National Defence Committee on Oct. 26th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

I'm calling this meeting to order.

Good morning. Welcome, everyone.

Welcome to meeting number 2 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Wednesday, October 14, 2020, the committee is meeting for a briefing on the work of Canada's ambassador for women, peace and security.

With the committee's concurrence, I will reserve 15 minutes at the end of the session for committee business.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of September 23, 2020. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. As you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entirety of the committee.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline a few rules to follow.

Members and witnesses may speak in the official language of their choice. Interpretation services are available for the meeting. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen of either “Floor”, “English” or “French”.

For the members participating in person, proceed as you usually would when the whole committee is meeting in person in a committee room. Keep in mind the directives from the Board of Internal Economy regarding masking and health protocols.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you are on the video conference, please click on the microphone icon to unmute yourself. For those in the room, your microphone will be controlled as normal by the proceedings and verification officer.

This is a reminder that all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair.

When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute.

With regard to a speaking list, the committee clerk and I will do our very best to maintain the order of speaking for all members, whether they are participating virtually or in person.

I would now like to welcome our witnesses.

Thank you very much for your time. I'm very happy to have you with us today.

I welcome, from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, Jacqueline O'Neill, ambassador for women, peace and security; and from the Department of National Defence, Brigadier-General Lise Bourgon, defence champion, women, peace and security.

You can go ahead.

I invite you to make your presentations.

[Jacqueline O'Neill, Ambassador for Women, Peace and Security, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development]

Thank you. Merci, Madam Chair and members of the committee for focusing on this issue.

I care deeply about this topic, and perhaps as a reflection of that, I submitted a somewhat lengthy written statement, but do not worry, ne vous inquiétez pas, I will keep my opening remarks here to well under the allotted time so you can hear directly from Brigadier-General Bourgon and we can proceed quickly to questions and discussion.

I want to highlight only a few things.

It is especially significant that we meet today. This week marks the 20th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, the foundation of the women, peace and security agenda.

We have made a great deal of progress. There are now 10 related Security Council resolutions. Eighty-five countries have national action plans, and most multilateral organizations have dedicated policies or plans, including NATO, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, or OSCE, and the African Union.

However, progress on implementation has been inconsistent. For example, the representation of UN military women peacekeepers is only about 6%, and some within that remarkable group still experience unacceptable working conditions.

Women around the world—for example, in Afghanistan—are still fighting for direct representation in peace talks. What's more, much of the progress we have achieved is in peril. There are increasing attacks against defenders of the human rights of women and LGBTQ2S persons, and the pandemic and particularly authoritarian responses to COVID-19 represent existential threats for many women peacebuilders and local organizations working at the community level.

Canada has demonstrated sustained commitment, spanning multiple governments and leaders, toward achieving gender equality and advancing women, peace and security.

We have an engaged Parliament and civil society. We are mid-way through our second national action plan, which now counts eight departments and the RCMP as implementing partners.

There is always much Canada can improve. The Brigadier General and I are happy to talk about the way we have progressed and about areas for improvement.

Just over a year ago, I was appointed ambassador for a three-year term.

I've been fortunate to work directly with many DND and CAF personnel in a range of ways. They are noted in my written submission. They include contributing to Canadian leadership initiatives, including the Elsie initiative for women in peace operations; the women, peace and security chief of defence staffs network, and more; strengthening implementation of Canada's own national action plan; supporting and engaging directly with CAF troops and operations on the ground; and connecting the wide variety of specialists working across our government on the gendered dimensions of issues such as child soldiers, cybersecurity, veterans' health, and more.

To be sure, there is both excellent work under way and always a need to listen, to reflect humbly and to improve.

I'll end by noting that it is particularly helpful to those of us working inside government when parliamentarians engage in sustaining the focus on women, peace and security. It is helpful when you ask that data be disaggregated by gender as well as by other intersecting identities, including race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability and more. It's helpful when you review and interrogate the annual progress report submitted to Parliament. It's helpful when you invite testimony from civil society representatives and academics. It is particularly helpful when you ask every person who appears before committee about the results of the gender-based analysis-plus assessment they undertook related to the issue being discussed. Especially on issues related to women and gender, I'll emphasize that it's meaningful to have not only women asking or being asked.

I'm extremely proud to work with colleagues across DND, the CAF and Global Affairs and beyond. Canada truly is setting a global standard on this work. I thank you again for the opportunity to discuss it.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

All right. Thank you very much, Madam O'Neill.

