Public Accounts Committee on May 5th, 2016

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

The advisory committee made the decision that they were not going to continue to prescribe this. Is that right?

[Michael Ferguson]

No, they weren't going to continue to pay for it. They don't prescribe; it is the doctors who prescribe.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

They weren't going to cover it. The doctor would still prescribe it, and the pharmacist would fill it. Typically, then, the veteran would pay for it, and he would still be reimbursed. Is that what you are saying? Veterans Affairs still paid for it.

[Michael Ferguson]

In this instance, because the decision had not been implemented, yes, it was still available as a standard benefit, so the department was still paying for it within that two-year time period.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

That is the first question.

The second question is this. In report 5, you say that the Canadian army reserve has been shrinking and that gaps in training mean that reserve soldiers were not fully prepared to deploy on missions. On the shrinking of the reserve, when was the optimal number of reservists put in place? Is this something that is determined each year? I noted that you said in your report, “Between the 2012-13 and 2014-15 fiscal years, the number of Army Reserve soldiers declined”, which I also note is after our mission to Afghanistan was over, except for a training mission.

Is this just a natural reduction in numbers? We know that when the mission was going on, we had very good recruitment in it. Some of the armed forces advertisements and recruitment measures on television were very successful, but after the mission, I think all of us heard that the numbers started to drop off.

In your estimation, was that a natural decline and they should have just updated the numbers they needed, or was it very problematic to provide an ongoing listing as to the optimal number?

[Michael Ferguson]

I think those ebbs and flows are something that the department would have to describe. What we identified here was that the Canadian Forces had established the optimal level for reserve soldiers at 29,000. The funding that the department was operating with was set for 21,000, and they had about 14,000 who were actually active and trained. The problem was that over a period of a couple of years, they were starting to lose about 1,000 a year.

We say, in paragraph 5.52,

in the 2014–15 fiscal year, the recruiting system’s objective was to deliver 2,200 recruits to the Army Reserve—far fewer than the 3,000 recruits needed.

The army itself had determined that they needed 3,000, but the system was able to deliver only 2,200. They still are not able to attract the numbers. They are not able to recruit the numbers that the army itself says they need.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right. Thank you.

Mrs. Shanahan, we still have some time. You have a question.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I am glad that you got us started on report 5, because even though it didn't come up earlier in my questions, when I look at these five reports, this is the one that really stands out to me. In the overall purpose of what we are trying to do here as a federal government, national defence is a number one job, and it concerns me greatly.

I think we are going to have the opportunity to learn more, to dig deeper into this problem of recruitment and of being understaffed. Was it a problem simply of recruitment, or was it saving money somewhere and not putting the right...? Were the equipment deficiencies and training deficiencies a problem of being penny-wise and pound foolish? This is a number one job for me, and one that really stands out.

[Michael Ferguson]

Again, what we have identified here is that there was a goal set for the number of recruits. The army itself had established that they needed 3,000 for the army reserve and presumably could fund 3,000, but they were able to recruit only 2,200. I believe we actually have an audit under way now on recruitment in the Canadian Armed Forces, so we are looking at that part of their business in more depth. I think we will be able to report that to you in the fall.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Excellent.

On another report, report 3, which we didn't really address here, about the Governor in Council appointment process, I have the pleasure of sitting on the OGGO committee as well as this committee, and we talked a little bit with the PCO about the difficulty in finding qualified candidates. Can you shed some more light on that? Why is that a difficulty? We know we have lengthy delays in the appointment process. What is the key reason for that delay?

[Michael Ferguson]

We looked at four different tribunals. We selected those tribunals because they make important decisions, so that's why we focused on those four.

The circumstances in each of the four are very different. In the case of the Specific Claims Tribunal, the requirement is to have sitting judges, which means that in order to fill a vacancy, somebody has to be taken out of the courts, and that creates a vacancy in the courts. I don't know, but there might be an approach of using supernumerary judges or another approach that could be used to fill the vacancies on the Specific Claims Tribunal.

It may be that in some cases they've narrowed the field of qualified individuals too much. Maybe it's possible to expand who would be qualified. I think we noted in the case of the Competition Tribunal that it took them 16 months to find an economist to sit on the Competition Tribunal. You would have thought that they could have—

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

They're a dime a dozen.

[Michael Ferguson]

Well, you would have thought they could have found an economist in less than 16 months.

I think it was a series of different things. Again, the Immigration and Refugee Board had about 20 vacancies out of their 80 members. I would have thought that they could have filled those vacancies much more quickly.

Yes, I think there is a certain amount of having those types of issues, but fundamentally what's important to me is that these tribunals have to make important decisions. They have to find a way of getting those decisions made, either by filling the number of seats that need to be filled or perhaps by thinking about whether there's a way of dealing with those issues that doesn't require a Governor in Council appointment.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Excellent. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

I do not see any other questions, so we'll leave it at that for today. I'll just remind those on the steering committee that we'll have a steering committee meeting Monday at four o'clock. We'll be discussing these reports that the Auditor General has brought down and which ones we will do a study on. Then we will come back and have the main estimates on Tuesday, May 10.

Thank you again to our guests for appearing and for your good work with these reports. We thank you for being here before our committee today.

We're now adjourned.