National Defence Committee on Sept. 29th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Your time's up, Leona.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I'd like to give the floor over to Mr. Bezan.

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

It's great seeing you again, General Whitecross and Admiral Bennett. Thank you for your service, and for the service you're providing right now to the members of the Canadian Armed Forces. This is an important role you're playing. Although Operation Honour is the operation of the CDS and the leadership, you're the ones implementing it and making sure the rules are being followed.

I want to touch on one comment that was already made about the disciplinary actions that have been taken. I think some of us would be interested in knowing what types of disciplinary actions have been taken against those who have perpetrated sexual misconduct and sexual assaults. Perhaps you could give us some examples. Also, what actions have been taken against those who were in the chain of command, who really failed the victim or turned a blind eye, as you put it, to this insidious behaviour?

[LGen Christine Whitecross]

Mr. Chair, again, I'm going to ask Jennifer to speak on that. We actually have some information we can provide to you, and perhaps afterwards we'll be able to provide you a paper copy of some updates.

[RAdm Jennifer Bennett]

As I mentioned earlier, there have been a series of summary trials and courts martial as well. The courts martial results are publicly available. The provost marshal and the JAG both have annual reports in which they report on investigations and the findings regarding charges and our judicial system. One commanding officer has been relieved of command. One RSM has been relieved, and 15 members were relieved from supervisory or instructional positions in the period between April and September. In addition to the charges and the convictions we've had through the summary trial and courts martial, there are a number of courts martial pending for sex-related offences.

In terms of the fines and the punishments for those, they have ranged all the way from imprisonment and release from the Canadian Armed Forces to fines, in accordance with the scale of punishment. Not all of those charges were necessarily for sexual assault; some were for conduct related to sexually related behaviour and inappropriate behaviour.

In terms of administrative actions, those range from recorded warnings and actions on file to career actions. There is a progressive process, and in those cases we have taken action to relieve people from supervisory roles, as I said, to lay charges when there has been an offence, or to make records on people's files that will impact their career progression or potential succession planning, and in some cases a member has been released from the Canadian Armed Forces.

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

When we started down this path, with Operation Honour in particular, I was concerned about upper management being able to understand what they needed to do and trying to implement it, especially with the strong directive that came from the CDS. My concern was with what was going to happen to middle management. What about the petty officers, warrant officers, sergeant majors, and master corporals? Were they getting it? Do you think the disciplinary actions that have been taken are sending the message that the sexual culture that did exist within some segments of the Canadian Armed Forces is being quashed?

[LGen Christine Whitecross]

I can tell you that the middle managers, certainly the chief warrant officers, are getting the message down to the people, to the other ranks. Chief Warrant Officer West and a number of the other level one chief warrant officers of mine, and others who come out of the army, speak at the training required by all senior NCOs in order to be able to get promoted, and they speak to them on a monthly basis. They go over to Saint-Jean where the courses are being held, and they speak very openly on this particular subject.

When it started a little over a year ago, when they would go there and speak, there were a lot of comments—incredulous, non-belief kinds of comments. Today, that's completely turned around. People are listening and providing anecdotes of what has happened. They're asking for advice on what they should do if they are put into a particular situation. So the conversation itself has turned around. It's taken a number of months, I'll grant you that, but I think that's actually a good anecdotal measurement of where we are.

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

General Whitecross, you travelled to a number of allies to look at how they dealt with sexual misconduct before we started up the sexual conduct response centre. Do you feel you have the right mix of tools to provide the support we need to victims as well as the capacity to investigate any allegations that come forward?

Admiral Bennett, do you feel you have what you need to do the job that's been tasked to your office?

[LGen Christine Whitecross]

Our visits to a couple of our allied nations made it clear that our first priority must be the victims, which is what we brought back with us. They also said that we should take our time to do it right. I would venture to say, as a member mentioned a little while ago about the SHARP program, that perhaps it was the right thing at the time, but it didn't have other things around it. It wasn't bred into a sustainable, enduring, focus on this inappropriate behaviour. Their comment was to make sure that what we do today will be there tomorrow and will exist for years to come. We're taking that very much in hand.

