National Defence Committee on May 8th, 2024

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

Mr. Chair, in a situation of this nature, a leader has nothing to be proud of. In my opinion, communication is the key to avoiding grievances. According to the committee, most grievances stem from a lack of communication. I think that it's vital to communicate better with peers, subordinates and superiors.

[MGen Erick Simoneau]

Mr. Chair, I want to add that people don't file a grievance against someone else. They file it for themselves, because they have been affected by a situation.

We're currently digitizing the entire system. When someone accesses the system from their telephone, the message goes directly to the commanding officer of the unit and the centre of expertise referred to by the chief of the defence staff.

That way, the member is given direct priority. It's no longer acceptable for someone to disregard a grievance. It's a very toxic culture. It's no longer acceptable.

We must also ensure that the right levels in the chain of command are—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, I have to leave it there, Madam Normandin.

You have two and a half minutes, Madam Mathyssen.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

To follow the last round of questions, I want to take this one forward, as this may be your last appearance. I certainly do appreciate your service. I'm very grateful.

I want to talk about the new piece of legislation that was borne out of the Arbour report, Bill C-66. One major change that I'm hoping will make a change is not a new position but a change for the provost marshal, which will supposedly be taken out of the chain of command. However, so much within the chain of command, as discussed today, is part of the problem of cover-ups, punishment and not dealing with the situation.

Can you give us your opinion on how that specific change within Bill C-66 will make a difference and tell us your potential concerns? Then we can we can add them to a further study later.

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

I think it's more a question of perception of independence as opposed to actual independence. Regardless, it's going to be same the process that's used to appoint the JAG, who is a GIC appointee.

Rob, you may have more to add on that.

[BGen Rob Holman]

The chief is correct. What Bill C-66 attempts to address for the provost marshal general is about perception. Even under the current scheme, once the provost marshal is appointed by the chief of the defence staff, they can still only be removed for cause upon the recommendation of an independent inquiry committee following a public inquiry. The basics of that scheme will remain in place under Bill C-66, but with the additional perceptual piece that comes with the Governor in Council being the appointing authority rather than the chief of the defence staff. There would be a complete removal of the role of the chain of command in the appointment of the CFPM.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have 20 seconds left.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you all for appearing today.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Kelly, you have five minutes.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Thank you.

Thank you for your service to Canada and to Canadians. I appreciate the testimony you've given to this committee.

On the point raised by Madam Lambropoulos around the notion we have heard at this committee that many consider there to be more career risk to doing the right thing than there is to suppressing information, we had testimony from Patrick White, who said:

I struggled to find the name of a single senior member of the forces who has been held accountable for anything other than their own personal conduct. In other words, has anyone been relieved of command for the 2,000 sexual assaults that occurred in the last year or the year before that? We're still dealing with these problems eight years after Operation Honour.

Where are the leadership and accountability for the pervasiveness of sexual misconduct?

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

I have seen mid-level commanders and higher-level commanders given remedial measures and administrative action for mishandling cases and not taking appropriate action. That perception, while it may be prevalent, is changing as tangible actions, when required, are being taken.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

You said in response to an earlier question that it is unacceptable for reprisals to take place when people file grievances, yet we've heard from other witnesses that reprisals are subtle and are difficult to document or track, like one member just happens to not get the promotion that another member gets. Members are left to wonder what motivates any of a number of micro.... Promotion is a big thing, but there is a whole series of much smaller decisions that, in total, look like reprisals.

How will you address that? It's fair to say it's unacceptable. How would you recommend your successor ensure that reprisals do not happen?

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

The Canadian Armed Forces is very much a human organization. What the member is talking about is human behaviour, whether it's reprisals, personality conflict or the like. This is a wider problem. This is a wider challenge than just reprisals. It's how we deal with each other. It's how an individual leads.

You mentioned promotions. We are striving to ensure that promotion boards have wide representation so that it's not the voice of just one person that carries the day. As we change the way we train leaders, we can have much more of an emotional intelligence approach, have much more of a sense of not having a cookie-cutter solution for leading subordinates and have an understanding of power dynamics, which is now being incorporated into our leadership training. These are a myriad of human condition issues that we are addressing so that we can be a better organization.

There is not just one silver bullet for this; there's not just one solution. We have to continue to advance this on multiple fronts.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

The committee also heard that complaining to the Information Commissioner and the Privacy Commissioner is not an exception to getting information; it's part of the process. You will not get your information unless you make a complaint. In other words, information is not proactively given, and that delay is a built-in tactic to suppress information.

Does this testimony indicate a properly functioning access to information system? What has been done to address this?

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

There are a number of aspects to that, which I was actually surprised to find out about in our own system. For example, with retirement—not that I'm interested in this at this point—it used to be the case that to get your medical records, you had to put in an ATIP request. In 2018, that was changed.