Now we go to General Bourgon.

[Brigadier-General Lise Bourgon, Defence Champion, Women, Peace and Security, Department of National Defence]

Madam Chair, committee members, thank you for the opportunity to appear alongside Ms. Jacqueline O'Neill, Canadian ambassador for women, peace and security. Thank you for your interest in UNSCR 1325 and the WPS agenda.

Over 33 years have passed since I began my career as an officer cadet at the Royal Military College Saint-Jean. Since then, as an officer and as a helicopter pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force, I have witnessed many changes that have facilitated the integration of women into the Canadian Armed Forces. The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and the women, peace and security agenda have been key drivers of progress for the Government of Canada and the Canadian Armed Forces.

In my current role as defence champion for WPS, my interest is focused first and foremost on making the Canadian Armed Forces stronger and more effective in military operations. My role as champion is wide: to provide leadership and advice, to support the Canadian Armed Forces' efforts in institutionalizing diversity as an operational capability and to promote diversity and inclusion as core institutional values.

From a CAF and DND perspective, the WPS agenda is all-encompassing, complex and interrelated in everything we do. It includes diversity and inclusion, recruitment and retention, training and professional military education, the integration of a gender perspective in domestic and expeditionary operations, research and co-operation among various departments and organizations, allies, civil society and NGOs.

As mandated by the government, the foundation of our institutional and operational progress is through the use of a gender-based analysis-plus, or GBA+, in everything the CAF does, such as policies, procurement and operations.

We have made significant progress, but there is still some way to go, particularly with respect to the recruitment and retention of women in the Canadian Forces.

With 16.1% of women in the CAF today, it will be a challenge to reach our employment equity goal of 25.1% by 2026, especially as we continue to compete against traditional cultural identity and gender roles in Canadian society.

To this effect, our chief of the defence staff, General Jonathan Vance, launched Operation Generation last year in an effort to recruit women and minority groups to the Canadian Armed Forces. This effort has already had noticeable impacts on the number of women and minority groups recruited.

At the same time, Military Personnel Command is working on many retention initiatives, from pay and benefits to terms of service to geographical stability and support to our families, to name only a few.

As a reflection of Canadian society and values, we understand the strength and benefits that diversity and inclusion bring, both being essential to mission success, institutionally and on operations.

In closing, thank you again for the invitation to be here today. I look forward to this afternoon's discussion and will be happy to answer any questions regarding the importance of the women, peace and security agenda as it relates to the Canadian Armed Forces operations.

Merci.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Thank you very much, Madame O'Neill and General Bourgon.

I believe it is Madame Gallant who has the first question.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Ms. O'Neill, in your position's mandate, you're allowed to provide advice to the Minister of National Defence.

Were you consulted or did you provide any advice to the minister on the deployment of the Canadian Armed Forces personnel who went to the long-term care facilities in Ontario and Quebec during the COVID pandemic?

[Jacqueline O'Neill]

No, I did not.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Okay.

The health care profession in Canada is disproportionately staffed with female workers. While this trend does not continue in the Canadian Armed Forces, there are certain professions in the military where female participation is significant.

Are you aware whether women in the Canadian Armed Forces were disproportionately exposed to COVID-19 in the deployment to the long-term care facilities in Ontario and Quebec?

[Jacqueline O'Neill]

I don't have that data, sorry. I can't speak to it.

General Bourgon is raising her hand, so perhaps she can answer.

[BGen Lise Bourgon]

As you mentioned, 50% of the women in the military right now are in six occupations, very support-intense, and also in medical occupations, as you pointed out.

I don't have the actual numbers, but I have the percentages. When we're looking at deployed on operation, normally on expeditionary forces, statistically we're about 12% women who are deployed. Normally in domestic operations, such as hurricane relief in Canada, the statistics are about 9% women. However, during Operation Laser, which was the support to Quebec and Ontario, we had about 15% women. Because of the nature of the role we were asked to do on the ground, which was again mostly medical, there was a slightly higher proportion of women on Operation Laser.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Okay, so there were only 15% women.

In the last Parliament, this committee extensively studied the topic of women in the Canadian Armed Forces as well as Operation Honour. As we heard before committee, and it's been widely reported, Operation Honour has made little progress towards its goal.

Ms. O'Neill, what is your opinion of the reasons behind the lack of progress in Operation Honour?