As for the comment about helping the victims, that is our number one priority, and the importance of creating a centre where they can go was made clear to us. Now the centre itself, the sexual misconduct response centre, is not at its final operating capability. Based on the calls it's getting, it still needs to do a lot of analysis and research. Should it increase its hours? Should it increase the number of counsellors? Should it actually be satellite units, maybe in other regions across the country? We're still doing that type of work. In the past, the service they're providing now was never available within the Government of Canada, certainly not in the Armed Forces. It has actually been very helpful. We now have people who, besides getting served, are also benefiting from investigations that I would humbly submit would not have happened had we not had the centre. We still have a lot of work to do, but I think it was a good start.

[RAdm Jennifer Bennett]

In response to your question to me, I have tremendous support from within the Armed Forces, but at the same time, one of the things that we've been praised for is that we've asked for help and gone to external subject matter experts. We've gone to other militaries and other institutions, because we are not the only ones dealing with the issue. We are drawing upon resources and considering the use of expertise, whether it's commercial training programs or proven resources. We're also establishing an external advisory council to be able to bring that knowledge to us, and we are constantly looking for people who have the knowledge that we lack.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you for that.

I'm going to give the floor to Mr. Rioux.

[Jean Rioux, Liberal, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ladies, I commend your work, because you have a difficult mission, as you must change the culture. I'm happy to hear that the Saint-Jean riding is part of the solution.

I would like to talk about the report published on February 1, 2016, following the recommendations of former Justice Deschamps. The report states that “The Canadian armed forces is making good progress in executing the Operation HONOUR mission, notwithstanding the daunting nature of institutional culture change [...]”.

Could you give me some examples of this “daunting nature”, and tell me why that is so?

[LGen Christine Whitecross]

Negative aspects that would result in cultural change? Sir, I can only submit that changing the culture of this behaviour can only breed positive aspects and positive results.

If people—men or women—can't abide by what we determine to be honesty, respect, and dignity for all persons, then I would submit that they probably don't belong in uniform representing our country. I offer that as a comment.

There are a number of challenges that we have discussed with Justice Deschamps. Culture change is just one of them. Because that's such a large challenge, getting people to report is a very closely aligned second issue to the challenge that we're bringing. We're trying to create the environment where people trust, which is a very large word right now, so that all of the people who surround them, military, civilian—predominantly military men and women in their chain of command—are going to do the right thing should they decide to come forward.

Our other challenge is momentum. We have momentum now. We need to maintain that momentum as we go forth, in the years to come.

[Jean Rioux, Liberal, Saint-Jean, QC]

When we hear that the change is daunting, could it be because people have trouble defining what constitutes sexual misconduct?

[LGen Christine Whitecross]

I'm sorry, sir. I didn't catch the first part of that question.

[Jean Rioux, Liberal, Saint-Jean, QC]

We spoke about the daunting nature of the change. We said that people have difficulty understanding the nature of sexual misconduct. Is the problem that the definition is not clear to them?

[LGen Christine Whitecross]

That's a good question, sir. In fact, one of the recommendations from Justice Deschamps was to clean up our definitions, make them easier to understand, and give them all residence in one policy, or at least unify them so that people aren't searching all over the place for different policies and different definitions.

As a military member, my definition of sexual harassment, for example, is different than that of my public service colleagues. My definition of sexual harassment is harassment that occurs regardless of where I am, on the sports field, in the grocery store, at work, or on deployment, whereas sexual harassment at the workplace for my public service colleagues will be something that happened in the workplace. We need to ensure that the nuance we create for our own military members is resonant, and well-understood by every single man and woman in uniform.

The fact that we said understanding is an important part of our action plan.... People understand what sexual misconduct means. They understand the difference between right and wrong, but what can we do about it? What are the best practices around the country and externally? What facilities, or as Jen Bennett mentioned, what other organizations or rape crisis centres, for example, can help us determine the best way forward in order to meet this insidious need? We need to take all of the good things and put them within our action plan so we're not starting from time zero. We need to acquire a huge understanding about how to eradicate this behaviour, not just eradicate the behaviour itself.

