Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 17th, 2006

[RAdm Tyrone Pile]

I give you my word that it is.

The fact of the matter is that we do spend a lot of time focusing on minority groups within the Canadian Forces, whether they are visible minorities or within a minority group, being women. We are trying very hard to increase the proportion of the Canadian Forces beyond the 13% that we seemed to hit, and we're having trouble getting beyond that.

There are a lot of reasons for that. This is just my personal experience in talking to women in the Canadian Forces. They've become very defensive in reports such as the article in Maclean's and the way statistics might be used, but generally they are very happy with the way they are treated in the Canadian Forces.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Let me just make sure I get a personal caveat in there. My young daughter is an air cadet. So I'm not only interested as a politician, but I'm interested as a dad.

Were you going to comment, Officer?

[BGen Linda Colwell]

I'm probably on the leading edge, and that's because I'm an old girl at this point within the Canadian Forces. I have not experienced this gender bias. Women are in all 103 occupations. They have been accepted as peers. At one time we had to prove we could do the job. At this point we are accepted just as men, that we can do the job. And we, like men, have to prove that we can do the job.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Good. Thank you. Those are some of the assurances I was looking for.

Let me ask the obvious question, and answer it any way you please. I'm really not playing any kind of “gotcha” game here.

We're in the middle of a war. Obviously, it's more difficult to recruit. Could you comment on that for me? Let's get that issue on the table. I would think common sense dictates it's easier to recruit in peacetime than in wartime, and as we see on the news happening every day, that has to have an impact. How are you dealing with that?

[RAdm Tyrone Pile]

We've been tracking the situation very closely, because there was an anticipation that our mission in Afghanistan may have an impact on the number of applicants. To this point in time, our applicants are up.... There doesn't appear to be any impact on what we're doing in Afghanistan. If anything, it appears to have increased interest in the Canadian Forces.

Roger, do you want to provide any details?

[Cmdre Roger MacIsaac]

Mr. Chairman, that is correct. It's actually too early to find out what the issue is with respect to Afghanistan and how it relates to applicants. Suffice it to say that we are at higher numbers at this time of the year than we were last time. Time will tell. We are tracking that and trying to make a correlation.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Christopherson.

Thank you very much, Admiral Pile and Commodore MacIsaac.

Mrs. Ratansi, for eight minutes.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you all for being here.

I was fortunate this summer to visit the air force...the NORAD area as well. I was very pleased with the professionalism. I was very impressed with our uniformed men and women, and I am pleased that they are protecting me.

My question is this. In terms of the chart that we see on recruitment and retention, if I were to apply for a position, what is the timeframe within which I would be called for an interview?

[RAdm Tyrone Pile]

The process begins, of course, with an interest and with stating that interest at a recruiting centre by speaking, obviously, to a recruiter. What the recruiter will then do is inform you that you require certain information that is to be brought back to or provided to the recruiting centre so they can complete the formal application process. Once that information is in and the process starts, as I was mentioning earlier to Mr. Williams, we anticipate that if there are no medical issues or security screening issues, and if your paperwork is in order in terms of a credit check, a criminal background check, and education, so that you are educated to the level that you say you are, and so on, we should be able to make an offer to you, if there is a position open for the particular trade or occupation you're interested in, within five days of our actually confirming that information.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

I've had some young constituents who were interested in joining the military, but their parents were not born in Canada, so they had to wait for two or three years before they even got a response. Is it possible that security clearance takes that long?

[RAdm Tyrone Pile]

We have had a problem in the past with security clearances, and it has really been a function of capacity. We haven't had sufficient resources devoted to that task to do all the screening and clearances in a timely manner. We have put in extra resources and extra people, and we have actually changed some of the methods we're using for security screening to improve that process.

Two to three years sounds quite extraordinary, but in the past it was not uncommon for people to wait from six months to a year, depending on the circumstances of the particular case.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

In the presentation you made, you said that you would like to increase the force by 75,000. It appears that at the moment the forces have 61,740. That is the current size of the forces. You are projecting that it will increase by 12,000 or 13,000 people. How would you do that in four years, when according to the Auditor General's audit you haven't been able to recruit more than 1,000? In your strategic plan you say you would add 1,000. How do you project meeting that 13,000 target in four years?

[RAdm Tyrone Pile]

There might be some confusing information out there with respect to what our actual commitment to the government is at the moment. Our commitment is to achieve a regular force of 70,000 by the year 2010, and we are on track to do that. As I mentioned earlier, for total paid strength in the Canadian Forces, we just eclipsed 64,000. As we continue to recruit this year and in the coming years until 2010-11, we are on track to reach 70,000.

The government is committed to achieving a force size of 75,000 at some point in the future, but there has been no time limit set on that particular expansion size. We are going to work towards achieving 70,000 by 2010-11, and then we will continue to look, at that point, in terms of growth, towards 75,000.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

You are comfortable with an increase of 13,000 people, despite the fact that in your own strategic intake plan you think the force will increase by 1,000 per annum.

[RAdm Tyrone Pile]

The recruiting measures we put in place now.... As we start to develop the recruiting system and add people to our recruiting centres and to our training system, the entire system will need to be able to adapt and withstand the number of people coming into the Canadian Forces. Otherwise, we will run into the issue of people waiting a long period of time before they're trained and employed. Our entire system has to adapt to this force expansion.

Between now and 2010, we are going to increase that annual intake beyond 1,000 per year, as we are able to adapt our training system.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

That brings me to a question for the Auditor General.

You had indicated that the human resource department in the military does not have the wherewithal, or is not equipped, to recruit or retain those types of people. Do you agree that the retention the admiral has projected will be met? Do you know?

[Sheila Fraser]

Mr. Chair, I wish I could predict the future.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

No, but as an accountant, you're projecting.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Sheila Fraser]

It's obvious that the Canadian Forces are putting a lot of attention on this, and they're changing their way of doing recruitment and retention, which is one of the main messages we were trying to bring out in this report—that with an increase in numbers, they had to change the way they were doing this.

It's obvious they are taking the first steps, but I think it will probably be up to us to come back in three or four years to see, have these changes actually given the expected results?

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

How many minutes do I have? One minute.

Would you happen to have a ratio that's your comfort zone between recruitment and attrition? We understand that attrition has to take place, because as the personnel reach a certain level, they will probably leave the army. What is the comfort zone between recruitment and attrition that you feel is okay?

[RAdm Tyrone Pile]

That particular comfort zone changes as we get larger, because we will want to have a little more attrition, and as we continue to expand, we're going to bring in more people. Let's say, for example, that we are going to stay at 70,000, then obviously our recruiting intake has to come down a bit to a sustained level to meet our attrition expectations.

In the past, when we had less than 60,000 people in the regular force, we had a normal attrition rate of about 4,000 to 4,500. So to sustain the Canadian Forces, we needed to take in about 4,000 to 4,500. Right now, our target intake for this year is 6,428 for the end of March. That will allow us to grow by just over 900, and that number will continue to increase as we approach 2010.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

I have one statement I'd like to make, and you can reflect on it. As the theatre changes with the type of exercise the military is getting involved in, my concern is about the recruitment level. When I went to NORAD's facility, I think we had a very good sense that our soldiers had to go through a lot of training, mental training, etc., so they would never be trigger-happy.

I'll ask you the question later because my time is up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Madam Ratansi.

Mr. Sweet, for eight minutes.