National Defence Committee on April 4th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Lane.

We will now have Ms. Maillette for five minutes, please.

[Dr. Madeleine Nicole Maillette, As an Individual]

I would like to thank this panel for allowing me to be the voice for 200-plus active soldiers.

While talking with other veterans, I became aware of an increasing number of conversations in regard to the radicalization towards violent extremism within our Canadian military. I therefore met with privates, corporals and master corporals in the regular forces and asked two questions: If you are working in a known hostile environment, what keeps you there? What behaviours do you consider hostile?

Since August 2021, I have received close to 200 reported instances of hostile behaviours, which are added to my own experience at CFB Borden. I have witnessed the belittling of lower-rank soldiers outside of military places. This situation not only affects the retention of our military personnel, but it can also push members into violent outbursts or the acceptance that abuse is part of the training.

These are some of my findings.

First, the lack of immediate response by a higher-ranking officer witnessing any inappropriate comments made by middle-ranking officers toward lower-ranking soldiers is simply sending a message to both parties that this unprofessional behaviour is considered acceptable.

For example, in regard to the institution housing problem, there are comments like, “Have you thought about letting go of your sole-custody arrangement? This would make it easier for you to find a place to live.” In regard to jokes, there is “Are you turning native on me?” or “Well, I hope we will not discover unmarked graves on our base.” In regard to promotion, one could hear, “This is racism because you were only promoted because you are a woman, gay or a minority.” In regard to attending family funerals, it could be, “Well, this person is not important enough for me to give you the bereavement time you need.”

The data indicates that not one commissioned officer who heard those comments even acknowledged how inappropriate they were. This lack of immediate response ends up sending a message that the military has full control over a soldier's family, the right to grieve a family member and a person's racial identity.

Second, within the past two years, a few master corporals have identified moral issues within their own squadrons or divisions. Out of their own goodwill, they contacted commissioned officers in order to present solutions to these problems. In response to their inputs, these master corporals were threatened with a charge of sedition and treason, in particular if they persisted in bringing forth those problems. Fear of repercussion is found in all of the correspondence that I received. It takes an incredible amount of courage to talk to anyone in or outside of the military. A code of silence is imposed on all soldiers within our National Defence. Control through fear was found in 100% of my collected data.

Third, the obvious change in the military hierarchy can be identified by its previous pyramidal form to a ballooning distribution of ranks. The change in ratio of upper ranks to lower ranks is causing fierce competition between peers, in particular when promotion is at play. Micromanagement becomes far more obvious because it includes microaggressive comments, lack of proper job distribution, belittling and ostracizing behaviours and wilful ignorance of unbecoming behaviours. Micromanagement is also conducive to the development of toxic environments.

Fourth, the DND grievance process is inadequate. Having had a conversation with individuals working in that department, I realized that the majority of complaints are seen as useless or unfounded, or are simply categorized as “human right issues”, which means that a soldier's grievance is simply ignored. Therefore, this same soldier is now obligated to finance his or her own grievance.

Fifth, the medical department is fully aware of the location of these known toxic environments. They have acknowledged to many of my contacts that they are aware of departments causing mental health issues. However, since they do not have any power over other military sections, their solution is to medicate individuals who have no other choice but to return to these same toxic work environments.

This is an internal threat to the safety of our public, because some individuals have told me that they have advised their supervisor that they have not adapted to the new medication and would need some time to adjust. They were refused the right to go on sick leave. The feeling of anxiety associated to their inability to fully concentrate on their job increased the level of fear associated to causing the death of a co-worker.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Ms. Maillette, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Could you wind it up as soon as possible, please?

[Dr. Madeleine Nicole Maillette]

Okay.

In conclusion, retention is successful only when toxic behaviours are under control. It is also important to understand that toxicity induces a radicalization towards violent extremism.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

Mr. Motz, please start your six-minute round.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you to both witnesses for being here. You both have very unique perspectives, if you will, on the Canadian Armed Forces, both from serving in it and from having a family member in the forces. I want to ask you a couple of questions.

I'll start with you first, Ms. Lane. Your husband, you've said, is a navy officer right now. He's in the navy. Would he do it again? Would you want him to do it again if he had a choice to start over, given the current environment of the military?

[Andrea Lane]

I hesitate to speak for him, but I think he would. He has had a very fulfilling career in spite of the ups and downs.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Would you want him to?

[Andrea Lane]

I think I would as well, although I would acknowledge that it has been difficult. It has had an impact not only on my career but on our kids' lives. There's something to be said for seeing your spouse satisfied and happy in their work. For him, that's been in the navy. I don't think it's the only place he'd be happy, but if he said to me, “I wish to do it all over again”, I would support him.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you.

Ms. Maillette, you have served. Thank you for your service.

If you were to start 1980 over again in 2022, would you do that?

[Dr. Madeleine Nicole Maillette]

In 2022...? No, I would not.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Why is that?

[Dr. Madeleine Nicole Maillette]

Because of my contact with soldiers right now, I see how the environment is more toxic now compared with when I was serving.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

As a country, we've certainly been aware of some of the challenges that exist within the military.

In this committee, we were remarking in the break about how this committee is great, in that we have a common goal and interest, which is Canada's national security: the ability for our military to defend our country, to have the tools necessary to do so, to retain and recruit people and to fix the challenges that exist within it. Together as a group, we have recommendations that have been made in the past, over the years, whether it be in the last six years for some of them or even in the last 10 or 15 years.

