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.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Down the road, we're going to be studying Bill C-66 with changes to the military justice system. Both of you have had extensive experience, unfortunately from a negative standpoint, with military justice and the way it's been carried out.
Would you be prepared to appear as witnesses on Bill C-66 as well?
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
We have to get it to committee. I'm sure you'll put forward that request.
We'll go to Ms. Lambropoulos for five minutes.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to both of our witnesses for being here and for your testimony. I know you're both here to make the system better, and I appreciate that.
My questions are for Mr. White.
You said something that I found quite interesting. Actually, your whole testimony was eye-opening, interesting and unfortunate. One thing you said that stood out to me was that in order to change the culture, you have to make people “more afraid of doing wrong than doing right”.
I think one of the big reasons why justice isn't really served within the military is that people are afraid of coming out and complaining. I know it's gotten better. I think the complaints have increased because people have heard that changes are going to be made. Have those actually happened? They haven't yet, from what I'm hearing.
I'm wondering if you can explain a bit further why people are afraid and what consequences could be placed against someone. I'm new to the idea of that. Could you express it?
As an Individual
As I stated before the ethics committee when the question of reprisals came up, reprisals can be varied. They can be numerous. They can come in many forms and can very often be hard to detect. Where there is discretion, command authority or an opportunity to decide things, the root of the abuses of power can exist. As I said, fundamentally, we're dealing with an accountability and abuse of power problem.
For example, you might complain about something, and then all of a sudden, for a posting you really wanted and might have been the most qualified for, well, as that's a discretionary decision, command has gone in a different direction. It could be emails attacking your credibility. I've experienced that.
The challenge is that there's supposed to be a military ethos, a code of ethics that is supposed to shame people and make them feel like they're doing wrong when they step outside of it. The problem is the incentive structure of the forces. If you're choosing a lifelong career in the forces, you risk not being promoted. You risk being thrust aside. You miss all kinds of opportunities, so the incentive could be that you're just going to keep quiet, keep your head down and do what the boss wants until you're the boss. Then, maybe, you can nudge the ball forward on things.
I could answer this question for an hour, but I'll stop there.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
I think that exists in most organizations, unfortunately.
What do you think needs to change? You said people need to be “more afraid of doing wrong than doing right”. Can you give us an example of what exactly would allow that to happen?
As an Individual
The short answer is that we need to move from a system of whistle-blower reprisals to a system of whistle-blower protections.
I would like to highlight on the record, for those who might take issue with the manner in which I've communicated certain information today, that I've been fighting this for five and a half years. I'd like to know why, at any point in the last five and a half years, this couldn't have been dealt with by any of the command authority that exists within the Royal Canadian Navy.
Part of it is about encouraging people in a similar position to feel as though there's trust and confidence that issues will be looked at or solved. They could be brought in to explain things. I find a big problem is that the military doesn't want to talk. We've covered five and a half years' worth of issues effectively in 30 minutes so far. Why hasn't anyone bothered to pick up the phone, call people and say, “Let's talk about these issues” so that everyone gets buy-in, rather than the decision just being communicated and there it is? That's fundamentally what we need so that, again, the military and the chain can be given a chance to do the right thing.
When people feel like outsiders for doing the wrong thing, we'll know we've succeeded.
Liberal
Liberal
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
The last thing I want to say is that it's crazy Officer X was promoted after a 14-year history of sexual misconduct. I don't know who that is, obviously, but when things like this happen, what do you think it says about the culture?
As an Individual
There's too much to answer in 30 seconds.
As I said, fundamentally, you need leadership to lead. My father, before he died, gifted me with a plaque that he had on his desk at work. It says, “If you're ahead of me, lead. If you're behind me, follow. If you're not going to do anything, get the hell out of the way.”
As an Individual
I did like the proposal “Not Their First Rodeo”. I found that was quite good.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
We have competing titles.
Madame Normandin, go ahead for two and a half minutes, please.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. White, I'd like you to tell us about the time limit and the recommendation you made.
As an Individual
Absolutely.
To add to that, part of the concern that was missing from the officials' presentation about grievances is.... I think it was one of the generals who responded by saying that there's a catch-all that says if you exceed the timeline to file a grievance, it can, of course, still be accepted, but it's a discretionary decision. It is not a mandatory decision where, say, if you meet five guidelines, your grievance will be accepted late. If you have bad actors in the system who are abusing their authority and don't want to do the right thing, or who don't want to err on the side of hearing or entertaining a grievance, they can shut those things down.
That is part of why I proposed the idea that we have these notices of intent to grieve and we have the grievance timelines. Particularly in the naval reserve, they seem very strict and, when it suits them, will shut down a grievance and say that the member could have done this or that. The goal is to try to encourage members, almost like an intervention at an early stage, so that if they have everything they need, they can proceed with a grievance.
To finish the thought, I'll say that the grievance clock starts at the time of the decision because that's what you have to grieve—the decision. If it takes six months to get an access to information request related to the decision, well, I'm sorry, but you've exceeded your 90 days. Now, again, a reasonable initial authority might look at that and say that the member made the argument that this was essential information to filing a grievance, and the authority will allow it. Others may say that they don't think it's relevant, and they'll throw it out because they can, because it's easy.
I also want to highlight one last point.
It seemed very flippant, almost, to hear that the final authority can act as the catch-all solution when the final authority has no maximum time limit to consider requests. However, why are we saying that it's okay to have a botched or invalid initial-authority decision? That's like saying we're going to let you go to court, the trial judge is totally going to butcher it, but you shouldn't worry because you can appeal. You've denied a first opportunity for review, which would have also solved the problem much more quickly. How is that an acceptable outcome?
