Public Accounts Committee on Jan. 29th, 2019

[LGen Charles Lamarre]

We apply our rules and regulations so that people are subject to them. All members of the Canadian Armed Forces when they deploy are subject to these. Civilians who deploy with us are then subject to the code of service discipline or it's written into the contracts they have what they can or cannot do. We keep those people responsible.

In an international setting with a UN force or a NATO force or whatever case you might have, at that time we would usually deal with a police force that's established for the overall contingent that would make the necessary arrests and look at things. After that, individuals are turned back over to their contingents. If a Canadian is involved, the Canadian comes back to us, whether they are somebody who has been affected or.... So we look after them. If they might have been involved in an incident in which they might be accused of something, then they're entirely subject to everything that is governed under Operation Honour but also to the code of service discipline, so every disciplinary aspect that might be there. If they happen to be a civilian, oftentimes they'll be repatriated back.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move back to the opposition side, and again, to Ms. Harder, please.

[Rachael Harder]

Thank you, Chair.

Originally, women were brought into the Canadian Armed Forces starting in 1941. Then, in the 1980s, there was an increased push to draw more women into the Canadian Armed Forces. Since about the 1980s, we've continuously had this conversation with regard to the treatment of women in the CAF and how to better bring in more women or how to make the Canadian Armed Forces more attractive to women who might be willing to serve.

Those women who serve within the Canadian Armed Forces have certainly seized the day. They have largely created an opportunity for themselves. They've shown tremendous bravery, and it has taken them tremendous courage to step up and serve our country. It's an incredibly selfless act. It's an incredibly dignified act, and it's an act that deserves the utmost honour.

With that, I do believe that these women should be able to come into the Canadian Armed Forces and expect that the institution that they have signed up with to serve their country should provide an environment where these women are treated with honour, respect and dignity. This is also outlined in the Auditor General's report.

I've had numerous conversations with women who have come out of the Canadian Armed Forces and who have faced unfortunate circumstances of being mistreated within the CAF. Unfortunately, their stories are sad, they're disappointing and they produce concern.

The government lawyers had an opportunity to respond to a couple of cases that were before them with regard to sexual misconduct. The government lawyer filed a statement of defence that said that National Defence “does not owe members of the Canadian Armed Forces any duty to protect them from sexual harassment and assault”.

This quote is quite commonly known and understood, but I'm wondering if you would take this opportunity to clarify what is meant by this. I believe that the Canadian Armed Forces does have a responsibility to create an environment where these women are cared for, where they can expect to be treated with dignity, honour and respect. Indeed, that is the type of service that they signed up for. I'm just wondering why that wouldn't be the responsibility of the Canadian Armed Forces. With a statement like that, it's no wonder that we're receiving an Auditor General's report that shows that the department is not efficiently meeting its requirement.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Ms. Thomas.

[Jody Thomas]

I am very aware of the quote that you're referencing. We believe, the leadership of the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence, and agree with everything you've just said. Absolutely, we have to have a healthy, safe, respectful workplace for everybody who chooses to join the Canadian Armed Forces because it is an honourable profession, and it is one that we expect a lot of from those who serve and their families.

In that particular quote—and it is a legal term—I would offer to respond to you in writing that there is a question of a private law duty of care versus a public law duty of care. We have a public law duty of care which means that we are responsible to provide a healthy and safe workplace for our members and the civilians who serve, absolutely.

As for the legal argument, we can respond in detail to that, but we can't disagree with anything you've just said.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Wynnyk, did you want to jump in there?

[LGen Paul Wynnyk]

Yes, if I may.

We agree with everything that you've said, but I did want to emphasize that sexual misconduct is not just an issue that involves women.

[Rachael Harder]

Right.

[LGen Paul Wynnyk]

I think that has not been raised here, and I think that's an important point to note.

I'd also like to point out—and it is a minor point—that women have honourably been serving in the Canadian Armed Forces in uniform since well before the First World War, so well before 1941. And just to re-emphasize what the deputy minister said, we have a duty to keep everybody safe regardless of gender, as they go through. I just wanted to say, as the senior ranking member of the Canadian Armed Forces, we agree with the points you've made.

[Rachael Harder]

Great. Thank you.

One of the notices that I would take today is the statement that Ms. Thomas opened up with at the beginning. She said that the SMRC really takes the initiative on this, but my observation today would be that we actually haven't heard from that individual at the table, who is Ms. Preston. I'm curious as to why she hasn't been given the opportunity to answer any questions today.

[Jody Thomas]

No questions have been directed to her, but certainly Dr. Preston knows that she can speak up at any moment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

We'll now move to Mr. Chen, please, for five minutes.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to get back to what Mr. Christopherson was trying to address. On page 25 of the Auditor General's report, 5.111 states:

The 2015 External Review recommended creating an independent body outside of the Canadian Armed Forces that would be responsible for receiving reports of inappropriate sexual behaviour and act as a central authority for collecting information.

It goes on to say that the department created a sexual misconduct response centre and then it says, "the Centre was not given responsibility for receiving reports or collecting information", which is exactly what the external report had recommended.

Can we hear what the rationale was for not implementing what the review had suggested, given the further comments made by the Auditor General that there is a lack of internal oversight, that the data collection was not being done in a systematic way, that there was inconsistency because information was collected in different databases and that reports of incidents were sometimes duplicated because of those multiple systems? Can we get an answer to why that was set up in that way?

[Jody Thomas]

Certainly Dr. Preston is welcome to respond. Maybe I'll start with addressing Mr. Christopherson's question, which will lead into answering yours.

