National Defence Committee on April 25th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, we're going to have to get into that vision in another question. I apologize for cutting you off.

Mr. Spengemann, you have five minutes.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Chair, thank you very much.

Dr. Cormier and Dr. Cowan, thank you for being with us this afternoon.

I would like to start with an area we touched on but did not dive into with an in-depth assessment. That is the question of work satisfaction and the work environment.

A number of years ago, members of this committee had occasion to travel to Mali to look at the Canadian Forces' contribution to MINUSMA and the air medical evacuation mechanism, which is a state-of-the-art example. We had a crew of physicians and health care workers in the armed forces staffing the Chinook helicopters. There was extraordinary work and innovation with respect to bringing plasma further into the field, which results in a much higher survival rate for members of that mission who may come into peril.

How important is the work environment to retention? Could you talk a bit about the components of the work environment? I'm thinking specifically about training, including very complex multilateral and multinational training. How much of that is part of work satisfaction? In addition, could you comment briefly on overseas deployments?

I ask either or both of the witnesses.

[Dr. John Cowan]

I'm not sure how germane it would be, but I think satisfaction comes with accomplishment. Accomplishment comes from being adequately prepared to make that accomplishment.

Youri already touched on the business of trying to draw in people who are mid-career and not drawing them in at the bottom. I have never understood the reluctance to do this. After all, it has always been done, for example, for physicians, who are not brought in at the lowest officer rank. Okay, that's a traditional high-skills occupation, but there are many modern high-skills occupations. Not only that, if you look at Canada's history, every time we have a really big emergency, like wartime, we bring in a lot of people laterally at the middle levels.

I think if we are a little more fluid about going after people who actually have the knowledge we want, greater job satisfaction will automatically follow.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Cormier, do you have a comment on training, deployment, overseas work, the typical peacekeeping operations work and components of that, and on how important the component of work satisfaction is?

[Dr. Youri Cormier]

Without data on that, I would prefer not to comment.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

All right.

[Dr. John Cowan]

I could make one small comment.

Most of my interlocutors who have discussed this sort of thing with me have said that it is a bit demotivating to spend much of your adult life preparing to do things you never actually do. The foreign deployments are critical in overcoming that negativity in people who have spent years preparing to carry out work they never actually do carry out.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you for that.

I'm going to be very careful in the way I phrase this. The demographics we're trying to bring into the Canadian Forces in larger numbers may come, or tend to come, from cultures where service in the armed forces has a stigmatizing, potentially negative and maybe even dangerous history.

To what extent are the Canadian Forces looking at the cultures we would like to see represented in greater numbers and doing some analysis on whether service in the armed forces is actually something those cultures would embrace? If not, how could the Canadian Forces reposition themselves to become a better employer of choice?

[Dr. Youri Cormier]

I would argue that there has been very focused attention on reaching out to certain communities, and on working with elders and those communities closely, and that it actually pays off. In Vancouver and Toronto, there are reserve forces that are very diverse as a result of this.

I don't think we need to worry too much. We need to do more of what we're already doing very well in certain regions of Canada.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you for that.

Let's do this very briefly, since I have 30 seconds.

The civil service is using the lateral entry model on the civilian side through the recruitment of policy leaders and other initiatives. There may be parallels for analysis. Have either of you looked at those and made the argument that it's already being done successfully on the civilian side, so why can't we do more on the military side?

[Dr. John Cowan]

I absolutely agree. There's no contest there.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have two and a half minutes, Madame Normandin.

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

Thank you very much.

Dr. Scoppio, who was on the previous panel, mentioned that the issue was not so much recruiting Francophones, but rather retaining them. Dr. Cormier, I was wondering if you had explored that in your study.

If you'd like to discuss this as well, Mr. Cowan, I'd be happy to hear your comments.

[Dr. Youri Cormier]

During my years in the Canadian Armed Forces, I never got the sense that less room was made for Francophones than Anglophones. However, I do agree that, to be polite, Quebeckers often start speaking English as soon as an Anglophone says something. The phenomenon is not unique to the forces.

Still, I feel that more could be done to make both French and English speakers more comfortable. I wouldn't go so far as to say the situation caused Francophones to leave the forces or that it hurt recruitment efforts. I never felt that.

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

No studies have been done on the matter, however, whereas many have been done on the status of women, minorities, LGBTQ+ diversity and so on.

Would it be appropriate to do a study on the matter, given that Francophones remain a large group of potential recruits?

[Dr. Youri Cormier]

Absolutely. It makes me want to do it. I'm going to speak to my team about it.

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

That's wonderful.

I see that Mr. Cowan doesn't seem to want to add anything.

I will now go back to the question of culture. Dr. Cormier, you mentioned the t‑shirt matter earlier. It made me think of a personal story. An acquaintance of mine who is in the military was brought in to train recruits. She told me that, unlike in her day, members of the military are no longer allowed to yell at one recruit, but they can yell at a group. This method is even recommended.

Should they change the way training is delivered, especially to recruits? Should the culture change right out of the gate?

[Dr. Youri Cormier]

That's not easy. I know the trend is towards not using the method where the sergeant yells at his recruits, as seen in the movie Full Metal Jacket. Also, in the military, people feel that the job at hand is extremely important and you can't compromise on the quality of that job. Do you need to yell to get it done? It may not be necessary, but the job certainly requires standards and rigour that leave no room for compromise, and yelling is one way to foster exceptional professionalism.

I believe that's the point of this method. Is it the best method? Maybe there are other methods too. At the end of the day, it's important not to compromise on quality.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Madame Normandin.

Ms. Mathyssen is next.

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

There are a lot of comments around not reinventing the wheel and on how there were lots of programs that the military started with but that they maybe didn't continue on with. Maybe you could both comment on that.

There has been a recommendation, of course, and a full implementation of the women in force program. That was a pilot project. Could you could comment on that and its effectiveness?

Also, the armed forces used to send recruiters into first nations rural and remote communities and they had a lot of good response to that, but that has declined. Would that also be something to go back to in terms of that recruitment and retention piece?

[Dr. Youri Cormier]

One of the challenges—

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

That's for both of you, by the way.

[Dr. Youri Cormier]

I'll start with the rural one. It's an important question, because historically that has been the place where you go to find lots of recruits quickly: rural Quebec and rural New Brunswick. Those are places that historically were providing a lot of military.

Unless you rethink how you're doing recruitment and advertising, there are just not that many young people in those parts of Canada, compared to the number of young people who are currently in the Toronto or Vancouver areas. There are parts of Canada we're not recruiting enough from as a result of having models of recruitment that might be slightly outdated and that are not in line with the current demographics in certain regions of Canada that historically were providing a lot of recruits.

[Dr. John Cowan]

From the list, I would say there remain communities—and this was touched on a few minutes ago—where there are concerns that parents have about letting their children align with what looks like an authority structure in this society. This is true of new arrivals in Canada. This is true in certain other communities.

The recruiting system is used to just dealing with the applicants, and Youri is absolutely right. To start to make inroads into those groups, those entities, it's important that the recruiting system also engage the community leaders and the parents. It's not enough just to deal with the applicants to change attitudes about people joining what the social world they're in may see as an authority structure they're not comfortable with.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Mathyssen.

Ms. Gallant, you have five minutes.