[RAdm Jennifer Bennett]

Could I add something? It wasn't just a matter of defining the types of behaviour, but the scope and the range. This was to ensure that people understood that this spans not just offences in the Criminal Code but also comments in the workplace, or as one of the members mentioned, inappropriate jokes and off-handed comments. One of our challenges from the outset has been to describe the scope and the range of the behaviours and actions we were describing.

There's also a change in the vocabulary of Canadian society, so we are running into challenges with words like “bystander”. While we do bystander intervention training, the word “bystander” implies standing by, so an interesting conversation is happening in larger society about how we empower people to take action.

The Government of Canada is now moving to a strategy for violence in the workplace that will include the span of activities we're addressing under Operation Honour. The language that we're using is evolving as well in society, and we're following that very closely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you for the response.

Mr. Miller, you have the floor.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Admiral Bennett and General Whitecross, thank you very much for being here, and thank you for your service to Canada.

Congratulations on your new appointment, General. I think that's fantastic.

In reading your report, it seems that the number of reported incidents is rising, but I believe that probably a fair percentage of that is due to people finally realizing that the military is serious about cleaning this up, and they're reporting more. Is there any kind of a breakdown that you can give on that? Are there actually more incidents, or is it more of the older stuff?

[LGen Christine Whitecross]

The reality is we don't have previous stats from years ago. The Statistics Canada survey will give us a baseline from here on in and that will be available in November.

Intuitively, we knew that as we created the environment for people to come forward, we would have an increase in reporting, and our allies mentioned that as well. Be prepared, they said, to get more reports in the first number of years as you are going down this road, because people will test the system. They will want to make sure that what you're saying you're actually going to do.

We're in that phase right now of people coming forward, and I would venture to say not everyone has come forward. There are still a lot of challenges in encouraging people to report. One of the benefits of having the centre is they don't have to start a report. They don't have to have an investigation. They can just seek any of the help that they need in order to get over what had happened, or at least in order to face what has happened to them.

In some cases, thank goodness, they get that confidence level and that trust and they actually start a report and they actually start the investigation, and we can address the issue of the perpetrators or the alleged offenders, which I think is really good. But the reality is we don't have the stats for the past.

A number of people who have come forward are also coming forward on historical issues, things that have happened in the past. We've gotten this right from the beginning when we went out on our town halls; people wanting to tell us what happened to them five, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 years ago, because they haven't gotten over it. We're also trying to facilitate the help that they need.

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

The fact that they haven't gotten over it shows that obviously people are scarred for life on that. But the fact that they feel confident coming forth I think reinforces my own thoughts that no doubt the military is trying to clean this up and I do give you credit for that.

I noticed in your report here that there seems to be a higher number of cases, I believe it was 27% or 28%, of cadets or new recruits. If the culture is changing, or we hope it's changing, are you concerned about that number or is there a specific reason why, in the new recruits, that number seems to be so high? Could you comment on that?

[LGen Christine Whitecross]

I would also go back to the fact that we didn't have stats before, but there is an increase. I have a couple of comments there.

Cadets and officer cadets are two completely different things. I just want to make sure that we're aligned here. The cadet program is youth programs, 18 and under, and officer cadets are new officers coming into the military college system. And we are creating the environment, I believe, that.... We start right at the recruiting centres now. We talk about it and we say that this behaviour won't be put up with.

At the CFLRS, the Canadian Forces leadership and recruit school in Saint-Jean, the instructors have brand new training that they've gone through, including the instructors at the Canadian military colleges and the leadership folks there. We talk about it and we ensure that for all of the new recruits they know that this is behaviour they don't have to put up with. I believe that has a lot to do with the fact that people are coming forward.

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

We like to think, and I hope we can trust, that the mood or the thought has changed in society about misconduct, about sexual harassment. Do you feel that you're seeing that in your new cadets, new recruits, in general?