[Jacqueline O'Neill]

I'm not best placed to speak to the specifics of what exactly is working with respect to Operation Honour and where the challenges still lie. What I will say is that clearly, to me, the strongest signal has come from senior leadership.

I've worked with armed forces and militaries around the world that have been trying to address this issue, usually not with the same level of coherence or stated determination, and the signals and the message about the lack of tolerance and the desire for a coordinated approach have been quite significant from General Vance, Minister Sajjan and others.

While I won't be able to speak to the specifics of the implementation of the policy, and again, what specifically is working best and what is not, there are some key elements in place through Operation Honour that I think are contributing to significant change over time.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Would the general please answer that question?

[BGen Lise Bourgon]

I would reflect what Ms. O'Neill just said. There's a lot of attention on Operation Honour. We are working extremely hard at trying to have a solid policy, changing the culture in the CAF, supporting the victims. There's a lot of progress that has been made.

What we're saying, in my opinion, is actually a good sign, because it means that people are feeling comfortable coming forward and saying what they're living. Although it might look negative, in a way it's a positive, because people are coming forward. That is more than half the battle. We are working extremely hard, and every small step forward is a huge victory. We are getting there.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Canada's national action plan on women, peace and security calls for the full implementation of Justice Deschamps' 10 recommendations on sexual assault in the military.

We had Justice Deschamps herself appear before the committee last year. She stated that there is a disconnect between what she proposed and exactly what is being implemented, specifically in regard to the organizations that handle the reporting of assaults to be outside the military and free from the chain of command.

Do the Canadian Armed Forces need a fully independent centre of accountability for sexual assault and harassment to help make progress towards improving the environment for women in our military? That's for the ambassador, please.

[Jacqueline O'Neill]

An enormous number of components go into this. We've heard General Vance talk about this on several occasions. There isn't one single step that will solve the problem.

Whether or not that is implemented or required is a decision that needs to be made, but I will say that one of the most impressive things I've seen is that there has been an effort on a range of fronts. As we talked about in this committee, there has been an effort on changing culture, on impacting not just the highest level of leadership but also on reaching mid-level commanders, for example, and talking about the chain of command authority. It's not just through formal processes, which is one extremely important way of addressing this and dealing with accountability; it's also talking about the responsibility of everyone in the forces.

I'll end before I turn to General Bourgon by saying that having Operation Honour and being able to talk as openly as we do in this committee and elsewhere about its flaws or ways it isn't delivering at the speed we all want it is something that is inherently important for Canada to be able to do because, as I mentioned, we work with militaries around the world that do not recognize the issue and adamantly deny that it's a problem. Being able to say that we have a series of issues that we continue to struggle with implementing to the most effective extent is very important.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

My next question is for the general.

Women in the Canadian Armed Forces who are victims of sexual assault and harassment are told to report these crimes, while the male offenders are rarely punished, and in many cases they are allowed to freely continue serving right alongside their victims as if nothing happened. Meanwhile, the female accusers are denied advancement, transferred from posts or are discharged from the military altogether. It's no wonder that female recruitment has barely budged despite the efforts to increase the numbers.

How can we boost female recruitment when the hostile work environment is clearly reinforced by the chain of command?

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline the opportunity for the witness to answer. We're up over eight minutes now, so I'll have to pass the baton for questions to Mr. Spengemann.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Ambassador O'Neill and Brigadier-General Bourgon, thank you both for being with us.

Thank you for your service in your important roles and thank you for your testimony today.

Ambassador O'Neill, you mentioned in the beginning that we are days away from the anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325. It's the 20-year anniversary of an incredibly significant instrument that's changed the landscape in many ways.

Could you expand a bit on your introductory remarks and tell Canadians why this resolution is important? Also, could you speak about your personal objectives, your aspirations and your vision for what's ahead under this resolution and everything that's connected to it?

[Jacqueline O'Neill]

Thanks so much for the question.

I know that resolution 1325 is well known to the committee, but as you mentioned, not all Canadians know it that well. It's the first time that the highest security-focused body in the world—the UN Security Council—has said that women are not only victims of conflict but also powerful agents of change. It says that they have to be included in all formal processes to prevent and end violent conflict, and then rebuild afterward. I often share that it's the Security Council resolution that is most translated into other languages, more than any other one, which I think speaks to its relevance. I've seen, over 20 years, that women in communities around the world use it as a tool to hold their own governments accountable, saying, “Even though you've said you will do this, we're not seeing action.”

