Good afternoon. It is my privilege to provide my perspective to inform the committee's study on recruitment and retention in the Canadian Armed Forces.
I am in Kingston, and I would like to briefly acknowledge that Kingston is located on traditional land of the Anishinabe, the Haudenosaunee and the Huron-Wendat. I'm grateful to live and work on these lands.
I will speak on my own behalf, based on my research over the past 20-plus years, which has focused on diversity in the military in Canada and elsewhere.
The Canadian Armed Forces, or CAF, do not reflect Canada’s rich cultural, ethnic, religious and gender diversity. Despite past and current efforts to meet their employment equity goals for representation rates of women, visible minorities and indigenous people, the CAF has failed to meet these goals and has consequently failed to achieve true diversity and inclusion across the organization. This in turn negatively affects operational effectiveness and the legitimacy of the armed forces in the eyes of Canadian society.
There are many reasons for these institutional failures, including the historical reactionary approach of the CAF towards social and cultural change due to its closed, traditional and patriarchal organizational culture; its apparent inability to learn lessons from past mistakes; its hierarchical structures, embedded in the slow bureaucratic systems of the Department of National Defence; unclear accountability; systemic issues related to sexual assault and sexual misconduct; and discrimination towards members who are different from the majority of the CAF membership, who are mainly white, male, heterosexual and Christian.
Specifically in regard to CAF recruiting and retention, over the past 20-plus years several studies and reports by external authorities, the Auditor General of Canada, researchers within the Department of National Defence—such as me—and others outside of DND have collectively identified many problems in these areas. Among the issues I have observed and reported on, the following stand out in the areas of recruiting and retention, listed in no particular order.
Number one, the CAF recruiting system has been inefficient and slow. Number two, there has been inadequate and not timely follow-up with candidates who have applied and not yet received an offer and to provide feedback and timings on each step to the candidates. Number three is a lack of follow-up with those who have rejected offers of employment by the CAF to gain an understanding of the reasons for the rejection. Number four is inadequate or missing data on CAF applicants disaggregated by gender and other intersecting identities, as well as by foreign-born status. Number five, CAF recruiters have not sufficiently reflected the cultural, ethnic and gender diversity of the Canadian population. Number six, CAF recruiting postings have not been seen as key career posts towards promotion.
Number seven, training for CAF recruiters has been insufficient on issues of diversity, equity and inclusion, unconscious bias and related topics. Number eight, not enough information is provided to prospective applicants on the wide spectrum of CAF occupations, as well as on realistic job previews, including family supports. Number nine is that there are insufficient marketing and outreach activities specifically tailored to women, visible minorities, indigenous peoples and other minority groups. Number 10 is insufficient recruiting programs aimed at attracting diverse applicants, aside from the valuable CAF recruiting programs for indigenous people and the 2017 pilot of the women in force program, which, to my knowledge, has never been run again.
Number 11 is scarce or lacking exit interviews with members who are releasing from the CAF. Number 12 is that CAF training and educational activities related to diversity, equity and inclusion have been inadequate, incoherent and uncoordinated. Number 13, the security clearance system has been extremely slow. Last but certainly not least is the requirement of being a Canadian citizen to join the CAF.
Many recommendations have been made to address the issues mentioned, and several more. However, often recommendations have been ignored, they have been acknowledged but not properly implemented, or the implementation has not been tracked and results have not been accounted for. As such, the problems have become endemic.
Ultimately, if social and cultural change is to occur across the CAF, and to restore Canada’s respect and trust in its military, swift actions need to be taken, from recruiting to attraction and retention. These actions need to be tracked, results must be measured, and the leadership must be held accountable.
At the same time, appropriate financial resources and personnel need to be allocated to implement any new activities, programs and processes. As they say, a vision without resources is a hallucination.
This concludes my opening statement. Thank you. Meegwetch.
