National Defence Committee on April 6th, 2022

[Gregory Lick]

Certainly, I would expect that if there's imminent physical danger, it's not dealt with through the grievance process. If it is an imminent danger to an individual, that would be dealt with through the various law enforcement agencies or through the SMRC.

If we receive a complaint or a call from an individual who is in imminent danger or we feel, after talking with them, that they may be in imminent danger, then we will refer them to appropriate supports. That could be law enforcement or it could be the SMRC, depending on the situation. In that particular type of thing, that's something we do. We ensure that they are [Technical difficulty—Editor].

Robyn will have a bit more detail on that sort of prioritization as well.

[Robyn Hynes]

For any calls that we get about sexual misconduct, as the ombudsman mentioned, we really try to allow the person who is making the call and who has brought the issue forward to be in the driver's seat in terms of what their next step should be. We will provide them information about a variety of recourse mechanisms and resources available to them and allow them to make that choice. We also offer the service of doing that warm handover to help ease the process in that regard.

In terms of prioritization of grievances, we do have a process internally by which we can escalate files more quickly when there are compelling circumstances. That allows us to kind of go up the chain of command at a higher level than we normally would.

Internally, inside the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces, there are a multitude of different recourse mechanisms, initial authorities and respondents, depending on the type of complaint that comes in. The process that gets followed is slightly different and it can be faster or slower, depending on what the complaint is.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you for that.

Just on that, part of the terminology, as I was reading the backgrounder and listening.... There is this approach of addressing unfairness [Technical difficulty—Editor]. I get all that, and that's certainly a regular part of grievances, but there is a level of sexual misconduct that we have heard about in CAF. It might seem like a small thing, but to start to categorize sexual misconduct as unfairness and say that fairness needs to be restored in that regard also downplays it by categorizing some of these things in the same way.

Have you given any thought to your role in the ability to start saying that a traditional...? I know there's no such thing as a fully traditional grievance, but given the nature of the sexual misconduct cases and the systemic issues, is there not an opportunity to say that this is a larger issue than an unfairness piece, and that there should be a carving out or a categorization in the language that acknowledges what's been going on?

[Gregory Lick]

That's a very difficult question to answer, but I have to come back to the role of the office of the ombudsman. Just to reiterate that for everyone, and I've talked to a lot of you already, our role is to ensure that the processes that are available to people, whether for misconduct, sexual misconduct or any type of issue, grievance or situation that they may be dealing with....

Our role is an oversight role. It's to ensure that, whatever process they follow, first of all, they know what that process is and how to go about it. We refer them to that process. We may help them get started, and we may help them in terms of overseeing it during the process, but our role is to ensure that the process is followed fairly. They can always come back to us and say there's a delay and they're not getting answers, and then we may intervene with them at that point in time.

Truly, our role as an ombudsman, which is pretty much the same around the world, is to ensure that the processes are available to people and that, in those processes, they are treated fairly. That's our role.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. O'Connell.

Ms. Normandin, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Lick.

I am happy to see you again. Thank you for attending this committee meeting.

I would like to begin by reminding you of a public request you made about a year ago, in March 2021, when you asked the government to make your office truly independent.

According to media reports, you wanted your office to be independent, and you said that your office's structure undermined the confidence in your ability to fight for the members of the Canadian Armed Forces.

Could you tell us about what you think was making your office insufficiently independent?

[Gregory Lick]

As I said almost a year ago, and I continue to say it to diverse audiences, there are a number of reasons you have an ombudsman's office. First of all, we are meant to be that civilian oversight—in this case, of the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces—to ensure that people within the defence community are treated fairly, their complaints are heard and their complaints are dealt with.

One of the issues that we saw very clearly, primarily because of the sexual misconduct issues—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I'm sorry again, Ombudsman Lick. We're apparently having some difficulties with translation.

We'll give it a go again.

Could you just continue with your answer, please? Thank you.

[Gregory Lick]

In this particular case, one of the reasons I came forward, and all of my predecessors before me had come forward, was to ask for greater independence, in particular reporting to Parliament as an officer of Parliament. It is to ensure that, as I said when I talked about the grievance system, there is greater trust that there is a completely independent—and perceived to be completely independent—organization that has oversight over, in this case, the Department of National Defence and the military. This is to ensure confidence in the system, that this organization is independent.

