Evidence of meeting #98 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 work.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
Full command of this remains under our control, under the Canadian Armed Forces. The Canadian task force commander also has the command. The command relationship is properly set up by the chief of the defence staff, but full command is always retained under us.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Minister, can you explain how the Mali mission, under the UN and also under the G5 Sahel counterterrorism operations, is in Canada's national interest?
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
As we have seen now, whether it's Mali or any conflict around the world, conflicts have significantly increased. We all need to do our part. We as a government have consistently said that we need to take a greater role in a multilateral environment. We have also seen how, even here in Canada, in our own island of stability, we can have significant issues that can pop up. We need to do our part as like-minded—
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Minister, I have only a few seconds left.
How long are we deploying our troops—
Liberal
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
One year? You announced, actually, in the Toronto Star that it would be a three-year mission—back in 2016.
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
Yes, but if you look at what I said, the overall context of the peacekeeping portion is a three-year commitment with—
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
I wish you wouldn't use that term “peacekeeping” when we're supporting counterterrorism operations with the G5 Sahel. It's not at all peacekeeping.
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
Well, whether you want to call it.... We can go into vocabulary topics if you'd like, but what I'm saying is that the overall peacekeeping mission is a three-year commitment. With the smart pledging, one of the smart pledges that we have committed to is for a one-year helicopter deployment to Mali, but the peacekeeping commitment, or peace operations commitment, that we have offered to the UN is a three-year commitment that has the Elsie initiative, smart pledging as well, and capacity-building training built into it.
Liberal
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the Minister and the officials for being here this morning.
As the committee is doing a study on peacekeeping, I'm going to turn back more directly to the estimates and some of the things the minister mentioned in his opening statement.
You pointed out in “Strong, Secure, Engaged” that care for Canadian Armed Forces personnel would be the main focus of what's going on. I'm hoping when you say that, of course.... There is no specific mention of reserves or DND civilian employees, so I'm taking that in its broadest context.
The minister might expect that I will ask again about the Phoenix pay system, and my question here is pretty simple. Do you have an estimate in your department for when the problems with Phoenix for DND civilian employees will be resolved? It's been two years now under the system, and we continue to have new cases. Some of the outstanding cases, after they were raised here, have been dealt with, but the one-off isn't really solving systemic problems. Do you have an estimate of when people can expect to be paid fairly and not have to worry about what's coming in their pay cheque at the end of the month?
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
I'll have the deputy give the details of it, but you're right. This is a problem that's gone on for far too long. This is unacceptable and people deserve to be paid on time for the work that they're doing.
We are committed to making sure that this is done. And this is not strictly from a National Defence perspective for our civilians, this is for the wider government. We did take steps very early on to make sure, when we discovered some of the problems, that the military would not be put onto the Phoenix system, protecting a large number of our people there. Regrettably, our civilian workforce has been affected, but we are working diligently in trying to resolve this as quickly as possible.
Deputy.
Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence
Thank you, Minister. Thank you, Mr. Garrison, for the question. I appreciate your concern for the civilian employees of the department.
I don't have an estimate for when problems will be resolved. Within our department, we have tripled our number of compensation staff from 50 to almost 150 across the country to provide one-on-one support to our employees. We are working with PSPC to move Defence to a new process, which we think will show an immediate, over six months, result and a 30% reduction in the number of backlogged cases and problematic cases. We're a big department, so setting us up for this new process is a significant amount of work and it takes a number of people. We are, as aggressively as possible, doing everything we can across the system to improve the situation for Defence employees and then, as you're aware and the minister is aware, any one-on-one case we receive we'll handle as a discrete one-off to try to resolve it.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Given that we have across the hall some other considerations going on with the Phoenix pay system, I want to move to some other personnel questions.
In “Strong, Secure, Engaged”, you set some ambitious goals for increasing the number of regular members and reservists by improving both recruitment and retention. Can you tell us how we're doing in terms of those goals? I think it was 70,500 regular and 27,000 reservists. Are we making significant progress towards reaching those goals?
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
Not only are the recruit numbers, I believe, up, but the focus I'm putting on it is not just the numbers. We want to make sure that we have the right system in place as we recruit. It's one thing to recruit, and I've said this a number of times before. “Strong, Secure, Engaged” is about making sure that people who are recruited are going through a new training system that looks at making sure that the environment that is created around them is one that is inclusive for all and respectful of all, with a new way of doing everything from physical training, to how their mental wellness is going to be achieved, and including their eating. More importantly, the next is the actual training system that kicks in.
The numbers are going well. As we recruit the numbers, if we don't look at improving those systems, and great progress has been made on this.... We also want to make sure that retention is also going to be there.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
We know that certainly locally there were some significant delays in training programs that were causing people to reconsider their future in the Canadian Forces because they had to wait too long for that training.
I do want to congratulate the minister on diversity initiatives. There are some very positive things happening in the Canadian Armed Forces and on the bases. The positive space initiative, and the appointment of a diversity champion, I think, are very positive initiatives.
However, in December 2016 this committee asked you to look at revising service records for those who were kicked out of the military for being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, and you promised a progress report. Is today the day we get that progress report, because people have waited a very long time to have these service records revised?
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
The work is going on. We've committed to this, and in fact I was having a conversation yesterday on this to making sure that things are moving well.
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
This is about expunging the criminal records, but also making sure the annotations on the service records are done.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
I'm not talking about the criminal records. I'm talking about changing from some form of dishonourable discharge to an honourable discharge. Is that process taking place?
Liberal
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Some records have been revised? People have been receiving that?
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
I don't have the exact numbers on that, but, yes, they have been.
