Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 17th, 2006

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Sweet, and thanks very much, Admiral Pile.

That, colleagues, concludes the initial round. We're going to start round two at this point in time. The time for the questions goes from eight minutes to five minutes. We're going to start with Monsieur Proulx.

Monsieur Proulx, cinq minutes.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Adm. Pile, I would like to raise a point concerning the cadets. I am a strong supporter of these three initiatives in my riding and in my region. I think it's a wonderful opportunity for young people.

I would like to know if you have any statistics to indicate how many of these young people who belong to various cadet corps end up having a career in the armed forces.

[RAdm Tyrone Pile]

I don't know if I have the statistics resident here today, but Commodore MacIsaac did work as director general for the reserves and cadets. I will pass the microphone to him, with the chair's permission, in a moment.

What I do want to say is that I know for a fact that we get a lot of interest from those young men and women who have served in the three cadet corps, army, navy and air. If you ask any one of us, I'm sure you would probably see a representative ratio of interest among the people who have actually applied to the Canadian Forces and enrolled.

I was an air cadet at a much younger age. and I believe, Commodore MacIsaac, you were too. No?

But I know a lot of my colleagues were in the cadet organizations across the Canadian Forces, where they first got that taste of military life and military lifestyle and some of the things they might be doing later on. It is a great youth organization, and I'm very pleased we have such great support across the country for it.

Do you want to add some of the numbers?

[Cmdre Roger MacIsaac]

Mr. Chairman, there are approximately 1,130 cadet corps across Canada, just about in every area, even in the north. It is a youth program that is specifically identified and run by the Department of National Defence as a corporate structure, with corporate funding. It is a youth program.

The goals, of course, are to build better Canadians, to enhance the feeling of being Canadian, to provide confidence to individuals, and of course to hone some of their skills with respect to public speaking, or whatever. The objective, however, is not specifically to condition people to join the Canadian Forces. And we do not keep that statistic; we never did. But as the Admiral pointed out, a large number of kids, or a good portion of those who start off in cadets, for whatever interest—normally with some association, having a father, a relative, or whomever, who's served in the cadets or military—do go forward. But we have not kept that statistic.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

You said that partial funding for the cadet corps was provided by the Department of National Defence but that funding is an ongoing problem. Children are constantly involved in fundraising, by selling chocolate bars, having bake sales, selling tickets, and so on.

I know that fundraising can be considered good training, but our governments should find alternate funding for the cadet corps, if only to make things easier for them.

Can you tell me, Adm. Pile, what type of profile is required—and I'm not referring to any professional qualifications—to join the armed forces?

[RAdm Tyrone Pile]

The first thing I'd like to see in a recruit is a proud Canadian who supports the values we have in this country and who wants to promote those values across Canada, and abroad as well. Those are the types of qualities you will see in most people who wear this uniform.

The second thing is that we are looking for an educated, well rounded, physically fit, and adventurous individual, because a lot of what we do requires those qualities in order to be successful in the Canadian Forces.

I would just summarize it by saying we look for an individual with those qualities to start with.

There are many opportunities for us, once they join the Canadian Forces, to improve and build upon those qualities so they become whatever they want to be in this organization.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

If I may, you were talking of education. What would be the minimum?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Pile.

[RAdm Tyrone Pile]

I believe it's grade 10. For some of the occupations the minimum education requirement is grade 10.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Merci beaucoup, Monsieur Proulx.

Thank you very much, Admiral Pile.

Mr. Fitzpatrick, for five minutes.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I just want to comment that there were some people, now deceased, from Cumberland House who were well-decorated people in the Canadian armed forces. I think they were a long shot from having their grade 10, but I'll have to double-check on that. They were real war heroes from World War II.

I want to zero in on the aboriginal recruitment issue, because I have a very high first nations population in my riding. I was at a powwow a number of years ago, and I think four young aboriginals who were in the armed forces were being recognized at the powwow. Three of them were in the American armed forces. My read on their careers was that they were in it for the long term. I think one of them even had some stripes, so they'd moved up.