Over the years, we have seen interference in our office. We have seen our authorities changed without consultation. All those elements of administrative interference and direct interference cause issues of confidence. They also cause us some inability to carry out [Technical difficulty—Editor].

One of the main reasons I asked for that independence was to be able to escalate a particular issue, whatever it might be, beyond just the minister. The minister—whatever minister and whatever party—is always a member of a certain party, and the issues that affect the military.... The military is a Canadian institution that is critical to all Canadians and needs to be heard by those who represent all Canadians, which is Parliament, and not to have any of the filters of any particular party in power as it goes forward.

In some cases, I may need to escalate that beyond Parliament and perhaps to the Prime Minister—any particular issues that we hear—because the importance of the military as a Canadian institution for national security is vital, and those issues, whatever they might be, need to be heard by Parliament. That is the main reason I've asked for greater independence.

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

Thank you very much.

Along the same lines, you asked to be able to report to Parliament rather than to the Minister of Defence. Last March, your predecessor, Mr. Walbourne, made the same request before you.

What is the status of that request? Do you feel that there is openness toward that request right now?

[Gregory Lick]

It's very difficult to speculate on what the government will do in that particular case. I have briefed the minister on this particular case, the same briefing that I've given to a number of audiences, including in my press conference last year and in the position paper that I put forward at that time.

The minister is very knowledgeable about governance issues as it reflects corporate governance. I think it was a good conversation, but I cannot say at this point in time where it will go. I will continue to push for it. I think it is the right thing to do.

Like every ombudsman before me, I came into this office thinking that I could work within the system to be able to support the defence community in achieving fairness, as much as we could, but I've seen very directly the issues that all the other ombudsmen before me have seen and, in this case, I came around to the opinion—very strongly held now—that independence in reporting to Parliament is the right thing to do for the defence community.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Normandin. That's six minutes.

Next is Ms. Mathyssen.

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

Thank you, Mr. Lick, for coming today.

You've spoken about this broken redress system quite often, and how it's undermining the belief of members of the military that they can get that swift, fair review of their complaints. How many cases actually meet the complaint deadline?

[Gregory Lick]

I'll ask Ms. Hynes to respond to that. We do have the details of that, and we can forward that to the committee later on as well.

Perhaps Robyn can respond just to summarize that particular response.

[Robyn Hynes]

Sure. I happen to have the grievance ones right in front of me.

In the Canadian Armed Forces, there are two levels of grievance. There's the initial authority and then there's the final authority. The initial authority grievance level has 120 days to respond. It used to be 90 and subsequently was increased to 120. At the final authority, there are actually no timelines associated with when final authority has to make a decision.

On the last numbers I have, for the grievances at initial authority there were 566, and 307 of those were pending a decision longer than four months. For the final authority grievance level—again, I'd be happy to provide these numbers afterwards—there were 687 files at final authority. Over 340 of them were waiting from one to four years for a decision, and 33 of them were still outstanding at four to nine years.

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

I mean, that's significant. That, of course, would have a huge impact in terms of people's faith, I guess, in that system. That would get around. That would go through the forces in terms of their understanding.

In the brief that you provided to this committee, you spoke a lot about families. You spoke about the care given—child care, housing care, family care, parents with children with special needs, and aging parents. That's a lot of what we talk about in terms of women and how that caring work falls on women. Is that the most common complaint you hear coming through to your office? Or what is the most common? Maybe you can give us an idea.

[Gregory Lick]

Robyn has a lot of those details. Certainly, the most common complaint we receive is around benefits. I will say, though, that when I do visit the bases and wings, obviously a bit more virtually nowadays, the most passionate points that come up are from families and from members who have family issues, whether it's child care, access to child care or affordable child care. I will say that there is a bit more optimism now with respect to affordable child care coming to everyone, but there will still continue to be some capacity issues until that catches up with everyone.

The most passionate individuals are those families with special needs children or families with disabilities. As they're posted from one base to another, in many cases they have to go to the bottom of a wait-list again. That is unconscionable. I've had to sit in various audiences with families where spouses are in tears about not being able to get their child's needs met and not being able to find a family doctor. That's something that many Canadians face, not just families of military members, but it is particularly problematic for those who have to move more often than a traditional Canadian family. Typically, they move three to four times, and they're dropped to the bottom of the wait-list for needs that are vital for their children. To me, that is unconscionable for the force, the organization that is defending us and putting their lives at risk.

