National Defence Committee on April 4th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I call this meeting to order.

This is the commencement of our study on retention and recruitment in the Canadian Armed Forces.

To lead off our study, we have with us Paxton Mayer, a doctoral student in international affairs at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University; and Professor Alan Okros from the department of defence studies at RMC.

I'll call on Ms. Mayer for her opening five-minute statement, and then go directly to Professor Okros.

Again, thank you for your patience.

Colleagues, I propose to go 10 minutes late, if that's all right. I hope that's all right with our witnesses as well.

Go ahead, Ms. Mayer.

[Paxton Mayer, Doctoral Student in International Affairs at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, As an Individual]

Hi everyone. Thank you for inviting me to be a witness for your study of recruitment and retention in the Canadian Armed Forces.

This testimony, in addition to the provided brief and reference materials, provides my perspective on why the Canadian Armed Forces struggle with recruitment and retention, and what public perception and organizational changes the CAF should implement in order to face these challenges.

Over the past two years, the CAF's intolerance, harassment and abuse towards women, visible minorities and the LGBTQ+ community have been consistently reported in the media and have therefore become public knowledge. This has surely negatively affected the CAF's recruitment and retention. However, even prior to this wave of publicity, the CAF was having difficulty with the recruitment and retention of its members. This is not a brand new issue.

I understand that the CAF has tried to change this public perception through online advertisements that show diversity. Although it's true that these advertisements include more women and visible minorities than in the past, they still lack the message of inclusion. Most of the ads focus on a single person at a time and often do not show that person interacting positively with others, nor do they show that person's life outside of their job. These ads have failed in the past as they do not show that these diverse individuals are respected and included in the CAF, free to be themselves and able to achieve some kind of work-life balance.

Of course, these ads would only work and are only ethical if this is truly the reality of the CAF. It has been heavily suspected for many years—and it has recently been proven without a doubt—that this is untrue.

Instead of depending on these sorts of ads, the CAF and its civilian oversights, which include the Minister of Defence and the Prime Minister, need to publicly admit to their failings and create a full-fledged strategy to ensure that these failings never occur again. The CAF requires an organizational culture change. The implementation of this strategy must consider that there may be resistance within the organization to these changes. Support must be provided to members, both supervisory and non-supervisory, as they move from resistance to exploration to commitment to this change.

Finally, the CAF should implement a clause in its recruitment and performance reviews that allows for the refusal of work to applicants and the removal from the armed forces of current members who are creating an unsafe working environment or who are being exclusionary. Just because the CAF is having issues recruiting and retaining members does not mean it should ever lower its expectations on this. After all, how can Canadians depend on the CAF to keep Canadians and its allies safe when the CAF cannot even keep its own members safe, even in non-conflict zones?

Furthermore, the actual recruitment process of the CAF is hugely inefficient and lacks transparency. This deters potential CAF members, even if they were not deterred by the other shortcomings of the CAF. For instance, the recruitment process can take over a year. Its average length is around 200 days. The CAF's career website and application process expect a university graduate, maybe even a doctor, to submit a job application without knowing the requirements, the salary benefits of the job or the recruitment process and timeline. These issues also partly explain why the CAF has had difficulties retaining its employees.

I would argue that the CAF's retainment challenges are because there are many better opportunities elsewhere for experienced members, such as employers that do not request employees to work in conflict zones, that do not expect their employees to move across country and that have the assets and budgets to provide their employees with competitive salaries and working equipment.

A compounding challenge for the CAF's retention and recruitment goals is that many families now depend on two incomes. However, when one partner is required to move to remote locations for their career, it becomes practically impossible for the other partner to hold a job, let alone have any career independence. Further, it's difficult for CAF members' children to be constantly switching schools and making new friends. The CAF needs to look at the possibility of CAF members being guaranteed the ability to stay in a single location for a long period of time and provide more flexible arrangements for families. These then need to be communicated to current members and potential members.

The CAF, the Government of Canada and, honestly, Canadians as well, need to realize that the CAF is competing with private corporations and even other government organizations for talent but is lacking the resources to win. To mitigate this, the CAF must be given the ability to increase its salary budget, must create a welcoming and supportive work environment and must determine new ways of working that provide more stability for its members and its members' families.

