National Defence Committee on Nov. 29th, 2017

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

I think it's very important to note and clarify things here. For the defence policy, and from military advice, we needed two joint supply ships, and those are being built by Seaspan. Because we had lost that capability, we were mitigating some of that support through the work from Chile and Spain. They were supporting us through smart scheduling and making sure that, when our ships deployed, they were with other nations that could support them. We felt that, because of this gap, we needed an interim measure; hence, the reason the request was made for one interim ship, and that's what we have now.

We're very happy that Davie was able to fulfill those needs for us, but the interim capability gap is the one ship that Davie is completing now. The rest will be with two joint supply ships.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

You must be concerned about the progress of the joint supply ships with Seaspan. Construction of these ships is going to begin at the end of this year and, of course, that has now been pushed back. In fact, they're still working on some icebreakers and research vessels, I understand.

The cost is obviously going to go up as we keep pushing these supply ships back. How are you accounting for that, and what are you doing to get it back on stream and back on a timeline so that we get into a scenario where we can see ships we can still afford?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

We've been working from day one in terms of making the process more efficient. We've done some pretty good work initially to get some of the process piece down, making it more efficient. I'm confident that as we progress, with time things will get better. These are understandable growing pains because this is a very large project that we have started, but I'm confident that things will be more efficient as we move forward.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you for the answer.

Randall Garrison.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for being here today. Being from the west coast, I'm very glad to see additional funding for the search and rescue aircraft. It's very important to us.

I also thank Mr. Hoback for asking some questions about naval shipbuilding.

I think you know that the NDP remains very committed to the shipbuilding strategy, but also to seeing that strategy as a floor, not a ceiling. We know that there's other work needed for the navy that might be able to go to other shipyards.

Today we have the privilege of having some representatives of DND civilian employees from my riding here in the room with us. I'm very proud to have 1,060 Public Service Alliance members in my riding. That includes nearly 1,000 civilian employees of DND. I'm not so proud to say that 60% of them have Phoenix pay problems, and those pay problems are very serious.

We have with us today—and she's given me permission to say this—a civilian employee who is a single parent who has been underpaid for over a year and is now worried that when eventually she is paid, there will be some large lump sum payment that will have tax impacts and impacts on other benefits. Frankly, it will be almost impossible to figure out whether this person has been properly paid or not and, in the interim, she has to make hard choices for her family because she's being underpaid.

My question for you is, have you received reports from DND about the impacts these pay problems are having on the morale of people who are working there, on the time it takes away from the jobs they're supposed to be doing, on the impact to their families, and the impact on things such as employee retention? Have you received reports on those impacts? I know that you don't do Phoenix yourself, but I'm concerned about the impact on the employees and the functionality of the Canadian Forces.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Mr. Garrison, when I said we were looking after our people and we put this in our defence policy, it's a responsibility for all of us, as a minister and all the way down, in making sure of these issues.

I don't know where she is. Is she here?

Hi. First of all, I want to personally apologize for what you have to go through. It's completely unacceptable. This is one of the things where every department, including ours, is working extremely hard. Yes, I will speak to the deputy minister every single week about this, making sure that even for individual issues, how we are addressing them and where we have been working on certain measures....

Deputy, do you want to talk about some of the measures?

[Jody Thomas]

Thank you for the question.

Phoenix is an issue that we talk about daily, and almost hourly some days, within the Department of National Defence. We are 10% of the public service, and we are 10% of the problems. There are 16,000 employees affected by Phoenix right now. We treat every single one of them as critical.

If I get the details of your situation, I will personally look into it. I've made that offer at every town hall I've done. An employee can email me directly and tell me about their situation, and we'll do everything we can to move that file forward.

DND was one of the departments spoken to by the Auditor General for the most recent report. We were very honest about our situation. I'm on the deputy ministers steering committee that is looking at Phoenix solutions. I'm working very closely with PSPC and Treasury Board to find solutions throughout the governance. Our CFO has issued over $2 million in emergency salary advances, and we do everything we can to assist, but my plea to the employees within the Department of National Defence is to please tell me what's going on, because I can't fix what I don't know.

