National Defence Committee on Feb. 9th, 2017

[Cmdre Marta B. Mulkins]

In general, in the full-time service, some of it is operational deployment, some of which is at sea. Some of it is the staff function that's required to operate the naval reserve as well. We also have naval reservists who are working throughout the naval staff and throughout the staffs of the broader Canadian Armed Forces.

There are different roles that reservists are playing in all sorts of places. It's not purely the operational role, though we are very proud and really do desire that we have as many folks as possible at sea at any given time. As we draw down proportionately from executing the Kingston-class mission, we are slowly increasing the proportion of reservists who are sailing in the other ship classes in the fleet, specifically the frigates.

The current target is to have reservists make up 5% of the companies of frigates that are deploying on named operations, and we are meeting that target right now. We expect that to change and to increase a little over time. As I have said, we draw down in the Kingston class specifically.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

The question was about the percentage of full-time reservists.

Is this percentage exceptional or normal? Has the percentage of Class B reservists always been as high?

[Cmdre Marta B. Mulkins]

It's approximately 20% right now, and I think that's been a fairly steady state for the last few years as well. It's some of the class B services and shorter-term class B services. It's not necessarily all long-term service, which is perhaps the distinction that I think you're seeking.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Blaney.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all so much for being here today. I always enjoy hearing the story of the reservists and really appreciate the work that you do for our country.

Major-General Derek Joyce, former deputy commander of military personnel command, said in June 2016 that targets for the reserve force were set at 28,500 for the 2018-2019 time frame.

From your perspective, are we on schedule?

[Cmdre Marta B. Mulkins]

Yes, and that is as directed by the chief of the defence staff. In the initiative from 2015 on strengthening the reserve, the directive is that the strength of the primary reserve is to grow to 28,500 by 2019. Part of the activities that we are working on within the naval reserve in the establishment review is a growth strategy to meet the naval reserves component of that directive. The naval reserve is directed to grow by a strength of 200 in that time frame.

At this juncture, with the growth strategy and the establishment review combined with the changes we have made to our recruitment strategies, we believe we will be able to meet that target.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Could you tell me a bit more about what you're doing specifically to increase your pool of candidates and some of the specific challenges you're facing? If we're going to be supportive, understanding those challenges is really important.

In my riding, I went to see the sea cadets recently, and they talked about one of the challenges. I know this isn't specific, but it really hit me. One of the challenges they have is that they can't get uniforms quickly enough. Really excited young people would come in, but they couldn't get uniforms. I know that sounds so simple, but all of these things are a pathway to getting them to be helping us in the long run.

I'm really curious about those challenges.

[Cmdre Marta B. Mulkins]

Thank you for the question. It is something that we have looked at extensively. I think the two specific challenges that we have observed in the past have been that we were unable to generate enough applicants into the reserve and that the file processing times in the past have discouraged folks. It took too long, and students would give up and find another part-time job.

Those have both been tackled at all levels. The Canadian Armed Forces recruiting group has worked very hard to decrease the processing times for files. I think we are definitely seeing the benefit of that, even this year.

The second thing speaks to visibility. The ability to generate enough files comes with being out in the community with very active recruiters and great messaging. It's participating at events and doing a lot of outreach. Within our own lanes, the naval reserve has boosted the recruiters' activities and their mandates to be out making sure that more young Canadians are aware of the opportunities in the reserve. It makes it easier for them then to think about applying.

At the end of the day, the biggest draw of all is having great jobs. It is a part-time job that offers not only extraordinary, challenging, rewarding employment, but great benefits as well. It will help students to pay for university, and it then continues to allow them to participate and develop professionally. It's a really great offering right now. I think we're improving that even more through our current reorientation.

To finally answer your question, it's all about getting the message out, and I think we're all working hard on that within the naval reserve recruiting group.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

We're certainly hearing that today.

Major-General Derek Joyce also said, “We have a relatively high attrition rate in the reserves. About 50% of our reservists leave within the first five years”.

Can you tell us why, from your perspective, and some of the ideas you have that would support changing that situation?

[Cmdre Marta B. Mulkins]

Going back to my previous comments, attrition in the reserve is a bit different. It typically will be higher than in the regular force, since in the regular force the typical member has signed an engagement. However, attrition is not necessarily a negative thing, since they are often transferring to a different component of the reserve or into the regular force. In fact, from our own data just in last year's picture, the attrition for us over the last 10 years, averaging at about 15%, seems very high, but 40% of that attrition consisted of transfers into other reserve components or the regular force, so that's not a net loss.

