Evidence of meeting #23 for National Defence in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was investigation.
A video is available from Parliament.
As an Individual
You're suggesting that foreign countries would have hacked into the office of the ombudsman?
Conservative
Bob Benzen Conservative Calgary Heritage, AB
No. I'm saying that these allegations were widely known...not this particular one, but there were allegations going around and this is something that would have potentially been known by other countries. You have your number one soldier here in this very awkward position. Did that not cross your mind?
You said we had come to an impasse and we couldn't go forward, but knowing that there was an impasse and you had this number one soldier.... This is not an ordinary soldier that we could just let this go by. You have to get this one solved. You have to get this investigated.
I'm worried about how you thought about that angle—being compromised in terms of national security—and why you let the impasse happen and did not push forward and say we have to get this solved.
As an Individual
Well, I think you'll have to suggest in your report what the alternative solution was. As I said, there was no complainant to interview; there were no witnesses to interview, and it would have been improper to confront the general at the time. I was not aware of the specifics of the allegation. I became aware of them this year. This was also the case for the allegations against Admiral McDonald and Vice-Admiral Edmundson.
Conservative
Bob Benzen Conservative Calgary Heritage, AB
I understand you weren't aware of them, but nonetheless there are these allegations out there.
How about looking at it from this angle? Here is your number one soldier, who is in charge of Operation Honour to get rid of sexual misconduct and harassment in the armed forces, and he's the one who has the accusation against him. Wasn't it, again, from a perception point of view in terms of advising the Prime Minister, something where you would say, “This just can't be out there. We have to get this resolved and we need to move beyond this”?
Where was the urgency in your thinking in terms of moving forward on this and solving these problems?
As an Individual
We did not close the file. We were open to proceeding further, had other information come in. I was hoping that other information might come in that might open up other avenues. I concede that it dropped off the radar in the spring of 2018 and it didn't have a sense of urgency at the time. There were other issues going on in the senior ranks of the military that got in the way of the line of sight on this issue. I did lose the line of sight on this issue. I concede that.
Conservative
Bob Benzen Conservative Calgary Heritage, AB
Did you ever write a report suggesting a way for the Prime Minister to appoint a new CDS to shorten the term of General Vance?
As an Individual
As I said, the performance review note that went in early July—there's no reason the Privy Council Office can't confirm the date it was sent, but my recollection is it would have been early July 2018—raised two issues with the Prime Minister. One was a recommendation of the performance rating for the 2017-18 year and some of the rationale for it. The bulk of the note was about the issue of when there should be a change of command. That's the note that went in early July. It didn't come back from the Prime Minister's Office until well into 2019.
Conservative
Bob Benzen Conservative Calgary Heritage, AB
When you talked to the defence minister in your meetings—you had the ones at the end of the fall, and I think you said you had one in May—
Conservative
Bob Benzen Conservative Calgary Heritage, AB
Was that part of your discussions? Did you discuss General Vance's tenure and maybe shortening it and getting a replacement in?
As an Individual
Yes. I was not going to make up my own recommendations on the performance rating, or on the term of office and when the change of command should take place, out of thin air, though I was going to the Minister of National Defence and the deputy minister of national defence as my primary sources of input on those.
There were other issues relevant to the performance rating, if I can just quickly run through them. This would have been for the 2017-18 performance cycle, so the things that were in our line of sight were that that was the first year of implementation of the new defence policy, which was released in June 2017, and the investments that went with that. There was a relaunching of the process for the acquisition of fighter jets, after a long pause. There was the deployment to Mali. There was the fact that Canada had taken up leadership and had been asked to take up leadership of the NATO training mission in Iraq. There was very good work done on closing the seam with Veterans Affairs; for the first time in many years, the CAF and the vets department were working together nicely. There had been the settlement on the apology to LGBTQ military and the $100-million settlement that had been reached that year, and frankly, we were giving him credit for Operation Honour and for work on mental health and workplace issues. There were a lot of positives going into that year.
I did raise with the minister some concerns about the turnover of senior staff, because at that point there had been a major shuffle of senior officers on March 2. By coincidence, Friday, March 2 was the date that the list of promotions and retirements came out. It was quite a shake-up. I think there's a CBC news article on that.
Then, on March 9, Admiral Norman was put up on criminal charges by the RCMP, causing another shuffle. Then there was another shuffle in the spring, so I essentially asked the minister, what's going on? That was a factor.
General Vance's ambition for the NATO job was relevant. I wanted the minister's take on whether that was realistic or not. Was he actually a contender for this, or was this far-fetched? The minister's view, if I remember it, was yes, he would be taken seriously as a candidate for the job.