I had a discussion with them after the ceremonies, with their parents involved. Some of the comments were interesting. One that came up from one set of parents—it's too bad Mr. Proulx is not here now—was that they actually thought that the language requirements would impair their ability in the Canadian armed forces. That was one of the reasons they'd moved to the American armed forces. They were bilingual, Cree and English, but they weren't francophone.

I'm not quite clear on what the situation is inside the Canadian armed forces in terms of language. If you reach the officer class and so on, would you have to be functionally bilingual? Is that the requirement in the armed forces?

[RAdm Tyrone Pile]

The requirement in the armed forces is that in order to be promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel or commander, you have to be functionally bilingual in both official languages.

In terms of the comments you made, I mentioned earlier our interest in reaching out to our diverse cultural communities across Canada. We are also very interested in our aboriginal, first nations, Métis communities across the country.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

That's the other thing I was going to follow up on. I thought it was most unusual that out of that community, three out of four of the people they were honouring were in the American armed forces. To my recollection, just from talking with them, in the aboriginal community it is not unusual to be in the American armed forces. I read articles subsequent to that, I think, that basically would give the impression that there's a disproportionately high number of aboriginal Canadians in the American armed forces and who are being recruited by the American armed forces.

Admiral, perhaps you can enlighten me on what the situation is here. Have I got it wrong, and there isn't a large number of Canadian first nations in the American armed forces?

[RAdm Tyrone Pile]

I can't speak to the actual statistics, because I don't know--

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Could you find them? Do you have access to that information?

[RAdm Tyrone Pile]

I can certainly give you what the aboriginal representation is in the Canadian Forces, but I would be unable to tell you how many Canadian aboriginals are serving in the United States armed forces. That's their privacy...unless they actually had it recorded in their personnel statistics and released it to us.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

There's no way of tracking that?

[RAdm Tyrone Pile]

I could certainly ask for it.

We are aware that our first nations Canadians are targeted by specifically the United States Marine Corps, I think, and word does get around that there's an opportunity there. But we want to make that opportunity here in Canada, so we intend to start to reach out to all of the aboriginal communities.

I'm not sure if you're aware, but we have diversity outreach offices that started about three years ago. We opened up a diversity outreach office in Surrey, British Columbia, for the Indo-Canadian community there. We subsequently opened an office in Richmond, British Columbia.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I would also suggest that if it can be statistically proven that there's a large number in the American armed forces, our armed forces should look at how we can reach those people and try to get them back into our armed forces, where they should have been in the first place. That's just a suggestion on my part.

I know of some professional medical-type people, like dentists, who have gone through these programs. With one in particular, I know the armed forces paid for all of their education to become a dentist. I would have thought it was kind of like a no-cut, one-way, long-term contract in the world of sports, because there were a lot of benefits to the person who was in the program. But my recollection is that a few years after they were out practising dentistry, they bought their way out of this contract. I thought it was a rather low price to be able to get out of the program.

I guess we live in a free country, but it seems to me that if people are going to get their education paid for and get all the benefits of those professional careers, we should make sure they are tied down for a pretty good period of time.

How does the armed forces deal with that issue?

[RAdm Tyrone Pile]

With professions where the Canadian Forces actually pays for someone's tuition, such as a dentist or a doctor, we have what is called obligatory service for the years we put them through school. You have to remember that we have to strike a balance between actually attracting that applicant to the Canadian Forces and a term or obligatory service to the extent which they would still want to become a member of the Canadian Forces and not feel they were going to be locked into something that gave them no flexibility whatsoever.

I like to believe that from here on in they're going to enjoy their work in the Canadian Forces so much that we can keep them on longer. That's not always the case, but we certainly attempt to do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Fitzpatrick.

Thank you, Admiral Pile.

Monsieur Nadeau.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

Adm. Pile, you said that having French as one's mother tongue does not represent an obstacle to joining Canada's Armed Forces. Does that apply from coast-to-coast?

[RAdm Tyrone Pile]

Yes. At all of the Canadian Forces recruiting centres you can be recruited in either language.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

So, if an individual in Saskatoon, for example, wants to go through the recruitment process in French, there would be no problem? He would be able to go into the army, the air force or the navy, and could stay close to the area where he signed up. Is that correct?