Evidence of meeting #15 for National Defence in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was family.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Professor, Department of Defence Studies, Royal Military College, As an Individual
I'm sorry. I don't have current numbers on that. I think that would have to be a technical brief from those responsible for the recruiting system.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Okay.
We're talking about recruiting and retention. About how many of the recruits actually make it through the recruiting process? Is there a percentage that either one of you can give us of those who apply and those who actually make it through?
Professor, Department of Defence Studies, Royal Military College, As an Individual
The quick comment I would make with that one is that the recruiting process is a layered process. Paxton has referred to some of what is available when you initially go online and look at things.
There's a reason for that, because the CAF needs to be able to get to a certain stage to be able to start doing things like security clearances, or medicals, etc. It's a lengthy process with multiple stages and there are differential rates for how many men are successful versus how many women. For example, a smaller percentage of women traditionally have made it through the system to actually get on the waiting lists and be enrolled. It's an area the military has been looking at.
The other part with this is that it really depends on the occupation. There are some occupations.... Pilot is an obvious example. There are all sorts of people who would love to be pilots and have the organization pay for them to learn how to be a pilot. Therefore, you can be very competitive for the pilots but far less competitive for other occupations that aren't high-demand occupations. It really varies across the CAF.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
I'm sorry, Dr. Okros. For the sake of time I'm going to keep moving on.
My colleague, Ms. Lambropoulos, brought this up. Do you think Canadians join the Canadian Forces to be peacekeepers, national security defenders or civil domestic emergency responders? Could that be one of the reasons why we have a recruitment and retention problem, because people aren't signing up to be respond to civil issues, domestic issues in our country?
You touched on what the Americans have, the National Guard. Is this something that we as a country should seriously consider so that those who want to be in our armed forces are not taken away from the armed forces' responsibilities to deal with domestic issues, like a national guard or like civil emergency responders, and actually have two separate responsibilities?
I think that has merit, which I think I heard both of you or one of you say earlier.
Professor, Department of Defence Studies, Royal Military College, As an Individual
My quick comment would be that those kinds of options have a lot more consequence in terms of the internal structural decisions that are made by the military, such as where resources are invested, what training goes on, etc.
I would suggest it would not have a huge consequence on recruiting. I go back to the comment I made, which is that a large number of people who are applying to join the military really have a limited understanding of what the military really is or does. As I said before, people join for a whole host of reasons. Typically people have served for about 12 months to 18 months, and then they start to realize what it is that they have joined and what the options and the implications are. I'm not sure they have that fine differentiation when they are still a civilian applicant.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Fair enough. I was going to ask you what the educational level is of the average recruit. The fact that they may not have properly researched it out may limit that.
I have one last question. I don't know how much time I have left.
What's the average recruiting time? According to a 2016 report that the Auditor General did, it was 200 days. Two hundred days was the average recruiting time. What are we looking at now, Ms. Mayer or Dr. Okros?
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Joining the military is a little like joining politics. You don't really know what you're getting into until you're there.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Yes. There's an “amen” around the corner here.
Mr. Gaheer, welcome back to the committee. You have four minutes.
Liberal
Iqwinder Gaheer Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to both witnesses for making time for the committee. My first question is for Professor Okros.
You've spoken a bit about the retention rate for CAF and said that it's actually better than the rates of our NATO allies. However, I'm sure there is something they are doing better than us. What are other jurisdictions doing better than us and what can we learn from them?
Professor, Department of Defence Studies, Royal Military College, As an Individual
Specifically on retention, the main one I have focused on is family support, because quite honestly that is one of the primary reasons people leave earlier than they would like to leave.
Different countries have different strategies and approaches to addressing issues. Some countries try to provide greater geographic stability, or at least try to keep people close to where their homes are for the first few years while they make the adjustment. It varies significantly. There are real challenges with Canada trying to follow some of those models, though, just given the geographic dispersion of the CAF across the size of Canada, so mostly I think we could look at family support for retention.
Liberal
Iqwinder Gaheer Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
That's great. Thank you.
This question is for both witnesses. Professor, you spoke a bit about the advertising campaign and said that videos are shown primarily during hockey matches or football games. How is the CAF's advertising campaign? How does it fare in appealing to a broader demographic of Canada's population?
Professor, Department of Defence Studies, Royal Military College, As an Individual
Paxton, do you want to start?
Doctoral Student in International Affairs at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, As an Individual
Sure.
The issue is that it doesn't do a great job of appealing to a wider demographic. As Professor Okros has said, it does not do a very good job of communicating directly to niche, diverse groups within Canada. On the sponsorship of certain sports, for example, for baseball, the demographic is older, white and male. Compare that with perhaps the NBA, where at least the demographic is younger. That would be more effective, for example. Moreover, the advertisements that are often shown show a very exciting job position and that could affect retainment, especially in that one- to three-year range when people realize that it is not all helicopters all day long. There's a lot more that goes into being a CAF member.
Professor, Department of Defence Studies, Royal Military College, As an Individual
If I could quickly follow up on that, the CAF has recognized these issues and has been moving particularly into social media. It is active on TikTok, so it has been recognizing where the appropriate channels are to reach younger people in particular. The challenge moving into social media to compete in that space is the intensive work. Again we're back into the challenge that they don't have the personnel to put in the really intensive work that is needed to get niche messages out using these niche channels. The CAF, I would suggest, is aware of this and is looking to try to find new approaches, but it needs some assistance in terms of the resources to be able to do so.
Liberal
Iqwinder Gaheer Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
That's great. That actually goes to my next question regarding social media and digital recruitment technologies. Professor, you have spoken about this, but Ms. Mayer, do you want to comment on it?
Doctoral Student in International Affairs at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, As an Individual
Do you mean on the use of social media?
Doctoral Student in International Affairs at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, As an Individual
They are on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, and they are showing more dedicated advertisements towards the younger demographic especially and more diverse demographics. However, I would echo that it's a resourcing issue at this point. It's very difficult to compete in digital markets like this with maybe only one or two social media personnel.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
We're going to have to leave it there, unfortunately.
Madame Normandin, you have a minute and a half, please.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you very much.
In order to be able to address recruitment and retention problems in the military, the existing problems need to be clearly defined. However, there is a lot of talk about a kind of code of silence in the military, which makes it rather difficult to get accurate information from the military about the problems that exist.
Is the fact that the code of silence prevents the right information consistent with reality?
Can this hinder future changes to the hostile work environment?
Doctoral Student in International Affairs at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, As an Individual
The code of silence is acting negatively for the CAF at this point, not perhaps positively as it was intended. I would recommend doing exit interviews or exit surveys with CAF members who are exiting out of basic training all the way to CAF members who are exiting after 20 years in the service. Within that survey, I would try to break down that code of silence by asking specific questions: Did you feel supported from a medical standpoint? Where you matched with a medical professional? Did you have child care?
Make these surveys and interviews easy to complete and also try to make them as mandatory as possible.
Professor, Department of Defence Studies, Royal Military College, As an Individual
I'd like to make a quick observation. I would suggest the committee may benefit from a technical brief on the research that is done on the surveys that are currently being administered and the data collected. Some of this is available. Senior leaders are collecting this information and being briefed on it.