National Defence Committee on Feb. 12th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

That's quite a point of order. You don't get those every day. Are you going to promise not to be here?

Going back to something a little more serious than the title of a report that has yet to be written, Ms. Gallant talked about a protocol in her first question. Was it clear to you what she was asking for? Frankly, I wasn't clear what she was asking for.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

With respect to the allegation of sexual misconduct against a senior member of the service, or with respect to the matter of the—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

No, the initial question. Can we clarify that?

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

We learned over the weekend that sexual assault cases aren't automatically going to civilian court as Justice Arbour recommended, and the government accepted all her recommendations. When the evidence is transferred from the military to the civilian courts, how are you going to ensure...? What are the checks in the boxes you'll have to go through to make sure that every aspect of the evidence required for a hearing or trial is transferred to civilians?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you for that clarification.

I think that question is of relevance to the committee. I hope that between you and Mr. Matthews, the leadership can respond to the protocol she is asking for.

Is that clear? Is that a reasonable request?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

There is a responsibility for law enforcement if they have evidence to disclose it. That information should be going to the police that will be responsible for the investigation, and it therefore must also be disclosed in a fulsome way at any subsequent trial. Again, clarity is required here. I believe that clarity is best achieved through legislative change to the National Defence Act. We'll be talking more about that in the weeks to come.

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

Let's get the steps, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Well, I'm rather hoping that we get, in the current situation, how the reference to civil authorities goes and what information is included in the transfer of the file. That seems to be a reasonable request, given that this is a transparency exercise and this was one of the most significant recommendations of the Fish commission.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Chair, all relevant information must be disclosed to the police that are conducting the investigation.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

That seems to be the only way, actually, it should go.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Of course. Anything else would be an obstruction.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Right.

The final five minutes go to Madam Lambropoulos.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for being with us today to answer some of our questions.

The first question I have is asking for clarification on something you said earlier, because during your remarks, I found that it was quite quick. You said that in 26% of cases, there was a nil response to a request, and I'm asking what the reason was specifically. You had given a couple of reasons why that would be the case.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

There are several different reasons why they may provide a nil response. The retention period for a document may have passed and the document may no longer exist. It may also be a circumstance where the information being sought by an applicant is not tracked by the department, so that information may not be kept. Under those circumstances, if somebody asked for information that does not exist or that no longer is retained by the department, because of either the passage of time.... A retention record exists for various records, and if that period of time is exceeded, it may no longer be available.

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

Is it possible that there are cases that don't fall into either of those categories and that get a nil response?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Is your question whether there might be circumstances other than the two circumstances?

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

Yes.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Of course. It's always a possibility, but I can't cite them right now as a hypothetical.

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

Okay. How are we addressing the situation?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Again, the digitization of records will enable us to have better and quicker access to and better retention of this information. At the same time, if the information did not exist in the first place.... If someone makes an application for it and says they want to know it but we don't have that information, that will still be the response.

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

You also mentioned that you are cracking down on senior leader compliance. Currently, the act states that there are consequences for non-compliance. I'm wondering what the current consequences are that someone may face if they are not compliant. What changes are you thinking of implementing to make it even more strict?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

I'll turn to the deputy minister, because the staff who receive many of these requests are his.

[Bill Matthews]

There are a few things. Number one, General Eyre and I have both written to our assistant deputy ministers, three-star officers, etc., to remind them of obligations and importance. We've talked about mandatory training. We've also started raising this regularly during meetings. We talk performance with our staff and ask about their plan to improve things.

There are two things I would say here. Some of the challenges come because of the volume in certain groups, but we have also learned there is no standard approach throughout the department on how the request gets treated once it leaves the corporate secretary.

The request comes in. The corporate secretary assigns it out to multiple places. In addition to the tools the minister mentioned, we're looking to standardize the process there so we can use the best of the best and have digitization. If we don't see progress, that will be factored into discussions on an ongoing basis, but the first ask is to talk to me about the plan for a group. We also have the corporate secretary and friends working on a broader digitization-automation-paperless process.

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

Thank you very much.

I'm wondering if in a general sense you can tell us about how the recommendations and rulings from the Information Commissioner are going to be applied to DND. Obviously, the Information Commissioner tries to improve access to information. I'm wondering what specifically your main takeaways have been from that. What is the plan moving forward?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

I appreciate the recommendations from the Information Commissioner. The recommendations are being discussed within our management team to see how we can make improvements to our processes. At the same time, there also needs to be a significant effort and emphasis, as the deputy minister has already indicated, on the scrutiny of compliance with our requirements to get this done.

There are also issues, in my experience, with respect to having adequate personnel to respond to these matters in a timely way. That still represents a fairly significant concern for us, because we don't have the ability to add more people. It's a matter of moving people into those areas, which is a great priority.