National Defence Committee on April 27th, 2022

[Lieutenant-General Jennie Carignan, Chief, Professional Conduct and Culture, Canadian Armed Forces, Department of National Defence]

Thank you Mr. Chair, for the question.

Our programs are currently delivering what we call Respect in the CAF, which focuses on giving our participants better awareness about what sexual misconduct is, how it happens and how they can manage these situations in a better way. We have also undertaken various kinds of training and set forward training to foster an environment that is more inclusive so that these types of misconduct are mitigated or are less prevalent. For example, inclusive behaviour and inclusive leadership are part of the developments that we have also set in motion.

We have a multipronged approach in that space. It's not strictly about providing training. It's also about creating the environment and providing skills to leaders to foster the environment that will be less fostering to any type of sexual misconduct or misconduct as a whole.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Mathyssen.

Mr. Zimmer, welcome to the committee. You have five minutes.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you to our witnesses for appearing today.

As you know, Canada's role in the world follows a “peace through strength” kind of model. I think the challenges we've seen in past years have been about having adequate investments in the military. We're talking about retention. Our number one asset when it comes to the military is our people.

The Royal Military College of Canada's Sean Maloney has said that posture has to be maintained for us to be credible both to our potential enemies and to our allies.

My role, if you don't know, is to be shadow minister for northern affairs, Arctic sovereignty and northern economic development. I'm going to ask my questions based on the Arctic, the north and that perspective.

Having adequate people in the north is a concern to all Canadians, I believe, but if you live in the north and in the Arctic specifically, you're very concerned with the lack of presence of our military up there.

I have a couple of questions for you. How many military are stationed full-time in the north? I'll qualify the north as the Arctic area of Canada.

[LGen Frances J. Allen]

I'm afraid I probably can't give you the exact number. I would say our largest northern base would be Joint Task Force North in Yellowknife. That is where we have the greatest footprint.

There are, of course, Canadian rangers, who are stationed throughout northern communities and who perform an incredibly important role for us as it pertains to awareness and who provide support to communities and other types of support tasks that are needed when there's activity in the north that they can contribute towards.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Right. We certainly appreciate the rangers and all they do for our country.

What recruiting efforts exist to recruit that northern individual who likely will stay in the north once they've been trained? They'll come back and actually stay and serve out their time in the north. What are the efforts and what specifically are you doing to reach out to northerners to serve in the north? Also, what opportunities exist for those who want to stay in the north and serve actually close to their home communities?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Again, Mr. Zimmer has run right up to the five-minute mark. Maybe someone could work an answer in on the next round.

Mr. Fisher, go ahead for five minutes, please.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank our witnesses for being here, for their expert testimony and also for their service to our country. As a side note, General Bourgon, it's very nice to see you again. I spent some time with you when you were in Cole Harbour.

We had a witness last week or at the start of this week who talked about the recruitment process being slow and inefficient. We heard General Allen say today that there's intense competition. We also heard someone mention the other day—and I think General Brodie touched on it as well—marketing for recruitment.

Those things are all circling in my mind and then I think about universality of service and a comment that was made. I think it was General Bourgon who said that we must have a force that's deployable. I think about the modern.... I think it was General Whitecross who said that yesterday's war is different from today's war.

I'm going back to a question that sort of was already asked. Is universality of service absolutely necessary when we have trained people for cyber and we have to compete with the private sector to get those brilliant minds in the CAF? Do we have to insist that they are deployable if they're going to potentially spend most or much of their career looking at a computer screen?

Again, I'm thinking about the comments that were made Monday and today. I'm trying to bring it back full circle to whether we need to look at how we recruit and modernize the ways we do it, with maybe a little bit of give and take with all those things I just brought up.

[LGen Frances J. Allen]

It's an accurate assessment that the demands of the military life can differ amongst the different types of jobs that you have, the different types of roles that you play.

