National Defence Committee on Sept. 26th, 2024

[Gen Jennie Carignan]

Certainly, the communication is ongoing. We're working closely with IRCC to combine and complement our efforts in order to speed up the recruitment process.

Of course, we aren't the only ones involved in this process. These collaborative efforts are crucial and still ongoing.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Rumour has it that the people deployed to Latvia may have to stay a bit longer than the six months originally planned.

I would like you to comment on this information, which we heard through the grapevine.

Is the level of recruitment or interest in subsequent rotations high enough to deploy the right number of troops each time for the Latvian operation?

[Gen Jennie Carignan]

This is a critical issue.

We're currently undergoing rapid expansion in Latvia. As our presence grows, we'll need to look at various ways to support this mission over the long term. We expect to be in Eastern Europe for a long time. This option will be considered.

We'll also need to look at other options, such as the capacity to increase troop numbers or a more permanent presence.

As we establish and expand our presence in Latvia, we'll be looking at various options to ensure that this mission is sustainable over the long term.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Have you identified any priorities for the equipment planned for deployment in Latvia?

Do these priorities relate more to certain types of operations, such as air operations or ground operations? What are these priorities?

[Gen Jennie Carignan]

As this committee knows, we want more ammunition on the ground, not only for ourselves, but also for the Ukrainian forces. This issue is critical.

In terms of forces deployed on the ground, some of our priorities include air defence and artillery capabilities. These capabilities are currently being implemented. We absolutely need them on the ground.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

My next question concerns the budget cuts that the armed forces faced a year ago. The new funding related to the defence policy update doesn't necessarily make up for these cuts.

What's actually happening on the ground? For example, we're hearing that units have had to limit exercises.

Are any issues arising on the ground as a direct and tangible result of the budget cuts made a year ago?

[Gen Jennie Carignan]

Overall, for the Canadian Forces, we're working on a long‑term plan with the Department of Finance and Treasury Board to ensure that we manage our finances properly. At the same time, we're working on the plan for new investments. We need to strike a balance between the two.

I'll give the floor to the vice chief of the defence staff for further clarification.

[Lieutenant-General Stephen Kelsey, Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, Canadian Armed Forces, Department of National Defence]

Thank you for the question.

First, I just want to emphasize that we're spending every penny wisely. Of course, the armed forces are facing pressure related to training. However, it's all part of balancing force generation, recruit preparation and the training system.

The issue concerns operational readiness, personnel and the recruitment system. A person will undergo basic training and more advanced training afterwards.

The commander of the army wants much more money for training. However, it's a capacity issue. Of course, training is lacking in certain parts of the army. As the chief of the defence staff said, the priority is obviously recruitment and the ongoing process of preparing personnel. It's a continuum. The beginning matters, but so does the rest. We need to invest in non‑commissioned officers, leaders and young officers to ensure that the process continues.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Madame Normandin.

Ms. Mathyssen, you have six minutes.

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

Well, I, too, want to welcome you.

General, it is quite wonderful to see you here. Your predecessor was happy to come and speak about some difficult issues, so I appreciate that you're here with us today at the beginning of your role. That extends to the lieutenant-general as well.

A lot of what we'll be focusing on in this committee in the fall, of course, is sexual trauma and misconduct within the military. There are a lot of conversations about this institution. It creates a lot of safety for others around the world, but it must be safe within for all of those who serve.

Can you share with this committee how you plan to make the Canadian Armed Forces a safer place to work?

[Gen Jennie Carignan]

I want to thank the member of Parliament for the question.

This is, of course, a priority area for us, because professional conduct in our organizational culture creates cohesive and combat-effective teams that can then be sent out to do some pretty difficult things in pretty difficult situations.

This is why our chief of professional conduct and culture will continue in terms of implementing our strategy and the various initiatives that are ongoing regarding management of complaints and grievances while ensuring we have a responsive system in that way. It's also using conflict as a way to build our teams. As we know, with over 125,000 people within defence, conflicts are happening. We want to make sure people can resolve and navigate conflict in a respectful manner.

Those efforts are a top priority, and they are currently ongoing via the chief professional conduct and culture and across our services, which are implementing, as well, their own initiatives to create strong and cohesive teams.

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

I'm certainly glad you mentioned the grievance system. I mean, we were talking about that within this committee, of course. We spoke with your predecessor about the responsibilities of the CDS in terms of being that final authority on grievance matters. There were conversations about that being far more streamlined and getting through the extreme backlog that existed in terms of grievances. They've had a lot of impact on continuation of service and on how people leave the service—their life as a veteran, afterwards.

How do you plan to continue? Are you going to keep along the same path that the previous CDS was discussing with this committee? How do you plan to tackle that long backlog issue?

[Gen Jennie Carignan]

We are continuing the modernization of our complaints system overall. The grievance management was addressed first. As you know, last February we introduced the digital form to streamline the process. We implemented as well the grievance committee. It does streamline the process, as you mentioned, in terms of making decisions more rapidly.

This fall we are introducing more advances into the digital space in terms of modernizing the case management system. It allows for better tracking for our case managers and for the complainants, to ensure that they understand where their grievance is at. It's also for the chain of command to be able to better manage and navigate that space with our members.

There's more to come this fall, but we have had consistent improvement over the complaints system overall. We will then be able to expand that further for all other forms of complaint.

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

A lot has been discussed in terms of the CAF-DND class action on sexual misconduct, which had a number of deliverables. The five-year anniversary is coming up soon. We've heard a lot about the complex relationship with SMSRC. A lot of it has been positive, and a lot of it has not been positive.

