National Defence Committee on April 4th, 2022

[Andrea Lane]

As a researcher, of course I'm going to say that we need more research, but the answer is to figure out which parts of the traditional aspects of physical tests to differentiate between the combat roles are necessary, and which are kind of left over from a more traditional military evaluation of what it means to be a soldier. There are definitely baseline fitness aspects to jobs like being in the infantry or being in the army combat arms. There's no way of getting around that. You have to be able to lift things over your head and all sorts of other things that could be challenging for some women to achieve. The difference is that not every requirement has been fully evaluated as being necessary.

To know which parts of traditional soldiering are necessary and which parts of traditional soldiering are just kind of traditional requires pretty honest research. I say “honest” because sometimes the answers to those questions disappoint people like me, who are strong advocates for women in the combat arms, for example. If the research tells me that, actually, being able to lift 65 pounds over my head is a requirement for the job, I'm not necessarily going to like that answer, but I think for the research to be genuine, and for it to treat people in the military with fairness, we have to be ready to find out things that we don't necessarily want to find out as advocates and researchers.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We're going to have to, unfortunately, leave the answer there.

Ms. Normandin, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. chair.

I'd like to thank the two witnesses for their opening remarks.

Dr. Maillette, culture change in the military can take time. However, have the people you met with proposed short‑term solutions to improve recruitment and retention in the armed forces?

[Dr. Madeleine Nicole Maillette]

Solutions to improve recruitment were indeed proposed. In terms of retention, it would be important to reinstate the cost of living differential, which was cancelled and has not been reviewed since 2009. This would help the military, whether they are privates or master corporals, financially.

Of course, the provision of private married quarters, or PMQs, on bases is very important. For example, small trailers or small modular homes could be installed.

There is a lot of discussion around the transfer of military personnel, but it never includes their family members. Today, in many places, a family has to have two salaries to be financially comfortable, so the family should be considered, as other witnesses have already said.

Soldiers starting at the bottom also experience difficulties. These soldiers, when they take courses in military establishments, have to pay for their accommodation and food, in addition to having to pay for an apartment that they have to leave for their training. A sum of $700 a month is not much to pay for an apartment.

If changes could be made now to address these four areas, it could be a game changer.

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

You talked about the impact on the family.

Since you used to be in the military, can you tell us whether the armed forces have changed their approach to the family, or is the situation the same as it was several years ago?

[Dr. Madeleine Nicole Maillette]

Dr. Okros talked about it. When I was in the military, there were resources for families. When a member was transferred, their family was taken care of, which is less and less the case these days. Today, it's the soldier who is transferred, not the family. The way things are done has certainly changed since 1980.

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

Thank you very much.

I'm now going to talk about culture change. Our two witnesses for this second hour are researchers. They know that in order to properly identify problems and provide the right solutions, the right diagnosis must be made. However, researchers face difficulties when they conduct studies to understand the problems in the armed forces.

Dr. Maillette, you had already started talking about it. Could you keep going?

[Dr. Madeleine Nicole Maillette]

The first issue is security clearance in the military. The academic researcher's normal security clearance gives them access to classified confidential information. However, a secret or top secret clearance gives them access to much more information. If people want to access documents that say “Protected A”, they will not have access to all the information, because those documents will be blacked out. These documents are only accessible to individuals with a confidential security clearance.

There is a second problem. In basic training, soldiers, or non‑commissioned officers, are taught that they must never, ever contradict someone of a higher rank. This is instilled in recruits on the first day of training.

If asked by an academic researcher, the soldier will immediately consider that person an officer. The response will not contradict what the researcher is asking for, so the researcher does not really get adequate answers.

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

Studies have been done on the toxic environment in the armed forces. Do you know who the researchers were and who the respondents were?

[Dr. Madeleine Nicole Maillette]

To my knowledge, there have been several studies on the circumstances leading to a toxic environment, but in several cases they were conducted by researchers who were officers. Of course, when the research is done by an officer, the soldier will make sure not to contradict the officer. He will give the answer that is expected.

Some research contained valid data, but it was generally superficial. To have more in‑depth data, you first have to find people to interview and then have access to data to analyze their testimony.

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

What can we do to find these respondents and get a better picture of what's happening on the ground?