When we talk about universality of service, it truly is the baseline requirements to be able to be a CAF member. As you then move into each occupation, there are sometimes, I would say, higher or more stringent occupational requirements that require other skill sets, other capacities to be able to perform those functions. We don't want to confuse the two. If you can't meet the requirements for a particular occupation, but you can for a different occupation in the CAF, of course we want you to be able to be part of the Canadian Armed Forces and serve in that capacity. But as General Bourgon had outlined, the universality of service is truly what we believe are the minimum cognitive and physical requirements to be able to perform the range of duties that you can reasonably be expected to be called upon to do in your military service.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much for that, General.

Regarding permanent residents, I know we can do it; I know we can welcome members of that community to the CAF. Do we do it? How often do we do it? Is it part of our marketing strategy to look further into doing that?

[LGen Frances J. Allen]

Currently, to be a member of the Canadian Armed Forces you need to be a Canadian citizen going forward. There are some I would say very small exceptions as it pertains to permanent residents who have foreign military service that is desirable and needed within the Canadian Armed Forces, but those are a very few. I would not hold that up as a model for an efficient fast-tracking of permanent residents into the CAF if they're not Canadian citizens.

I do think there's space for us to be thinking about that particular model. It may be that General Brodie has some additional information that she would want to provide as it pertains to that entry and selection piece. I would leave that opportunity to her if she had something to add.

[BGen Krista Brodie]

Thank you.

What I will add is that we continue a long partnership with Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada to explore opportunities to increase the profile of candidates who are coming in as skilled foreign military applicants or more broadly across a broader spectrum of potential onboarding opportunities. What we have found historically is that from a numbers perspective, the value proposition has not weighed out in favour of that being a high enough priority to actually see the required policy, regulatory and legislative changes to allow that to happen.

We have been able to make very good inroads with respect to our employment equity and diversity recruiting in many sectors, but that is an option, I would say, as we adopt a modern mobilization mindset where really everything is on the table, and we look to advance these issues either as immediate stabilizing efforts, short- to mid-term modernization efforts or true transformative efforts.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We're going to have to leave it there, Mr. Fisher. Thank you.

Colleagues, we're running up to where the bells might start ringing, but we have 15 minutes from when the bells start ringing. I'm going to take a six-minute round and squeeze it down to a five-minute round, and that will probably take us to the end.

Mr. Motz, you're going to lead off with the five minutes, please.

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

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Generals, for being here, and thank you very much for your service.

I was intrigued, General Allen, with respect to a comment you made in a response to an earlier question from Mr. Fast about the 980 individuals who were denied their request for COVID consideration or for not following the mandate consideration, and the party line, I suppose, that you took with respect to moving forward with it: that when the mandates lift—and they will—the armed forces might still require that. I'm a little concerned about that. Will it have an impact on the capability to recruit?

I asked retired General Whitecross this question on Monday, and I'll put it to you, General Allen. Specifically, I know you're not retired, but in your role specific to retention and recruitment, in an ideal world, if you had one or two things where you could say that we need to fix this in the Canadian Armed Forces in order to properly retain and recruit people, what comes to mind for you off the top of your head with your experience in doing it? I'll certainly open it up to the rest of your staff to respond if you miss something.

This is an ideal world and you're in charge: What would you do?

[LGen Frances J. Allen]

In an ideal world, I think one of the things that we need to do is to have our policies more tailored to the realities that people face at different times of their career and to have the flexibility to be able to manage your professional demands and your family demands going forward.

On the initiatives that General Bourgon spoke about, the Seamless Canada initiatives, if we can get the level of provincial and federal supports to families and to military members for cross-border recognition of the qualifications of spouses, I think that goes a long way to actually making the demands of our lifestyle in the military easier. That makes staying in the military and having fulfilling careers less of a choice, it seems, that you're making between professional success and the success of your family.

In an ideal world, that is where I would focus: on creating those opportunities for flexibility at the different parts of people's careers where they need it, for men and for women.

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

I think Mr. May mentioned this earlier, and it was certainly mentioned by other witnesses. We talked about the universality of service. When we think of it, National Defence has the largest intelligence component in all of the apparatus of national security intelligence in our country, and not everybody in that particular realm is a regular forces warrior-mentality individual.

