand what it means to be in the military. A small number of them seem to resonate with military life. The reasons for that are they don't believe you can have a family, they don't believe you can have success, and they don't believe you can go into any occupation. We need to get the word out.

We're working on a far more comprehensive marketing strategy that didn't exist in the past.

[Leona Alleslev, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Specifically, with women in leadership and senior officer positions, are you also measuring that?

[LGen Christine Whitecross]

Absolutely. This is the first time in the history of the Canadian Armed Forces that we have seven female generals and flag officers.

[Leona Alleslev, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

That's out of how many?

[LGen Christine Whitecross]

About 100. Note taken. I get it. She gets it.