Evidence of meeting #40 for National Defence in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was money.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Why is there such a big spread between the figures in the estimate?
Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence
Are you referring to the payroll system?
Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence
Actually, that's money coming back to us from Public Services of about $2 million. For the military payroll system, we...is that the one you're referring to?
Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence
Mr. Chair, which item are we on? Is it the transfer for the payroll system?
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Yes.
“Guardian,” as the system will be called, will upgrade the implementation of pay, compensations and benefits, and assist with other functions such as recruiting and appraisal...The project is estimated to cost between $100 million to $249 million.
Conservative
Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence
The military has its own pay system that is separate from that of the public service. In 2014, the Treasury Board approved that we go ahead with a project to modernize military pay. In 2015, they asked us to move military pay into Phoenix. We looked at that and last June, we assessed that was probably not going to be the best idea we've ever had, so we cancelled that move. The transfer of money back to us is money that had gone to Public Services to help define that project. Since we've cancelled it, we're going to keep the payroll system in the military. We're upgrading the system now and that will keep us in good shape for the next five years. We're not going to move it over to Phoenix.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
How is that going to impact our veterans who are moving from National Defence to Veterans Affairs? Some of them have been waiting over a year for the change in money, for their pensions to start, and for monies that were owed to them from DND. If we have yet another separate pay system—
Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence
It's always been separate and it will continue to be separate pay, just for the military. However, that's different from the pension system.
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
We need to be mindful as well that we're looking at a much wider program to make it as seamless as possible. We know that there are challenges right now and we're working on trying to make a seamless approach. The eventual goal of this is to have a system in place. Regardless of what's in the back or what needs to happen, we want to make sure that the member who is going to be releasing and going into Veterans Affairs has a seamless approach. We need to ensure that the actual pension cheques are done before they get released, but we also have to account for all the benefits that they potentially would be getting in Veterans Affairs as well. It's a much wider topic than just pay and we want to make sure that the entire system is seamless in this case.
Admiral, do you want to add anything?
Vice-Admiral Ron Lloyd Acting Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, Department of National Defence
Some of these delays have actually been as a result of lack of capacity to move those pension cheques through the system. The chief's direction has insisted that we direct the resources in order to enable that to take place. We're directing those resources to enable that to happen so that those pension cheques can be delivered in a timely fashion.
As the minister just indicated, one of the issues is that you can start doing the analysis to make sure there are no adjustments in pay so that you can come up with that definitive allowance going forward. The chief has even directed us to take a look at maybe how you can take an individual, maybe 30 days before they retire, and freeze where they are, which allows the individuals to go and do the analysis to come up with what the determination is so that, hopefully, the day you walk out as a military member and become a veteran, you'd be entitled to that cheque right away.
Those are some of the steps we're taking.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
That seems to contradict what the technicians, the ones at the help desk, are telling me with respect to soldiers who are contacting them because they can't get access to their pay. If they'd been on sick leave, maternity leave, or if they've been deployed, there seems to be some sort of disconnect when they come back. The technicians with whom I spoke referred to the Phoenix pay system and all the problems affiliated with that. These technicians, who are contracted, receive absolutely no training. They just have to go by what they know in general by having worked on this type of software with payroll systems in general. Something isn't jelling right here.
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
On that note, I think one thing is that we need to ensure the entire system...in terms of how we transition our folks out and whether our troops get paid. I can give you horror stories from when I was serving in terms of how long people even had to wait as reservists from a class A, B, C system. I can go into a laundry list of that. I can also say at the same time, even when I was serving, that progress has been made. We're not there yet. I think successively, as different people in my portfolio have come and tried to improve it, we're going to be trying to take it to a brand new level.
I don't want to look at just one particular issue; I want to look at an issue in the totality. That's what's going to allow us to really move forward for this. If we get that right, it's going to really allow us to make sure we have the proper services for our men and women.
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Thank you to the minister and officials for being here today.
I want to try to get to three things.
The last time you were here, Mr. Minister, on supplementary estimates, I asked you about recruitment. I see welcome money toward advertising. One of the things that we lost, on the Prairies in particular and perhaps elsewhere in Canada, is targeted recruiting that used to go to first nations reserves and some of the rural and more remote communities. Those are communities that struggle with employment challenges, so it's a good opportunity for people. It also reinforces the diversity of our forces.