In conclusion, the CAF has multiple challenges to overcome in order to improve its recruitment and retention. At the end of the day, it is my belief that Canadians will choose to work for an organization they trust, that is transparent with career potential and possibilities, that provides a safe, diverse and welcoming environment, and that stands behind and supports its employees. Unfortunately, the CAF is not currently this type of organization, although I believe it could become one if it generally worked towards organizational change.

Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Professor Okros.

[Dr. Alan Okros, Professor, Department of Defence Studies, Royal Military College, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's my pleasure to provide comments to the committee on CAF recruitment and retention. I’m speaking from Toronto. I have provided my land acknowledgement in my written submission. My comments will be in English.

I’ve been engaged in aspects of research, policy and delivery related to CAF recruiting and retention since serving in recruiting in the late 1970s. I recently conducted research on the future youth cohort to inform CAF decision-making, and I am making contributions to culture change initiatives.

To start, as Paxton has highlighted, two recent factors are of importance for the CAF: [Technical difficulty—Editor] throughput, which resulted in shortages of qualified CAF members, and the adverse publicity over sexual harassment, which has resulted in some declines in the number of women applying to join. There are no magic solutions to correct either of these overnight, although both are top of mind for senior leaders.

More broadly, the CAF is facing long-term trends that are making recruiting more difficult. The battle for talent requires CAF to expand the pool of applicants. Three intersecting factors are of importance. The first is the increasing diversity across Canadian society, with a shrinking proportion of straight white men in the CAF’s traditional recruiting pool. The second is that a number of young people are entering the workforce lacking required work knowledge or life skills. There is significant competition across employers for those who have successfully completed post-secondary education, and the percentage of these graduates who are straight white men is shrinking faster than in the overall population. The third factor is increased urbanization and the number of young adults seeking to live in major cities, many of whom come from diverse backgrounds and are well educated. Joining the regular force means leaving these cities, which is why the demographics of the reserves differ from those of the regular force.

We then hit the challenge that CAF is not one job but offers one hundred, and that many Canadians have only superficial knowledge of the military, have different reasons for joining and have a myriad of questions. Recruiting is an intense personal activity with both the CAF and the applicant trying to assess the right fit.

The CAF needs to attract more talented, educated and diverse Canadians. It is facing stiff competition from other employers and from the bright lights of the big cities, and it needs to invest in expanding capacities to attract, inform and select the right people.

On retention, I’ll note that the CAF actually has lower attrition rates than the militaries of most allies. Again, while COVID and sexual harassment issues have likely played a role in some leaving, the main factors have remained the same for many years. A key is the challenge of balancing work and personal life. The CAF requires a lot from individuals and puts pressures on their families.

Demands due to operations and deployments, going away for training and moving across the country are significant. The constant juggling of time and attention becomes too much, as do the issues of partners lacking stability to pursue careers, the frictions of moving houses, finding new family health care providers, trying to get the kids signed up for sports teams, etc. The CAF actually provides more geographic stability than our American or Australian counterparts do, but these countries invest more in family support systems, whereas CAF members and their families are forced to fend more for themselves.

The British Army has a slogan: recruit the soldier, retain the family. Fiscal decisions have made this more difficult to achieve, and some policies still reflect the assumption that every member with children has a full-time homemaker to look after them.

Further, attention needs to shift from how many people are leaving the CAF to which people are leaving. There are serious issues when these are more women, diverse folk or those from different cultural backgrounds, and especially when they do so because they can’t reach their full potential. Who is getting promoted versus who is being held back in their career is an important factor.

Finally, I’ll suggest that the key issue for government is not the number of individuals in uniform but what capabilities the CAF can generate and sustain. As has been demonstrated over the last two years, the CAF has significant flexibility to respond to unique taskings, but there are limits. Answering these demands has come at a cost. Part of what is needed to address recruitment and retention issues is actually the work of government, not of internal defence leaders. They require either more predictability or the funding to enable increased flexibility.

The key questions are these: What do Canadians want their military to be able to do, and what is government prepared to invest to ensure that they can?