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

I want to shift this a little. One of the things we heard consistently last year at the status of women committee through the study on sexual misconduct was the interference, of course, of the chain of command and how that impacted CFNIS and the SMRC. Have you seen a change in that? Have you seen a recognition of that problem, the role that the chain of command had played within investigations of sexual misconduct complaints, or have you not?

[Gregory Lick]

I would just reiterate for the committee that with regard to issues and complaints like that, which are criminal in nature, we will refer them to the proper law enforcement agency to deal with. That is not within our mandate to deal with.

As to the issues that are non-criminal in nature, it's hard to say at this point, I think, whether we're seeing a significant change in the chain of command properly dealing with them. I think we'll see that over time. I think the hope is that we'll see that over time. With the greater visibility of these things that we see in the media, I think there's a lot more heat and light on the chain of command to properly deal with these things.

In discussing this issue with the chief of the defence staff, he has very much said to me that he is holding these people to account, holding the chain of command to account. We will see; our job is to see that over time and see whether that is really happening.

Certainly, we will receive complaints every once in a while. Perhaps Robyn can give an example of one. We hear complaints over time that there are delays in getting a process or misconduct issue dealt with. That is very typical of some of the complaints we hear.

Perhaps Robyn can give you an example.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, we're going to have to leave it there. Hopefully you can work in your example somewhere else.

Colleagues, we are having our typical problem in that we have 25 minutes' worth of questions and 20 minutes of time. We'll start to have our own grievances coming forward if we don't respect our staff.

With that, Mr. Motz, go ahead for four minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Ombudsman Lick, it's good to see you again. Robyn, thank you for being here.

Sir, you mentioned that the most common grievances that you as an office are receiving have to do with benefits and family-related matters. When you say “benefits”, what specifically are you referring to? Do those involve the Phoenix pay system?

[Gregory Lick]

I'll answer the last [Technical difficulty—Editor] on the benefits question. Phoenix is definitely one of the questions and one of the complaints we receive from civilian employees of the department.

I'll ask Robyn to answer the first part of your question.

[Robyn Hynes]

Thank you.

On the benefits side, it's really anything to do with compensation and benefits. We get a lot of requests for information in this field. The CAF has a number of very complex policies and programs within it. A lot of the time people don't have a good understanding of what they might be entitled to.

We also see a number of complaints related to administrative delays in the receipt of those benefits. We also see some related to outdated policies on benefits. The ombudsman mentioned earlier the post living differential. Home equity assistance is also one that we hear about. On the civilian side, the largest one on the benefits side, as the ombudsman alluded to, definitely relates to pay and the impacts of the Phoenix pay system.

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

Thank you.

This is more of a statement than anything. I guess I've always been troubled since, with the military base in my riding, we have dozens of individuals who have had Phoenix pay system issues that haven't been resolved, in some cases for up to several years. These affect pensions, income tax paid and collected, and whatever else. They've called and called and called to get those issues resolved within the military, within the Phoenix pay system. Yet, when the MP's office calls, generally we have those resolved within four to six weeks.

I don't understand why, when the employees themselves call, the department doesn't take it as seriously. We've actually been told by the department that unless an MP office phones, they don't pay any attention to them, which is really sad.

Mr. Lick, you indicated that you have backlogs, and Robyn provided us the timelines. Are those backlogs related to the time between complaint and resolution? Which has taken longer? Is it the investigation? Why is there a backlog? Is there a backlog in getting ministerial support or chain of command support to deal with a complaint, or is the backlog within your particular office with staffing or funding? What does that all look like?

[Gregory Lick]

When we're talking about the backlog, we're talking about the backlog in the grievance system itself, which is the internal mechanism available—in this case to military members we're speaking about—within the department. It's not within our office per se.

We see some of the same situations you were just talking about, such that if we call with respect to a grievance, we will sometimes see a quicker response and quicker action on that.

We try to do that only when there are compelling circumstances. Just because you call us, our role is not to put you up at the top of the queue, because if we did that every time somebody called us, that would be unfair. Where we see there are compelling circumstances...and every situation is a little bit different. There are a variety of reasons for that. This is one of the reasons we will be doing a systemic investigation into recourse mechanisms next year.

We feel it is not simply a resource issue. We've seen that over the decades. Throwing resources at it gets it down for a short while, but it comes back. Why? That is the answer we want to delve deeply into.

I have some ideas—