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

Thank you for those responses, but I think the reason the representatives are here today is that they're trying to tell you that a case-by-case approach will never fix this, and they're going to need some more general things to take place and some hiring of personnel to be on site to deal with payroll programs.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

On that note, one of the things in your question was regarding if we do get briefed. I'm just giving you the level of detail that we go into in making sure that each case is looked at, but more importantly, for the wider piece of it, no, this is something that we're taking very seriously. While we're taking the wider government approach to this, I also want to say that I've been working with Minister Qualtrough on our recommendations for what we can do to support some of those changes within, so that we can be part of the solution while the bigger problem is being looked at.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Minister, just over a year ago this committee voted unanimously to request you to authorize the military ombudsman to begin to revise the service records of those who were kicked out of the Canadian Forces for being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. Now that we've had the apology in the House of Commons, my question for you today is, do you intend to authorize the military ombudsman to revise those service records, or are there some other actions that you will be taking to right the wrongs that were committed with these dishonourable discharges?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

First of all, I think as you do that yesterday we were very proud while at the same time saddened that we even had to make an apology like that for what had happened. In terms of the process, this is about fixing those records. Absolutely, those are going to be done. We're encouraging people to come forward so the process is now going to begin. I got to meet with many people who actually told me their personal stories, so absolutely we're going to be working towards that. There are a few other things that we're going to be working on as well, but it's too early to talk about that just yet. We want to make sure that we can right this wrong in the best possible way.

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

I appreciate your response. I thank you for your concern on this, but we're still going to have to wait. People have waited decades for this to happen. When will that process be in place and how soon will this actually get started? The military ombudsman, for instance, said he has the staff and the expertise to actually start doing this, so if you have some other process in mind that's much slower than that, I guess my question would be, why?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

I want to make sure that this is actually done. I think there is absolutely no disagreement among any of us. We want to move as quickly as possible. We want to make sure that we actually honour that proper commitment, that it's done well. In addition to that, there might be even other issues that I even heard about yesterday. So I want to make sure that these other things are addressed.

I want to throw it to General Lamarre to answer with a little more detail as well.

[Lieutenant-General Charles Lamarre, Commander, Military Personnel Command, Department of National Defence]

Thank you, sir.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm the commander of military personnel command. It will be our responsibility to do full implementation including looking at all the records to make sure that the records of those people who were released from the Canadian Forces at that time are amended to reflect exactly the decision that was taken and the apology of the government. Of course, we'll be working very closely with the ombudsman to do that specifically.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you.

Darren Fisher.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, and your team for being here. I always appreciate having you before us.

Minister, Nova Scotia has a proud and successful shipbuilding heritage, and as you know, Irving Shipbuilding is located in both the ridings of Halifax and Dartmouth—Cole Harbour. As you also know, they are the prime contractor for the Canadian surface combatant program, both for project definition and for the implementation phases. We have tradespeople from all across Canada working in the Halifax regional municipality building ships and planting roots. We have the schools ramping up training. We have indigenous pilot programs. We have Women Unlimited. We have some really incredible things going on back home. Folks are eager to get the surface combatant project under way as soon as possible. I'm really pleased to see funding in the supplementary estimates for this project. I wonder if you could fill me in on what the government is doing to keep this very important project on track.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

First of all, we look forward to the final bids tomorrow. When it came into this portfolio, even before we started the defence policy review, we were looking at it in terms of how to create the national shipbuilding strategy even faster. It's one of the reasons that we looked at changing the process in terms of making sure we go to one system that is just competing the design. In terms of moving fast on this there is no person probably more eager than I am, and I'm probably more eager than any of the navy personnel—

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

Or me.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

—or you, yes—to get this done. This is so important. We also have to remember that this is not just the building of the ships, but the life cycle, the work that is going to be needed, and what is still going to be competed into the future. This has significant opportunities across Canada as well.

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

Something that I talk about quite often at the environment committee is greening government services. That's something we see every day. I firmly believe that we need to set an example up here at the top, in the federal government. The defence policy states that National Defence will take steps to reduce its carbon footprint in line with federal greenhouse gas reduction targets and protect nature.

Can you let me know what your department is doing or going to do to help green government services?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

First of all, in our defence policy we have $225 million of additional funding to invest in greening, for us to do our part in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. One of the things I want to be able to stress is that this is not just about the dollars. This is about doing it in a smart manner, taking the right places where we have the greater greenhouse gas emissions, putting the right money, and how, at the same time, we allow our industry to benefit as well. We're already looking at certain projects, and we will do our part.

More importantly, what I'm more excited about, is the innovation piece, how we can use this opportunity to look at what the Canadian Armed Forces are going to look like in the future. We know from battery systems and the new types of fuels, those are the types of things.... In addition to what we're doing in greening, we're going to be looking at the innovation piece, our innovation agenda, how we're going to be looking at using that piece to solve some of the problems of the future as well.

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

Minister, I'm so glad you said that. I really appreciate that thoughtful answer. I hope that's the way we're moving in the future, because you're right. It's not just a challenge; it's our biggest opportunity. Thank you.

Is there any more time left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Yes, you have about three minutes.