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has focused attention on Canada's contributions to NATO, but we're about to enter flood season, followed by forest fire season, followed by potential ice storms or snowmageddons. Also, Canadians would still like us to have more than just a token few UN blue berets.

I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Professor Okros.

Madam Kerry-Lynne Findlay, you have six minutes.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you to both witnesses for being here. We really appreciate your testimony.

Professor Okros, what factors make those who leave unsuitable for military service? How are they screened? Do you know?

[Dr. Alan Okros]

There are two parts to this. There certainly are some individuals who are required to leave the military because they are not a good fit for the military. This usually happens in the first year to three years of military service. On occasion it's because they're unable to meet the training requirements or meet the performance requirements. On some occasions, it's because of their professional conduct. There were certainly instances in the news recently of cases of young people joining who were not displaying professional conduct out on the west coast. The military can engage in remedial action, trying to assist these people to understand the values, the standards and the behaviours, but on occasion, they're not a good fit and they leave.

The other reason, of course, is that, as I said, a large number of Canadians have limited knowledge of the military. As much as the recruiting system tries to inform them, once they join and find out what military life is really like, for example what army camping really consists of or that going to sea on the North Atlantic is not like canoeing on Lake Ontario, there are people who realize it's not a good fit for them.

In the long term, for those who get past that initial adjustment, the real reasons for people leaving have to do with work-life balance and all the pressures on families.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

I appreciate your testimony on that because it gives a pretty clear picture. I know it takes a lot from families, even in peacetime. In the navy, for instance, we have troops deploying for many months at a time.

What would you say is the primary draw for people who do join? What is the primary draw for recruits? One thing that's on my mind is that we had great success attracting Canadians during the Afghan war. There must have been something that was motivating them, because we were in a war theatre.

[Dr. Alan Okros]

My comments would be that people join for a number of different reasons. Some are attracted to earn qualifications, advanced education, to improve their work skills and their qualifications. Some people are attracted to adventure and travel. There are people who want to challenge themselves.

I would agree that there was a segment of the Canadian population that joined during the time that Canada was actively involved in combat operations in Afghanistan, but we also need to recognize that there was another portion of the population that was not attracted by the combination of those activities and, quite honestly, the recruiting ads that were being run at the time.

It's a challenge for the military. People have multiple different reasons why they join.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

One of the issues that's come up, Professor, is whether the universality of service rules should be changed, especially to recruit people with specialized skills to fight cyber-threats, for instance. What is your opinion on that?

[Dr. Alan Okros]

I would suggest there is a value in reviewing universality of service and how it's applied. It can, on occasion, be an impediment to people joining, and it can also cause people who were serving in the military and who have developed highly valuable skills and experience to have to leave the military.

The challenge for the military, going back to the navy, is what the navy refers to as sea-shore ratio. The more people you have in uniform who have limitations on the type of work they can do, the smaller the number of people in uniform who are having to spend more time away and do the deployments, the operations, etc. That's the struggle that the military has finding the right balance there.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

With respect to Canadians of diverse backgrounds, I'm curious as to how you feel the CAF has been doing in attracting Canadians of diversity.

[Dr. Alan Okros]

I'll answer, and perhaps the other witness might be able to chime in on this one as well.

I would agree that the military has been trying to do so. I think there have been challenges in terms of the messaging. There are challenges reaching into the communities. To reach diverse communities, I think the military really needs highly tuned, tailored, niche communications to make sure not only the individuals but their families and other community members understand what decisions they're making and support them in making the right decisions. Common broad advertising and, quite honestly, advertising restricted to NHL games or football games is not reaching the full breadth of Canadians. There need to be some strategies there on reaching out to different communities with the right information for them to consider.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

I don't have a lot of time left. What is the normal attrition for the Canadian Forces, and what is the NATO average? Do you know?

[Dr. Alan Okros]

The Canadian Armed Forces rate is roughly between 6% and 7%. Among NATO allies, the rate is anywhere from 8% to 10%, and some are higher. For example, for the U.S. Marine Corps, it's over 10%, and that's expected. Other militaries are used to more young people joining, doing a couple of tours and then leaving. They have a different personnel production system to bring people in, get them qualified very quickly, get them working quickly and have them leave, which is not the system the CAF has.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

For the sake of those who are both on the panel and maybe also listening, Dr. Okros, could you tell us what the concept of universality of service is?

