National Defence Committee on April 25th, 2022

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you very much.

Very quickly, please just answer yes or no to the questions.

Training is done through the private sector for veterans as they transition, and I think you've said that there wouldn't be a problem with training our recruits for cyber the same way. It's done right here in Ottawa at Willis College.

What about the idea of compulsory service, for example, a paid summer service by a high school graduate or someone in university? Is that of any use to open up to diversity and all these other aspects, yes or no?

[Dr. Youri Cormier]

I think voluntary armies have historically been very effective. I wouldn't want to go towards a conscription model unless there's a crisis.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Aside from military college being paid for through ROTP, at one time, I believe, there was funding of a university education by the military with a promise or a requirement of service for a set number of years afterwards. Right now, this only applies to going to military university.

Is there any—

[Dr. John Cowan]

That's not true. There are hundreds of people who are subsidized going through the regular officer training program in civilian universities. The ROTP is not just in the two military colleges. The system that you're referring to still exists.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Is that for more than just doctors and dentists? I know that they sign up.

[Dr. John Cowan]

Yes, there are large numbers.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Okay, so we—

[Dr. Youri Cormier]

I was going to add to that. On the question of ROTP, when you go to RMC, you're subsidized on a half-a-million-dollar scholarship. What's kind of sad in all of this is that, when we talk to admissions officers and professors who are currently in those institutions, they've regularly told me that they have a sense that they're having to go deeper into the barrel to find the candidates. They're not getting the right recruits, and the quality of the people who are in, year after year, has been on the decline.

If we're still spending half a million dollars to get subpar potential officers or mediocre arrivals.... Obviously that's not the majority of people, but when you look at a classroom and you have five or six who are very poor, you wonder how on earth they got themselves a half-a-million-dollar scholarship as well as five years of pensionable work in the military.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you.

[Dr. Youri Cormier]

We have to find a way to limit how deep we go into the barrel.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

You just answered my next question, which was whether or not we needed a military college, but if we're diving deep into the barrel now, then I guess that's a no.

I believe at one time there were seats set aside in medical school for doctors. I'm not sure whether or not that was the case—I'd like to know if it was—and would it be beneficial to have x number of seats set aside for the military?

Right now you have to qualify to medical school in order to have it paid by the military, but if it were the other way around and you had people at RMC who qualified or who wanted to become doctors, but the competition is just too great for them to do so.... Is there a way? Would it be productive?

We're short of doctors all across Canada. When they're done their military careers, they can serve in the private sector as well. Would it be feasible to have, say, at Queen's University, an additional number of positions at medical school set aside specifically for the military?

[Dr. John Cowan]

There already are. I had a hand in overhauling the so-called military medical training program some years ago at a point when the Canadian Armed Forces were extremely short of physicians. They weren't getting into the medical schools. The military medical training program existed, but the applicants weren't getting in. They were getting to the point of being interviewed, but they then would not engage in the self-aggrandizement at interviews that seems necessary to get into one of the Canadian medical schools.

I and some of my colleagues negotiated supernumerary positions both at the University of Ottawa and at Queen's University. The University of Ottawa was chosen because it's bilingual. I think there were four positions at the U of O and a couple at Queen's. If people got to the interview stage, that is to say that they met the academic requirement to go to medical school, and they were already in the armed forces, we would be able to pay for them to go through as supplementary positions.

The interesting thing was that, as soon as we did that, all of a sudden, huge numbers of people started being successful getting into the regular quotas in the medical schools. What had happened was that people in the armed forces had been demotivated about applying to the MMT program because they figured that nobody would back them up. As soon as the department went ahead and made a few subsidized positions, all of a sudden, a lot of the top people who could do it applied and got in to the regular medical school stream.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Madam Gallant.

Self-aggrandizement in the medical school...what a concept. My goodness.

I think it's Mr. May for the final five minutes.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both of you for helping us round out this study.

We've heard a number of times, and with other witnesses as well, that the effect of life in the forces on family is part of the issue with retention and likely part of the issue with recruitment when candidates are evaluating whether or not this is the right career for them.

It would seem that this is inherently part of military life. Can we do something to lessen that impact on the family?

Mr. Cowan, maybe we'll start with you.

[Dr. John Cowan]

One suggestion that I put in my brief, which will eventually come out of translation, is that there remains more to be done in making sure that, when people qualify for a particular trade within the armed forces, the qualification is also the certification that's required to carry that out in a civilian setting. That's part of being a good employer, so that people know that, if the situation arises where a particular move just isn't possible, perhaps because of a spouse's occupation, their employer has protected them.

The old concept of retention, where you build a fence around people so they can't get out, is not really very logical.

Being a good employer would include some of these things. To be fair to the department, they've done that for many of the non-commissioned member trades in recent years, but there's a lot more to be done.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Canada, of course, is a uniquely large country and a low-density country. Does that play a role in the challenges associated with relocation of family, base location and those sorts of things?

That's for Mr. Cowan, but Mr. Cormier might like to jump in on that one.

[Dr. Youri Cormier]

To me it's a clear “yes” that it would have an impact, but to what extent do we...? You're not going to move bases any time soon.

When it comes to family, most of the folks in the military that I know actually have a family. Working in the military hasn't been a total impediment to having a good family life, but whether or not we can do little things.... Sometimes it's just having that flexibility built into the system where if someone's spouse needs to go somewhere in the military and they can't do it, they would be able to leave the military for a year. They could just say that they'll be out for a couple of seconds, but they'll be right back in. That can help.

As long as there's flexibility built into a career in the forces, you'll find all kinds of ways to give satisfaction to the members of the forces and make sure they always want to come back—that they can't wait to come back.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

We've talked a lot about different adaptations and things the military is trying to do.

I'm going to ask this of both of you.

What should be our first step? What one single step could we take right now—today—that needs to be done before anything else?

[Dr. Youri Cormier]

I'd start by leveraging civil society. There are organizations like mine, like CDA Institute. Why are we not having regular conversations and bringing DND to have access to our base?

We have people all across the country. Tens of thousands of subscribers and students in every university across the country are part of our community. There are missed opportunities to leverage organizations like our own and others. These could help with recruitment and access to these communities that are being targeted.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Cowan.

[Dr. John Cowan]

Mr. May, I don't think there's a single silver bullet for this, but I do list 11 things in the brief that will eventually come to you. They're sort of at the top of my hit parade. Some of them are actually not very difficult. It would be great if a significant number of them could be done.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

This will probably be my last question, Mr. Chair.

To follow up on that, Mr. Cowan, I asked this of the earlier panel. Are any of our allies or any countries around the world doing a good job with recruitment and retention? Are there any that we could and should be looking at to see if we can adapt those choices they've made for the Canadian Armed Forces?

[Dr. Youri Cormier]

I think Ukraine is doing a great job of recruiting people, not only nationally but internationally. It comes down to what I was saying in my opening remarks: If you have a noble purpose and success in your missions, I think you can really convince a lot of people to join you.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Cowan.

[Dr. John Cowan]

I was involved in some retention studies a few years ago. I don't think we're doing too badly on retention. I think that the area of the biggest deficit is on the recruiting end. When you see my recommendations, you'll see that, while there are some recommendations on retention, I don't think our deficit there is as severe.