Evidence of meeting #99 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 ombudsman.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
5:25 p.m.
Former Ombudsman, National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual
Absolutely.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Again, we should be entitling this “Not Their First Rodeo”, Mr. Chair.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
Chad Collins Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Welcome to both of the witnesses. You gave terrific testimony.
Mr. Walbourne, I've been in public life for many years. I've found that when you deal with problem areas of an organization, sometimes it takes someone such as you to shine a light on a problem to try to raise awareness and create a healthy tension to implement change. I've found over the years that where there's push-back, sometimes it requires policy changes, as you and Mr. White have highlighted here today. Sometimes it requires a change in personnel among leadership that just doesn't want to buy in. Sometimes it's gone on for so long in an area of an organization that it's embedded in the organization. To use Ms. Mathyssen's term earlier, you need wholesale “culture change”.
You've been at this for a number of years. Most would point to you and say that you're an expert in this field. When you've implemented policy changes and changed leadership or you've done both and you still haven't found a change, what are the next steps?
5:30 p.m.
Former Ombudsman, National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual
I think we've talked around it a bit here today. It has to be about developing a system where we reward proper behaviour and punish inappropriate behaviour. I talked about my personal case. There were eight or 10 people involved and every one of them was promoted. What do you think their underlings now see as the proper way to move ahead in the organization?
Mr. White talked about discretion inside the military chain of command and someone who didn't get a posting. When his colleague sees how that works and gets the chance to be in a place of command or obtain something for his benefit, he's going to use the same behaviour.
We all talk about culture change and how we're going to change the culture. We go on ad nauseam about it, but what do we do? We don't go after what's causing the culture to be broken, which is the behaviour of individuals in the culture. Unless we want to weed those people out and start rewarding proper behaviour and punishing bad behaviour, we can talk about culture until the cows come home, but it's not going to change.
5:30 p.m.
Liberal
Chad Collins Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Thank you for that.
We've seen that culture change happen in other areas. I'll point to the entertainment industry as a great example. In amateur sports here in Canada, I think we've made strides in encouraging people to report.
Mr. White, you talked about encouraging people to report and the reprisals that came with trying to seek out more information. The more information we have when there's an investigation, the better opportunity we have to pass judgment on those who have done something wrong.
Can you talk about the importance of having a system in place that allows and actually encourages people to proactively report wrongdoing when they see it?
5:30 p.m.
As an Individual
I think the basics of the system exist. The system that I would say needs to be fixed is the people system. It's the people version of that system, which is about making sure that when you report to someone, they're willing to take it on.
Here's my interpretation of the obligations of superior officers. If a subordinate came to me to report wrongdoing and after I reported it to my boss I was not satisfied that my boss was going to do the proper thing, I would have an obligation—not an option, not a chance—to take that further.
In my particular case, I'm the most junior member—the person who was victimized in this situation—and I've had to fight every step of the way. I've given you the names of all the commanding officers and superior officers who have knowledge of this. Why is it being driven by those individuals?
In the system, what is severely lacking is, effectively, an internal champion or people who wouldn't be punished for saying, “I respectfully disagree with the boss's opinion; I need to go talk to their boss.” It's seen inherently as insubordination.
5:30 p.m.
Former Ombudsman, National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual
Can I just add to that?
5:30 p.m.
Former Ombudsman, National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual
You asked how Hollywood and athletics have changed. They have changed because the public spotlight got shone on them. They didn't change because we allowed an internal unit inside either one of those entities to report upon itself. That's not how they changed. They changed because the public became outraged about the behaviour. Why did the public become outraged? It was because it became public knowledge. It was put above the tabletop: Here it is in its ugly truth; let's deal with it.
5:30 p.m.
Liberal
5:30 p.m.
Liberal
Chad Collins Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
It's hard for me to ask a question and get an answer in 30 seconds, but I'll reiterate my opening comments that you've given terrific testimony here today.
I agree with Mr. Bezan that we should have you back when the legislation is back here. You've provided a lot of information for us to think about. I appreciate that you've taken time out of your day to do so.
April 17th, 2024 / 5:30 p.m.
Former Ombudsman, National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual
Thank you for that.
5:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
That completes our second round.
Colleagues, I propose that we go to a third round. We have the room for two more hours.
5:30 p.m.
Conservative
5:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
The bells aren't ringing, so we're not worried about that for the time being.
We'll commence the next five-minute round with Mr. Bezan.
Go ahead, Mr. Bezan.
5:30 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Thank you.
We're talking about culture and we're talking about cover-ups. One witness on the study already said there's a culture of overclassification at National Defence so they don't have to release anything. They can hide it using “secret” and “top secret”. We've already mentioned the use of code names, like when Vice-Admiral Norman was referred to as the “Kraken”, although some may say that is the common code name used for the commander of the Royal Canadian Navy. Then on top of that, as you've experienced, Mr. White and Mr. Walbourne, they rag the puck when it comes to slowly trickling out information under ATIPs and even requests for papers coming from committee. They take their sweet time about it.
What can we do to change that culture and provide checks and balances to ensure there is accountability in the leadership on both the Canadian Armed Forces side and the department side and to ensure that access to information is released in a timely manner? How do we fix this? You guys have both been on the inside.
5:35 p.m.
Former Ombudsman, National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual
Look, not to repeat myself, but let me repeat myself.
We're talking about people who have been put in positions of authority. There are guidelines on what they're supposed to do. They're well written. When I first joined the public service after a long stint in the private sector—I should have stayed there—what I was given was a thick binder. It didn't tell me just about how I should behave; it told me how I should dress and how I should present myself. It was a binder of about 200 pages on how executives should present themselves.
In it, they talked about ethics, being accountable, understanding the law and doing the right thing. It was an ethos, so I said, “What a place. Let's rock and roll.” However, it's funny that the farther you get up the ladder, the thinner the air gets—I'm sure that's what happens—and the blood rushes to their heads or their egos.
We have a system in place. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. We have the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act if someone wants to blow the whistle on something, but we see that system abused. We have an ATIP process that is supposed to follow a step-by-step, logical format in order to release information, and it's not followed. It's circumvented by people in the system.
How do we change the culture? I'll go back to this again: We have to start rewarding proper behaviour and punishing bad behaviour. Why do we promote people when they do the wrong thing? Others come forward and offer themselves up, saying, “Listen, guys, this is what's going wrong. Can we get a little help here?” Those people are turned on.
You absolutely have a fundamental flaw here, but it's not with your policies. Your policies need updating, sure they do, and you need to adjust a few, add a few things to them and bring in a few more nuances and codicils there, but what we have to get at is the behaviour of the people currently sitting in the seats.
I read the transcripts from when Mr. Matthews was here. He was asked a question about the ombuds model, and he said they have no control over the ombudsman's office. Then, in the next statement, he said they were thinking about loosening up some of the controls. Those two comments don't make sense. How is it you have no control and you're going to loosen the controls? It's one or the other.
We don't challenge people when they do things that are inappropriate and use and manipulate the rules and regulations in place to suit their needs. I think we have to get back to that.
5:35 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Would you both agree that it's a sad state of affairs when the Information Commissioner has to take the Department of National Defence and the Minister of National Defence to court?
5:35 p.m.
Former Ombudsman, National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual
Absolutely, and it was a sad state of affairs when I had to challenge the minister publicly to get information on the transition process of the Canadian Armed Forces. Here we go again.
It's not like this just happened yesterday. This is pattern behaviour, and if we allow it to continue, we'll be continuing this conversation. Patrick will be my age when we come back the next time, God bless him.
5:35 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!