[Dr. Alan Okros]

Certainly, universality of service requires that all members in uniform be able to meet a series of primarily physical standards that enable them to deploy to a vast range of environments to do a vast range of duties. It's a common set of standards that is applied to everybody in uniform. Particularly, those who develop medical issues have difficulties being able to meet universality of service and commonly end up being released from the military.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you very much.

Madam Lambropoulos, you have six minutes please.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both of our witnesses today.

I'm going to begin with Dr. Okros, along the same lines as what both of my colleagues just mentioned on the notion of universality of service. You also mentioned climate change during your testimony in the beginning. We're about to face the floods, forest fires and different things that we have not been focusing on because of our shift in focus to Ukraine now and to NATO in general.

Suppose CAF were to work differently and try to retain or at least recruit new members in a completely different category, for natural events or things that happen here, to help protect Canadians at home. Do you see a benefit to changing the way we look at things and changing the way CAF currently works on recruitment so that people who don't necessarily feel attracted to engaging in combat outside of Canada could come and offer services to their country, to help during a flood situation, for example?

[Dr. Alan Okros]

My basic comment is, yes, I think there is value in considering this. There are other countries that have differentiated individuals, so some countries have more domestic response capability, either in the military but with different conditions of service or in a different organization.

As Canadians start to recognize that what we used to consider once-in-a-century weather events are now going to be happening much more often, I think there is a likelihood that the Canadian Armed Forces might be called on more frequently. This is part of why I said we need to decide what we want the CAF to do, because right now, the military is structured to deliver on what it's been tasked with doing, but then it gets hit with these occasional requirements.

Alternate models could have people who are just focused on a domestic context. Potentially restructuring the reserves and so on are all things that could be considered, but it's a complex military system, so they need to be studied properly rather than going to short-term solutions that can cause unintended consequences.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Mayer, you spoke extensively about the need to recruit diverse Canadians—more women—in order to change the culture of the organization.

I was wondering if you could speak a bit to what types of changes are required and that we can make at the government level to be able to see a difference in the CAF. It's an organization that's pretty much run on its own and by itself. It doesn't necessarily like taking orders from politicians. What are some ways around that?

[Paxton Mayer]

First, I would say that the government and civilian oversight should take more of a stand and provide guidance to the CAF. It's our responsibility.

However, within the CAF, I would suggest that the biggest tool for change could be building allyship and pushing away the idea of the innocent bystander on these issues. If we improve the training to allow people to understand what harassment is and what abuse is, how to notice this harassment and what to do and what to say when it occurs, then everyone in the organization who applies this training could slowly change the organizational culture.

Unfortunately, though, this requires quite a bit of leadership support. Within the CAF—and even outside the CAF, in the civilian oversight—we're seeing that there's not that much accountability, unfortunately. To me, the biggest thing the government can do outside of the CAF is to show that accountability, to take accountability for the mistakes and really push the CAF to make those changes.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

I have another question, because you mentioned that there's a lot of competition between the CAF and the rest of the Canadian economy and all businesses.

What exactly does the CAF need to do to make it more attractive to educated and more well-rounded individuals?

[Paxton Mayer]

The first point that I would bring up is the recruitment process itself. Right now, when you apply to the CAF as a university graduate for an officer position, they don't ask any information about your resume or your CV. You provide simple, personal details and they ask you to choose your top three positions. They say that someone else will reach out to you and administer a test to see if you are actually qualified for these positions.

When competing with private corporations, you submit a full application and they go through many initial questions. Even applying to the government, they do the same thing. As an applicant, they feel like they're getting through the process. With the CAF, they're not getting through a process. The CAF is wasting a lot of resources putting people in charge of this process, which could be somewhat automated. This increases the whole length of the process.

Private corporations hire within months so that the person is working in the position, whereas in the CAF it's a year or more. Sometimes the training takes over a year as well. To compete with private corporations, the CAF needs to quicken this recruitment timeline and make it clearer to applicants what the job requirements are, what the salary is and what the process is.