I'm glad to see advertising money, but when you talk about targeted recruitment, are we going to be able to go back to those targeted efforts to get people from first nations, rural, and remote communities into the Canadian Armed Forces?
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
I hate to bring my own experience into this, but I do have a lot of experience with recruiting. I'm going to give you even greater complexity to this. It's not just about attraction. It's about how we make sure we allow for.... When we have a message that we want to send about the Canadian Armed Forces, how does that have an equal interpretation so that all Canadians can make an informed decision? How do we make sure that the first nations communities and some of the rural areas can also hear about this and what opportunities it holds? We are going to be moving out with making sure.... One of the things is that, if you want to hit some of those communities, send one person in uniform so they can see that they too can be like that. Then let's not stop there. We can't just go recruit them; we have to then make sure that the training system is going to take gender issues and other issues into account as well. And then the unit itself has the ability to take that into account.
Again, it goes into a much wider aspect. I'm happy to say that some very innovative thought has been put into recruitment by the department. I look forward to launching on this. That's why there's money on the attraction. This is not about advertising. This is an operational necessity for us for recruiting.
VAdm Ron Lloyd
If I could just add, Minister, there's nothing more frustrating than when you've actually attracted a young Canadian who wants to come and serve as a reservist or in the regular force, and then they get there and it takes them eight months to a year to get in. That is just frustrating as all get-out.
I'm happy to say that the army and the navy have now introduced an expedited enrolment process for their reservists. As a matter of fact, Tuesday, I'll be going to Donnacona, Montreal, and we'll be bringing in our first reservist who will, after 21 days from the time she went to the recruiting centre, be enrolled as a naval logistician here next week. We're really happy about that.
The other thing we've done under the chief's direction is we've gone to our recruiting group and said, you need to come back and tell us how a young Canadian can walk into a recruiting centre, and in 30 days, if they want to join, they can join.
Those are some of the efforts. Attraction is one piece, but then actually having them enrolled is probably more important, I would suggest.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Thank you, Admiral Lloyd, for answering my second question before I even got to ask it. I do appreciate that.
You have money in the supplemental budget for Operation Reassurance, and sometimes I have a little trouble straightening out in my mind the relationship between forward presence and Reassurance.
My question is about the mission in Latvia. Is this the money that's allowing the planning and procedures to go ahead? If so, how are we doing on that? When will we be in the field in Latvia?
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
As to the mission, I'll get the deputy minister to talk in detail about exactly where the money is going. I'll just give an outline of where we're at.
The planning for the Latvia mission is going extremely well, in fact we have the most multinational, diverse battle group, which is good, because that's the exact message we want to be able to send to Russia.
The planning is going extremely well. We have a plan in place to have an initial operational capability by June. You do have troops also in Poland right now, as well, who are doing some great training.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
As a committee we were in Washington, D.C. One of the things we heard from various different sources was they felt that Russia was sure to test the Trump administration and to test NATO sometime soon.
I think we're in the unique position where all the parties are supportive of this kind of mission that sends a very clear message about all the NATO allies being important. I'm very happy to hear that we're making good progress on that.
On peacekeeping, the promise was made that we would be eventually getting into that. When I go through the estimates from last year and I go through the estimates for next year, and I go through the supplementals, I'm having trouble finding funding for preparations for peacekeeping.
There's a lot of work we have to do, just like for Latvia, in advance of a peacekeeping mission. I wonder where that is, and how we're doing on preparing for peacekeeping.
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
For the peace operations, we can't just look at it as going on an operation. We're looking at what Canada's contribution is to stability in those areas, working with the United Nations and with other coalition partners.
We were hoping to move a little bit faster, but unfortunately, as I've always said, we want to make sure we get the decision right. We have to look at some other factors as well. Here's the greater complexity. Regardless of the place we choose, we have the United Nations that's there. The first thing we want to do is be able to demonstrate how a whole-of-government comprehensive approach works. I'm happy to say that other nations are also coming on board.
So it's putting that into the context of the United Nations, plus we have to look at some of the difficulties the United Nations also brings to operations: troop [Inaudible—Editor], sexual violence, all of those things—
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
My question is really, have we funded this now so that we're making those preparations, no matter where we're going?