The review needs to be more than just that box-checking exercise. How do you plan to ensure that the review goes forward in a serious manner, with the trust that survivors need?

[Gen Jennie Carignan]

Mr. Chair—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, Ms. Mathyssen has left you with very few seconds to answer that question. Can you add that on to your second round of questions? That would be helpful.

We've completed our first round. We're now on to our second round.

Mr. Stewart, you have five minutes, please.

[Don Stewart, Conservative, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, General Carignan and Lieutenant-General Kelsey. It's a pleasure to have you here. Thank you for the good work that you do and that the entire armed forces team does behind you.

I want to think back to last winter, when there was an announcement of rent hikes that were coming through for military housing and that were to be effective April 1. Around the same time, we saw stories about soldiers, sailors and air people who had either lived in their vehicles or were couch surfing for the lack of affordable housing, whether on base or off.

I just think about the destruction to morale that may have caused. I wonder what you saw on the ground from a morale standpoint when those rent hikes were announced.

[Gen Jennie Carignan]

The housing and accommodation issues for our personnel are a key point for us. It's extremely important. Having been moved more than 13 times, if my count is correct, we understand the need to provide proper support for our folks, who we are asking to serve and to move regularly as part of their duties.

We do understand the need, and we understand as well that the housing issues are also lived and experienced by Canadians overall, but we are putting forward many initiatives to facilitate housing and enable our members to be more mobile. Currently, we have a few things ongoing. We need to understand that we currently operate 11,700 residential houses in 27 different locations for our members. We are building 1,400 new homes over the next five years on various bases. We are renovating 2,500 units as well, to maintain our residential homes in good condition over many different bases across Canada.

This is also layered with benefits for our folks. The needs are very different depending on the families and their personal situations, so it's a layered approach. Not all members require the same types of supports as we are asking them to serve. We have the Canadian Forces housing differential as well. That has been implemented to enable our folks to move, and 28,000 CAF members are actually benefiting from it.

Not everything is perfect. We understand the difficulties that our members are encountering, but we are regularly gathering the feedback, understanding the experience and consistently striving at improving that situation for all of our members.

[Don Stewart, Conservative, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Thank you.

I was wondering.... Sometimes it's hard for people to think about this in terms of the number of housing units. When we think about those 11,000 units, I think I saw in the DPU that we were short 7,000—around 7,000, usually 6,000 or 7,000—and there's $295 million earmarked to be spent, I think, up until 2032-33. That works out to about $1,800 per housing unit over that span of time.

When you think about that amount of money to build and to do 2,500 renos, and if we're short 6,000 units, does the government need to think about allocating more money to housing? Is that a way in which we can raise morale in the forces and a fairly low-cost way of doing it? At a time when we need the most out of our people, can we spend our money on our people? In the DPU, there were 36 recommendations, and 25% of them had to do with HR. To me, this is a key one.

Like I said, we need the most out of our people. Is this a great way to target that?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Please answer very briefly.

[Gen Jennie Carignan]

Broadly speaking—and I'll ask the vice to come in on this one—for the first priority, as we harness the new investments, the people space is where we are going to be focusing our efforts. Housing is one of those. Sustainment is another one. All of that focus on people is where we want to go first in terms of foundational work that we want to do with our forces, but housing is one of the priorities, where we want to invest early in the process—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, we're going to have to leave the answer there.

Mr. Collins, you have five minutes.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Generals, to the committee.

General Carignan, I'd like to start with Ukraine first. Everyone's watching with interest where the U.S. is right now. It's going through its own election process. President Biden, I think, is poised today to provide more support for Ukraine with additional weapons and resources.

There are two different positions south of the border. We've heard President Trump talking about ending the conflict prior to his swearing in, if he wins. His vice-presidential nominee has been very blunt about his opposition to the war in Ukraine and providing U.S. support for it.

That same debate is certainly going to happen here when we go through our own election. There are different positions that our parties have here. We've been very clear in our support. There is one party that hasn't supported Ukraine and has ceased support when it comes to providing resources to the Ukrainians. Canadians will have an opportunity, just as the Americans have in the U.S., to comment on where they stand on it.

It leads me to the question of why we should care. I'm not going to ask you about the politics here in Canada or south of the border, but governments are providing support to Ukraine because it matters. Some might say it's a “faraway foreign land”, but what happens in Ukraine and what Russia is doing in Ukraine matter to Canadians, and they matter to many other parts of the world.

Can you relate to the committee and share with us why Ukraine matters and why the support for Ukraine matters?

[Gen Jennie Carignan]

We just cannot let Mr. Putin redraw the borders in Europe. We just cannot let that happen. Why not? Because once will not be enough for him if success happens on the Russian side.

It's absolutely key that Ukraine is successful in protecting and keeping its territory. We absolutely need to support Ukraine in this fight, because it is our own fight as well. This is why, from my perspective.

It's because we need to preserve borders and international order, and this is not how we want nations to behave.

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

Thanks, General.

It becomes increasingly hard to justify and rationalize support for Ukraine with constituents sometimes, because of what they read on social media. You mentioned in your opening remarks the challenges we have with disinformation. As a government, we deal with disinformation as well on all topics, whether it's climate change, support for Ukraine or other important issues that Canadians face.

Your predecessor was very clear about the threat that disinformation poses, not just to the Canadian Armed Forces and to our society but to our democratic institutions. That is wrapped up in that whole question related to Ukraine, and I receive it, unfortunately, on a regular basis from all parts of Canada. I try to relay to my constituents, from an educational perspective, that some of what they read on social media isn't true and is coming from foreign adversaries.

Can you talk about the challenges you face in your new position and how you plan to address those issues, whether they're related to Ukraine or otherwise?