As I also mentioned, there are logical departure points. The reserve is always going to be the third priority in their lives, after their family and civilian career obligations. Obviously, we understand that. However, wherever we can, we improve the reservists' ability to continue to progress—and this is part of our retention strategy—and make them feel they're contributing meaningfully while still balancing those other demands. That's what we're seeking. That's where we're hoping to have some more actionable strategies emerging from our own internal working group in the coming months.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Does the naval reserve have targeted goals in an effort to better reflect Canada? What thoughts do you have on attracting more women, visible minorities, and indigenous people?

[Cmdre Marta B. Mulkins]

That's a great question. It's obviously one of the highest priorities of the Canadian Armed Forces as a whole to reflect Canadian society, and certainly we want Canadians to be able to see themselves in the naval reserve.

I am pleased to report that while the Canadian Armed Forces' target for the overall percentage of women is 25%, right now in the naval reserve the percentage of women is approximately 30%. We consistently have done very well there.

I don't have disaggregated data per se, but with regard to visible minorities and aboriginal youth, we probably have work to do there. That is part of our recruitment training and our recruitment strategy as well.

Our outreach strategy at the unit level is to make sure that we're visible to the different cultural groups through our recruiters. Actually, our recruiters are 40% women right now, and I think 13% are visible minorities. The recruiting teams also take aboriginal awareness training. There are lots of different efforts under way.

There's also a naval program called the raven program. It's a summer employment program that deliberately seeks to be a bridge to the aboriginal communities, for all intents and purposes. It increases awareness of the options for a military career. I think there were 40 participants in last year's program. Out of those, I think there were three successful recruits into the naval reserve. It is a navy-wide program.

There are lots of initiatives under way and lots of work to be done, but I think we're all pulling in the same direction right now.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you.

Mr. Spengemann, you have the floor.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, Commodore Mulkins, Captain Ross, and Chief Petty Officer Arsenault.

Thank you for being with us. Thank you for your service. Through you, we offer our thanks to the women and men who serve alongside you in the naval reserve. It's an immensely important organization that does very important work.

I want to zoom in on one quick point, because it just jumped off the page, and then I'll ask you some more questions in the field of human resources and recruitment.

The point that I saw is the overseas employment and some of the operations that are known to Canadians, including Operation Impact.

You mentioned that there are several naval reservists who are a part of that operation. Can you give us a sense of what kinds of functions naval reservists would conduct in that kind of an operation?

[Cmdre Marta B. Mulkins]

Yes, absolutely.

Unfortunately, I don't know exactly what those two—I believe it's two—who are participating in Operation Impact right now are doing. However, if they're not deployed-at-sea types of employment, it may be as intelligence officers working with the intelligence teams. We may have different support trades for those working in shore-based forward logistics components. They could also be employed in any range of staff positions ashore. Combined Task Force 150 has some naval reservists on staff there as well. It's a full range of employment.

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

On a more general level, it's quite likely—in fact, it's part of the system—that naval reservists would operate in land-based operations.

[Cmdre Marta B. Mulkins]

That's correct.

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

Do you have any idea of the proportion of land-based versus sea-based functions? That can probably vary greatly, depending on the mission in question.

[Cmdre Marta B. Mulkins]

Certainly the preponderance of our folks on operational deployment are at sea. However, it is a good question. It probably varies all the time, because reservists volunteer for opportunities as they come up from the Canadian Joint Operations Command. They put their hands up and volunteer for all sorts of things.

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

I wanted to explore with you—and my colleagues have already alluded to it—the reasons people would join the naval reserve. Most importantly, what could we as MPs potentially do to support recruitment initiatives?

What is your sense of the importance of the fact that you're navy as opposed to the fact that you're reservists? In other words, to what extent do you compete with the army reserves, for example? When people to come to you, do they come to you because it's an opportunity to serve at sea or because it's an opportunity to serve? Do you keep that kind of data in the intake process?

[Cmdre Marta B. Mulkins]

I'm not sure that we keep that data.

I would like to think the attraction of going to sea really underpins a lot of people's vision of where they might like to be employed. I don't actually have that sort of data, to be honest.

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

I'm not sure if I understood correctly. Do you provide specialized occupational training as the reserves, or is that something that the regular navy would provide?

[Cmdre Marta B. Mulkins]

Well, we have occupations that are essentially the same occupations as one sees in the regular force. The naval training system, writ large, is a vehicle by which occupational training is delivered. We will send our students to the naval training schools, the fleet schools.