I'm wondering about this. If we're talking about cybersecurity and the need for cybersecurity, and then all the cyber/digital world that we're facing, would it not seem logical that there would be some serious relaxation of the universality of service? Even specific to certain career paths—there are 105 career paths, we've been told, or somewhere around that, within the armed forces—would it not make sense that we're trying to recruit the best people for these positions? Can latitude not be exercised in some of these?

[LGen Frances J. Allen]

What I would say is that I think that the workforce composition that's needed for different types of activity varies.

For an infantry platoon, it will be mostly military personnel. When we talk about the security and intelligence apparatus and those programs, that is a combination of skilled public servants, of allied capabilities and of military—soldiers, sailors, aviators. It is a combination.

Some of the work environments are a heavy investment in CAF members. Others are a hybrid of multiple different types of employees. While it may be that not everybody who works, as you say, in the intelligence domain, for example, is going to deploy all the time, those military members who are part of that organization do have to be able to perform the minimum military functions that are required, but we have the diversity.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Madam Lambropoulos, you have five minutes, please.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be splitting my time with Ms. O'Connell.

First of all, General, thank you for being here with us to answer our questions and for your great testimony.

Probably one of my only questions is whether you think the CAF is doing enough right now to recruit a diverse population. What are the programs in place, and what more could be done?

I don't know if you're allowed to give us your opinion on whether or not you think we should be opening it up to permanent residents. I know you spoke to this already, but could you maybe give your opinion on whether this would be beneficial or whether there are red flags that are stopping this from happening?

[LGen Frances J. Allen]

Certainly as it pertains to creating a more diverse representation within the Canadian forces, I think we must do it. We need to do better than we are right now.

We need to move forward on some of those targeted programs General Brodie spoke about and look to creating awareness and interest within elements of Canadian society that we wish to have as representative and part of the Canadian Armed Forces so that the forces reflects its Canadian citizens. The work of General Brodie's team is part of that, from some of the aboriginal youth programs and awareness programs through to working with communities across the country. That is something we have to work on.

As it pertains to entry into the Canadian Armed Forces, while being a citizen is one of the requirements currently in legislation, we also have to have people who have the capacity for us to make sure they can operate with the security clearance. Everybody is enrolled with reliability screening, so they need to be able to have a verifiable history. That's about efficiency and effectiveness more than anything else. Do we have the connections and the capacity to verify their history?

When you're talking about a 17-year-old, it's quite simple, as they have a fairly easily verifiable life. It becomes a little more complex with a 30-year-old who has not been in Canada for more than, say, three years, because then your capacity to have that time to do a background verification is more complex. That's not to say that somebody who becomes a citizen can't do that, but there are a number of considerations. It's not just about at entry.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you.

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

Thank you, Emmanuella, for sharing your time. Thank you, Generals, for being here.

My question is in regard to vaccination as well. On the RMC website, there's a list of things that are required for recruits to bring, and one of them is actually their vaccination booklet. RMC requires vaccination for things like measles, mumps and tetanus. Your vaccination status is required to enter education programs in this country.

On it, it says, “In addition to routine vaccines such as tetanus, the Canadian Armed Forces provides vaccines that protect against diseases to which you may be exposed on specific deployments”.

Does the Canadian Armed Forces have any intention of no longer requiring protection for its members from things like measles, mumps and malaria if they were to travel into those places, or is that something that is just political, as the Conservatives have suggested?

[LGen Frances J. Allen]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair. I am certainly not an expert on the specific vaccination requirements of all we have to have. I think we all have our little yellow books.

We do recognize that sometimes when we deploy CAF members to different parts of the world where there are diseases that are either endemic or not existing in Canada, we will require CAF members to be vaccinated so that they can safely carry out their duties in those locations. Those are, I would say, the additional vaccinations that may be required from the standard ones that people need to hold.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. O'Connell.

Ms. Chabot, you have five minutes.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you.

Your answer to my question about the French language in the forces showed me that you're aware of this issue and that it's important to you.

That said, is there currently a concrete plan to increase its place in training?

According to the testimony we've heard, training is done mainly in English and much less in French.

Do you have a concrete plan indicating your intention to work on this issue?