Evidence of meeting #67 for National Defence in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was recommendations.
A recording is available from Parliament.
External Monitor, As an Individual
Well, they're two separate things. The idea of the probation is to ensure that you are able to quickly dismiss people who have toxic views or behaviours.
Retention is a whole other set of efforts going on because, of course, the CAF needs to not only attract people, but it needs to keep them, so they have to work on that aspect, too.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
That's right.
Has any connection been drawn between the implementation of the Arbour recommendations and the highest attrition levels in 15 years at the Canadian Armed Forces?
External Monitor, As an Individual
The CAF regularly looks at why people are leaving. It analyzes that non-stop.
Conservative
External Monitor, As an Individual
There are a lot of surveys being conducted. It wants to know why people are leaving. It's really calculated this: Okay, at x number of years, why are they leaving—men, women...? It constantly looks at that information.
Liberal
Liberal
Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Madame Therrien, thank you so much for joining us today.
Your report notes that your next report will focus on several areas from the IECR that you have not yet reported on, including recruitment and complaints and grievances, among others.
Can you inform this committee about what's happening between now and the next status report in October with regard to these areas?
External Monitor, As an Individual
Just to be clear, it's not that I haven't done any work on those areas yet. There have been a lot of meetings and a lot of discussions on complaints and grievances, on recruitment and retention, on promotions. I wanted to do a more thorough look before I commented on those. That's what we're doing now.
We're deep diving into all of these things, along with a few other things like the Declaration of Victims Rights. That's not something that comes up in any of the.... Well, I shouldn't say that. Former justice Fish brought it up. It came into force only in June 2022, around the same time that the Arbour report was released. We're doing the rest of the Arbour report but also a few other aspects.
Liberal
Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON
With the complexity of all of these recommendations and all the different steps, as you say, can you suggest how we can better communicate the important steps toward culture change that the government is making at this point?
External Monitor, As an Individual
One of the points I made in the opening statement is that never has this organization been so informed as to what it needs to do. For all of these recommendations, it has consulted internally, quite intensively, but also externally. It knows what it has to do if it wants to do this. It knows what it needs to do, but it needs to plan it out. It needs to know which ones are the most critical ones for culture change and then get on with those, making sure the resources are attached to them.
If committee members have ideas as to which ones are more critical, I suppose it's always a good idea to relate that information.
Liberal
Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON
The CPCC was created in the spring of 2021 to unify and integrate all the associated culture change activities across DND and the CAF. You've talked about them in your report with regard to education and training.
In your opinion, can the CPCC help in the issue around the strategic planning outlined in the conclusion of your report?
Liberal
Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON
Excellent.
Maybe elaborate a little bit about why you feel that way.
External Monitor, As an Individual
It's because it is the functional authority now on culture change and professional conduct. It's its job.
At the same time, there are all these other organizations within the larger department that have things to say about it. However, somebody has to lay out a plan.
Liberal
Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON
Can you tell us very quickly who, in your opinion—which senior leader within the CAF—should be responsible for developing that strategic plan?
External Monitor, As an Individual
I believe that the CPCC is currently drafting it and that it will go straight up to the top.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, Mr. May.
That brings our second round of questioning to a close.
On behalf of the committee, Madame Therrien, I want to thank you. I particularly want to thank you for your flexibility on time constraints, but you've been around this place for quite a while, and you appreciate that things don't always work according to clocks.
I anticipate that we will see you again, possibly around the release of your second report.
With that, again, thank you.
Colleagues, we can go two ways here. We can suspend and go in camera or....Let's put it this way. We have three things to talk about. We have the travel. We have how to incorporate the Veterans Affairs evidence. We have to pass the budget for the procurement study. I can do two out of three things in public, but maybe not the third.
The analysts tell me that they feel that they can incorporate these 27 pages of evidence that are available into their draft report. If they say they can do it, then we don't have to go in camera, and we'll save a little time.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
We have to go in camera for one thing, for sure, right?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
We can discuss the travel in public, and we can discuss the budget in public.
Conservative
Liberal
Liberal