Then there was the issue of keeping good relations with the U.S. military in 2018, with a very erratic commander-in-chief in the White House. General Vance had excellent relations with the U.S. military. These were all in the swirl of issues, and I concede that we lost sight of the misconduct issues. I do not recall his raising it with me, and I do not recall raising it with him.
Liberal
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Madam Chair, thank you very much.
Mr. Wernick, thanks very much for being with us today. I'd like to thank you for your past service. Prior to being elected, I had the opportunity to serve in PCO for a brief stint between 2003 and 2005, and I think we actually overlapped at that time.
I wanted to take you back to a fairly general question. I don't know if you can sketch this in a cogent way, but within the civil service broadly, how are sexual misconduct and harassment allegations handled and addressed? Are there common elements across various branches of the civil service with respect to these kinds of behaviours?
As an Individual
I will get out of my depth in providing the details, and I think you could get those from Ms. Sherman or from the Treasury Board, but there is a fairly formal and structured process dealing with harassment and discrimination and conduct issues. The obligations of organizations are very clear, and there are recourse processes. It also gets tied up with collective bargaining and the right of people to use grievances and their unions to represent them in these matters, and so on.
We also used in-depth annual surveys of the public service and a lot of questions about harassment and discrimination to try to identify hot spots and even zero in on managers who might be a problem and so on. I certainly don't think it was perfect or that we did as much as we could have, but we made progress on it.
#MeToo came along in the winter of 2017, and we had a serious examination about what was going on in the civilian public service. There were task teams. In fact, Ms. Sherman led a task team on that and reported to me. Ms. Thomas was very involved as a senior deputy and so on, so we did deal with that.
It gives me an opportunity to put on the record that one of the things we did as a result of #MeToo and that process of looking at ourselves is that we changed the process for Governor in Council performance pay. If you look at the website, you'll see that the policy was last updated in April 2018. That is, in fact, the main change we made: that performance pay is now revokable and recoverable in cases of gross mismanagement and gross misconduct. It wasn't before, and people could get away from situations by retiring or leaving. They can't do that anymore.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
That's helpful. Thank you very much.
Is it fair to say that the rights, preferences and interests of the complainant are central in every respect in terms of how these cases are being handled?
As an Individual
Yes. It's a huge issue, and there's no easy solution to this.
Again, I go back and completely agree with Mr. Lick. At the end of the day, you can create formal structures, processes and accountabilities; if you don't have trust in them, people won't use them. Rideau Hall is the best example of that.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Thank you, Mr. Wernick.
You've been at helm of change management in the civil service at the highest level in our country. I'm really grateful for the testimony you gave with respect to comparative experiences, including on the Wigston report and other jurisdictions. It's fair to assume that if it's a problem here, it's a problem elsewhere.
In your assessment of those initiatives, is there a country at the moment that has gotten this right and overcome a negative culture and made the changes you were alluding to in a more permanent sense? Are most countries still at the investigative reporting phase and grappling with the issue?
As an Individual
I don't know that I'm qualified to give an opinion on that. I have done some surfing and browsing over the last few weeks on the issue. What strikes me is that every country that has a military is grappling with how to align it with 21st century values about conduct, particularly about the role of women in the forces.
Nobody seems to be happy. You can go and look at the U.K., France, the United States, Germany, Israel or India, all of which are wrestling with this issue. At the end of the day, I think we will have to find a unique, made-in-Canada way forward.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Thank you for that.
You mentioned earlier in testimony that legislation itself is insufficient. What are a couple of other key elements and in what sequence do they have to be rolled out to be successful?
As an Individual
I'm not sure there's a right launch sequence. I'd have to think about that some more, but I think the culture change and engagement is a big part of it. Trust isn't built overnight. It can be lost overnight, but it's built over years by walking the talk. I think it goes into the training. It's what happens in the military schools. There are many aspects to moving a large complex organization, particularly one that is a command-and-control organization. It's very striking that the RCMP and the military share this affliction.
Liberal
Liberal
Bloc
Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Wernick, I found your entire testimony very intriguing. You stated that the complainant did not have faith in the process and that, because the ombudsman would not provide further details to the Privy Council Office, things became stuck. I understand that perspective and that story.
However, on the other hand, an investigation into similar types of allegations against the same general was conducted in 2015. Did it not occur to you at that time to reopen those files to see if something didn't seem right, given that it persisted over time? This is like a ball and chain, or a noise you can't get rid of.
It seems to me that it is a fairly telling clue.
As an Individual
Yes. What I can say is that I had no knowledge of the 2015 allegations. I accepted the fact that the general had gone through a selection process and had been appointed, and I did not reopen the 2015 files.
Bloc
Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC
Were those close to the defence minister aware of that past history?