[Dr. Madeleine Nicole Maillette]

For the answers to be more reliable, it would have to be master corporals asking soldiers, corporals and master corporals. So it should be limited to that group, which would be much more able to give reliable answers.

As far as sergeants and warrant officers are concerned, the researcher should have the same rank as the interviewees. It should be the same for officers.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Madam Mathyssen, you have six minutes, please.

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

Thank you.

In the previous panel, one of the witnesses talked about exit interviews and performing those.

Madame Maillette, you were talking about that data. Without the influence of armed forces members being active, ones who were already out of the system, would that provide you with better data, because they wouldn't be held to that “don't contradict the higher-ranked officer”. Is that what I could get from that?

[Dr. Madeleine Nicole Maillette]

Can I tell you personally?

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

Absolutely.

[Dr. Madeleine Nicole Maillette]

Whether I want it or not, that contradiction is ingrained in me. I am terrified of contradicting somebody I would perceive to have a higher rank than mine, and I've been away—

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

Even after service...?

[Dr. Madeleine Nicole Maillette]

Yes, after service.

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

Understood.

Can you explain, both witnesses I suppose, about housing? We have also heard a lot about that infrastructure and the supports that are required in terms of the cost of housing and the provision that used to exist with housing.

We also heard about child care. I've heard about that, particularly from officers, parents, who are serving. A lot of people believe that housing is provided on base and that there was a provision of barracks. What used to exist, how has that changed and when did it change?

[Dr. Madeleine Nicole Maillette]

I can answer that one for CFB Borden. CFB Borden has destroyed a tremendous number of old PMQs within the last 10 to 15 years. That is causing a housing problem for the soldiers. The infrastructure like the water and the sanitary systems are still in place, but the houses are not there anymore. It would take nothing to put trailers or mini-homes there.

[Andrea Lane]

One of the fundamental issues is that there has been a change in the way that the housing provided by the military—when it is provided—is regarded as a taxable benefit under Treasury Board rules. Previously, the CAF was able to provide subsidized housing with a subsidy, but that was deemed a taxable benefit, which meant that CAF housing had to be offered at market rates. You can imagine, as with any institutional landlord, that it's very hard to maintain your housing stock at market rates such that families want to live in them.

The other change has been in people's expectations around what family living looks like. I live in a house that was built in the early 1970s, as some CAF PMQs were. It's considered quaintly small by most of my friends who live further out of town in larger, more modern houses. Part of what's happening is an economic thing around taxation, and part of it is around people's expectations around what housing looks like.

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

I certainly know what that's about. We have a lot of those sorts of barracks, smaller individual homes in London, where we used to have Wolseley Barracks. I can picture that exactly.

I sat on status of women, and we published a report on sexual misconduct in the military. A lot of witnesses spoke about women leaving and, of course, not joining in the first place in terms of the CAF. One of the recommendations from the report was that the Government of Canada publish a strategy with clear performance metrics to attract, promote and retain women and other minorities in the Canadian Armed Forces. That included comparative metrics around the numbers of women and minorities by trade, classification and rank; length of time of service and rank; those command positions and length of all that service.

Do you support the recommendation of that consistent reporting and then that reporting being reported to Parliament?

[Andrea Lane]

This is veering into current policy.

I can say, as a researcher on this kind of issue, that more data is always better and disaggregated data is the gold standard. Knowing why it is women pilots above the rank of brigadier-general, for example, are leaving the forces, versus knowing why male privates with a Pakistani background are leaving, those are important data points. Whether or not we understand what we're seeing in a one-year to five-year timeline, when you start to be able to see trends from the disaggregated data, then it allows you to really know what is going on.

Your colleague, Madame Normandin, asked a question about the challenges of collecting this research, and one of the challenges is that, particularly around sexual misconduct, if you ask 15 women how to make their time in the CAF better, you will get 15 different answers and all of them are valid and all of them have policy recommendations attached to them, but often, those recommendations are at complete odds and ends with each other. It's very difficult to take really personal information about people's experiences, fears and hopes and make policy recommendations for that, because you'll have just as many people say that is the last thing they want.

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

Madame Maillette was nodding, so I assume she agreed with that.