You mentioned some milestones and the things that are going well. Right now, as I mentioned, we have 85 countries that have national action plans. Some of them admittedly are very weak, but they are all a tool around which people living with war around the world have been able to organize and to say that this is something that the international community has said is their right.

We're seeing an increasing number of policies. We're also seeing a lot of data and research emerge. We first saw the resolution emerge 20 years ago, the last time Canada was on the Security Council. We didn't even know the state of the numbers, and I think you would all have been terrified by the methodology used to document it. Researchers were looking at signed peace agreements and the number of women in photos to figure out that in fact the proportion of women who were mediators was two per cent. Four per cent of people who signed peace agreements were women, yet they were dealing with issues and agreements as they relate to security that affect the entire population. We've seen a lot of progress in that way.

You've asked about next steps and our vision. We're still looking to close some of the big gaps in this space. There's a strong ambition that was set out by the agreement, and there are still significant areas where we don't see it consistently applied. A lot of that relates to the work of women in communities and being recognized, getting funding, getting access to decision-making, being protected. We' re increasingly looking to close some of those gaps.

My hope is that over time, we'll see a complete shift in burden from having to start many events and meetings, as we often do now, by justifying the value of inclusion and talking about the contributions women make, to people having to justify and defend exclusion. We'll get to a much more nuanced consideration of gender and we'll get a lot more integration into education and training, as Brigadier-General Bourgon mentioned earlier, so that we will have more and more people coming up through the system who are familiarized with these ideas much earlier on.

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

Thank you so much.

Ambassador O'Neill, let me take you to a slightly more specific question.

Last Friday, I had a chance to join a webinar by the Challenges Forum, an organization that's focused on peacekeeping practices, and the title was “Improving Peacekeeping Effectiveness by Increasing Diversity of Mission Composition”. It was very specifically focused on the UN work of Canadians in the field. We've had some key examples, such as Carolyn McAskie, who led the Burundi mission in 2004, ONUB, and was involved in ceasefire negotiations. There's also Deborah Lyons, who is a former ambassador for Canada and the special representative of the Secretary-General at UNAMA.

Why is it so important at the level of peace operations and UN-integrated and complex missions to have this diversity and to have a much greater number of women not only in the missions but at the leadership level?

[Jacqueline O'Neill]

Thanks. That's a great question.

You mentioned security forces as being a key part of the mission as well. When this question comes up about why it's important, I think we've seen data from the private sector, from industry and from elsewhere to show that diversity leads to better decision-making, and there's no difference as it relates to peace and security. We also see that people in communities need to increase their trust of institutions, and they're more likely to do that when they see that the institutions are reflective of the broader community.

With regard to women and security forces in particular, why do we have this focus on women peacekeepers? It's for a range of reasons, the primary one being that they can do the job. We need the most talented people. Women are half the population, so why would we limit ourselves from choosing them? There's no evidence that women are any less capable of doing that.

There's evidence and increasing data about women in security forces increasing the operational effectiveness of those forces by having a broader perspective on the community, being able to gather broader situational awareness and making sure populations have access to women as well as men.

I just want to end by saying that perhaps you can discern from my tone in response here that I am both committed to being thoughtful in answering that question and a bit reflective of the frustration that many women in the forces in particular have shared with me about the challenge or the continuous burden of having to justify their existence.

Many have asked, "When was the last time we started an event where the theme was 'Why do we need men in security forces?' or 'What particular added value does the different population bring?'"

I'm just recognizing that it can be easy to be reductive and say that women will be more likely to work with women and children in a community, to have sexual violence reported to them and to get access to different groups. The bottom line is that they can do the job and they increase the capabilities in additional ranges that are recognized.

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

Thank you so much.

I think that's my time, Madam Chair. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Thank you, Mr. Spengemann.

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, go ahead.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Ms. O'Neill and Brigadier General Bourgon, thank you for joining us today. We are very happy to have you.

My question is for both of you, but Ms. Bourgon will probably be in a better position to answer it.

In Canada's action plan for women, peace and security, the government is committing to recruit more women into the Armed Forces. In February 2020, the proportion of women in the Canadian Armed Forces was 15.9%, and the objective is 25% for 2026.

The pandemic has affected a number of sectors in Canada and in Quebec. Has the pandemic made any difference in that percentage? Has recruitment continued? Will momentum be lost in terms of achieving the 25% objective by 2026 because of the pandemic?