There are areas in the military that have to be fixed. What do we need to do?

To answer both your questions, one coming from your perspective, Ms. Maillette, and one coming from yours, Ms. Lane.... I could ask you the same question, Ms. Lane. You were a reservist. Would you want to now join the military as a regular member in 2022?

[Andrea Lane]

Yes, I was briefly in the reserves in the U.K. I personally wouldn't wish to join currently, but I welcome your questions that relate more to my professional research as well.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

That's my point. My point is that our role here is to try to better our military, to find out why people aren't staying in the military and why we can't recruit people appropriately. We're at least 7,500 short across the board—I've heard it's up to 10,000—with respect to CAF, to the navy and the air force, etc. We have challenges with the misconduct that has been going on. How do we fix it?

You're both academics and have done research. How do we fix what's broken in a way that continues to serve those who serve our country honourably and deals with those who may not have?

[Dr. Madeleine Nicole Maillette]

Can I answer this one?

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

You can both answer.

[Dr. Madeleine Nicole Maillette]

I am a quantitative researcher. I always look for data that shows me something I'm not expecting. What I would do right now is get the clearance to enter any medical documentation and figure out where the toxic environments are. By knowing the number of soldiers who are medicated and auditing their medication, it would give an idea of where the toxic environments are—in which squadron or division—and then you have a better idea of where to start.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Go ahead, Ms. Lane.

[Andrea Lane]

My answer would be slightly different. Mine would be to start with a conversation with Canadians as a whole about what we see as the role of the Canadian Armed Forces going forward, and how we adapt that to what we foresee Canadians deciding going forward.

Many of the challenges that the CAF faces currently—and, as you say, has faced for 15 to 20 years—are related to challenges that Canada as a whole faces in terms of who we are as a country, who we see as our allies, what we see as our history and what we see as our future. For many Canadians, that has been in flux quite a bit. We saw the disruptive influences of the Trump presidency in the United States of how Canadians viewed that traditionally, very allied relationship with the U.S. With the invasion of Ukraine now, we see it in Germany's foreign policy posture changing.

Many in Canada are re-evaluating that safety and peacefulness that we have largely felt since the end of the Cold War, and the CAF is an important part of that—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, Mr. Motz hasn't left you enough time to really expand your thoughts on that important question.

Mr. May, you have six minutes.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both of you for being here to kick off this study.

My questions will be to Andrea Lane. I will keep my questions to your specific research. You've written about the gendering of the armed forces—particularly, the combat-focused roles—and the popularly accepted link between masculinity and soldiering. You've also noted the link between the need to reinforce the masculinity of soldiering with the reinforcement of the most negative aspects of masculinity, which we would now refer to, perhaps, as toxic masculinity.

How does this influence the issues we are seeing in the forces, including sexual misconduct and various forms of discrimination?

[Andrea Lane]

Thank you for that question. I will do my best to answer it, but with the caveat that it's extremely complex.

I should note that there's a distinction between what you correctly identified as toxic masculinity and masculinity more generally, and also between toxic masculinity and men. Some effects of the gender culture of the CAF are simply because there are a lot of men in the CAF, and it's an institution that has traditionally been built around men. Some of those effects are neutral or even beneficial. As a woman who works in the defence communities, I sometimes joke that, aside from having to hear about sports all the time, the negative masculine characteristics in my workday are not that extreme. However, there's that particular linkage between a very physical idea of what it is to become a man, that sort of toughness, and the aggression that is sometimes cultured even in Canadian society, but particularly in military training. There is an aspect of dominance, and sometimes even sexual dominance, that can be built into those narratives even unwittingly.

We see it in popular culture as well. The hero of a movie about war is often a hit with the ladies, for example. If you don't think about that critically, you don't realize what the plot line of the romance in the movie is. Can we recognize the fact that it's extremely heteronormative that we associate masculinity with heterosexual sexual prowess and that kind of thing?

It's very difficult to untangle this, the positive or neutral aspects of masculinity and men, from toxic masculinity and how it affects sexual harassment in the military, because what we're essentially getting at is the core identity of the people who serve. There's a proud tradition of being extremely fit and extremely resilient physically, especially within the army combat arms. It's very hard to say that some of that swagger or braggadocio is harmful to your female colleagues because they feel excluded from it, or they feel threatened by it, without also threatening the core of what it can mean for those men to be men and to be soldiers.

I think societally we do a very bad job of explaining what positive masculinity looks like or even discussing positive masculinity. Sometimes I will hear from my CAF colleagues, “I don't grope women. I don't make sexist jokes, but am I toxic? Am I a toxic masculine person simply by virtue of being a man in the military?” Of course the answer is no, but it's very difficult to discuss something as severe as sexual harassment and sexual misconduct without making it about individuals, almost unintentionally.

I don't know if I've answered your question. I'm sorry.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

No, that's great. That's fantastic. I was going to jump in, and then I thought that hearing from you on this makes a lot more sense than hearing from me, to be quite honest.

You talked in your opening remarks about culture and that, I think rightfully, it's not as simple as one culture. There are multiple cultures. I preface this next question with that. I'm wondering how culture change efforts could improve the ability of women and diverse groups to succeed in combat—for instance, by creating an environment where people are assessed solely on their ability to do the tasks of a soldier and not on their ability to conform to a traditional masculine gender.