It's about the requirement or the desire to have your own personnel records. We are changing that as well, as we speak. That will be something that we discuss—

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

We have only a moment left.

The change was made in 2018, but is the problem solved? Do people get their information?

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

That was for medical records, and yes, that has been changed.

On the issue with personnel records—and some are quite thick—that is being changed. Actually, I mentioned the briefing that the DM and I are going to have tomorrow, and that's one of the aspects being discussed.

These are some of the proactive types of changes we need to make.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Kelly.

For final questions, we have Mr. Collins.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

General, congratulations on a very distinguished career. I have a sneaking suspicion that whatever you do next will involve giving back to society as well. I appreciate your service and all that you've done for us.

Let me start with some of the comments you opened with. You talked about the institution being on an upswing. You also talked about the incredible pace of change that the Canadian Armed Forces has witnessed. It's 10 years of change that we probably would have seen over the last 50 years, which I think is very telling of what kinds of changes have occurred in a very short period of time.

It's human nature, though, that there are oftentimes small pockets of people who resist change. That's just how things are. We're dealing with a big institution. It's not a small office environment where we're changing the rules and there are a couple of people we need to get on board. We're talking about thousands of people in an institution that's been around for a long time.

When you're in the process of trying to change the culture of the institution in an accelerated time frame and you have resistance, what kind of advice do you give to whoever fills your shoes next on how to deal with the small group of people who just can't see the path forward?

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

This issue has popped up over the course of my tenure, with the pockets of resistance that you talked about. If those pockets cannot be brought along, cannot be educated—and often it's a case of education—and refuse to change for the betterment of the institution, they have to move along. That has happened in a number of cases. We talk about accountability, and I've seen some leaders removed because of that, because of their own attitudes, which are not aligned with the values we are espousing.

We talk about culture too. We need to be careful about change, because it's not complete. There are certain aspects to our culture that we absolutely have to retain—the willingness to put yourself in harm's way to protect others, the willingness to leave your family behind and go to the other side of the world to do good for this country and the willingness to follow orders and do what is asked of you. Those fundamentals we absolutely have to retain as part of who we are and as part of operational effectiveness, to deliver for Canada. However, there are other aspects, the harmful aspects. We have to continually identify and address those.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

You also talked about the grievance process, and you said that it has to be timely and responsive. I'm very familiar, as I think some other people around the table are, with how unions operate. Often when we see a spike in the number of grievances and those grievances are prolonged through the process that they go through—whatever process they fall under—it can impact morale. We've heard testimony at committee that people have complained about the length of time that this takes.

How do you address morale when we don't live up to the standards and timelines that we advertise when it comes to these situations?

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

The efforts of the pilot project that General Simoneau has led over the last number of months have shed some light on some potential going forward. As we stand up this centre of expertise and digitize the process, it will allow us to illuminate areas of concern, whether in policy or unit. As General Simoneau briefed me yesterday, a number of specific organizations had a higher proportion of grievances, which means that we need to intervene and take action.

Having that type of queuing, if you will—think of it as your intelligence feed to do some targeted engagements—is going to help us identify the pockets of resistance that we talked about before, not just individuals and pockets of individuals, but policies that aren't necessarily meeting the intent. Unfortunately, with some policies our hands are tied. I get quite frustrated when a grievance comes across my desk and I find a person is aggrieved, but there's nothing I can do about it because the policy is held at Treasury Board, for example. In fact, the ombudsman's report that's coming out is going to address just that. That's why I'm so keen to see it.

That type of granular analytics is going to be quite useful for the institution.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Collins.

Unfortunately, I have to suspend, General Eyre. On behalf of the committee, I want to thank you for your willingness to appear before the committee. You have always been a thoughtful, intelligent representative of the forces, and I particularly appreciate your thoughtfulness.

You spoke earlier about the relationship between the military and civilian oversight. This committee represents in part civilian oversight, and there are countries that do not have civilian oversight in their military and it's easily lost. I appreciate your recognition that there's an important role this committee plays in that whole aspect of civilian oversight.

I also recognize that it is our joint responsibility to communicate the importance of what you and the people in your command do on a daily basis for our nation. It is not well appreciated, and I think we all need to pick up our game. I adopt Mr. Bezan's comments about the level of secrecy, confidentiality or security. It's hard to communicate if you only see part of the story, and I think that's something we need to address.

General Eyre, over the years that you've been appearing before this committee, you've shown a willingness to stand up for your organization and for the values that underpin our nation. I want to thank you for that, and if I may, on behalf of the committee—the committee has no budget at all—I'll present this to you. It is the Speaker's whisky.

[Voices]

Hear, hear!

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Colleagues, we'll suspend for a minute or two and continue on with our second hour.