You are not wrong. There were certainly growing pains. It is fair to say that there was tension between the entities that were responsible and created to respond to Operation Honour and to respond to the Deschamps report. We hired Dr. Preston in June of 2017 as a professional psychologist who is an expert in this field, and that changed the nature of the SMRC almost instantly. We learned that a capable senior bureaucrat was not what we needed. We needed a functional expert. That was the first step to developing the SMRC to meet the intent and vision of Madame Deschamps.

We did have some growing pains and it was difficult. But in retrospect, it was better that the centre walked before it ran. There has been time to develop the team, who are all professionals, to develop their 24-7 response capacity, because when they began they did not work evenings. They now work worldwide 24-7. We are expanding the responsibilities in response to what has been pointed out to us by the Auditor General. But I would say that we were on our way there equally on our own in expanding the mandate of the SMRC. It was difficult at the beginning. There is absolutely no doubt.

Dr. Preston can probably speak to some of that difficulty. I think we're on the right path now.

[Denise Preston, Executive Director, Sexual Misconduct Response Centre, Department of National Defence]

The deputy is correct that there were growing pains from the outset, and certainly I inherited a lot of that when I started in May of 2017. You know, a lot of it was systemic in terms of the division of roles and responsibilities of the two organizations. Some of it is also due to a lack of clarity in terms of what independence means and if this really is an independent organization. We've been dancing around that issue for a long time, so there have been a number of challenges.

The deputy is right that, prior to my arrival, there had been three separate executives who had performed corporate functions and leadership for the centre, but they weren't experts. When I came in, I obviously had a different lens to look at not only the functioning of the centre but also the Operation Honour response more broadly. Certainly since I've started, I worked to really focus on the services of the centre, expanding them; making them evidence-based; making sure the staff were appropriately trained, supervised and monitored; and also attempting to build relationships and exert influence across the Canadian Armed Forces to help shape the response a bit differently.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

Very quickly, Mr. Chen.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Does the centre have responsibility for receiving reports and collecting information? If not, will we get there?

[Denise Preston]

At present, collecting a report is an official function. There are specific legal requirements for what needs to be in the report, how they need to be safeguarded and things like that. The mechanism we've set up is that we have a military police officer embedded within our centre, and so if people who contact the centre wish to speak to the police and wish to pursue making a report, we can facilitate access to our military police officer. This is not a small measure—it's not simply our giving them a phone number to call any MP. This is a specialized and national investigator.

The other very important aspect is that callers can speak to him anonymously. They can talk about what has happened to them, and he can do two things. First, he can give them an idea as to whether or not what they've experienced might meet the threshold for a Criminal Code offence, so that knowing they wouldn't meet the threshold, they wouldn't embark on a long and difficult process. Second, if they choose to make a report, he can explain the process very thoroughly so they can go into it with that information. We find that when people choose to speak to the MP anonymously, in the majority of cases they will call back later on to identify themselves and make an official report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move back to Mr. Christopherson, please.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I appreciate that very much, Deputy, because it saves me going down a whole road that would have gotten us here anyway, I believe.

We're mostly concerned about making sure that the lessons we learn from the past inform us going forward, but there are points of accountability. All of us here are accountable. My colleagues are about to be held accountable in a few months, big time; everybody there who works for you is accountable; and now you're accountable to Parliament here.

I'd like to know from you, General. The Auditor General stated, when he asked why you split the responsibilities and gave the centre so little, the answer was, “Senior leaders explained that the Forces’ leaders must perform the responsibilities that the External Review recommended; otherwise, it would undermine governance and accountability”. I point out that your action plan and the 12 or 13 items I've referenced all do exactly what supposedly couldn't happen in the first place.

What was that response? What was it based on? How did it get eliminated so quickly when you got in trouble and needed to put together a game plan?

[LGen Paul Wynnyk]

I'm not sure I agree with the premise that we've done so poorly. There's a lot of work to be done in the future, there's no doubt about that, but a lot of ground has been covered in the last three years.

If I could get back to your question specifically, to me, once again, it involves addressing something broader, which is cultural change. That's what I've talked about before. That can only be done through the chain of command; we cannot have an external agency come in.

We can certainly take advice, and Dr. Preston is providing excellent independent advice. She's the authority. She's at arm's length. She will have the authority—and she has it now—to write a report on us, to assess us as we go forward. Essentially she becomes our own auditor, independent of the Canadian Forces, but to effect the change we're talking about in the broad sense can only be driven through the Canadian Forces and the chain of command.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

That's why I made some reference to having some experience with command and control. I understand that, I respect it and I understand its necessity, but there was still an interface where the external review said, thou shalt set up an external body that will have these responsibilities: boom, boom, boom, boom. The military said no. Now when the Auditor General's report comes out, you're back to yes. I'm trying to determine what part of what you said no to disappeared so quickly once you got into some trouble.

By the way, I didn't say everything was horrible, and if I left that impression, I'm sorry. I want to go out of my way, and I think I did, to say that you're doing some things very well and we're impressed with that, but this isn't a cheerleading meeting. This is a meeting about fixing things. Tell me about that interface. How was it that what you just said held, and left them out of the loop, and then all the problems the AG found came from the areas you didn't give them the responsibility for, which you said you would do when you accepted the external review, I might add?

I'm sorry, you're still not giving me exactly the answer I'm looking for, sir.

[LGen Paul Wynnyk]

Could you elaborate, Mr. Christopherson, on specifically which areas you're talking about? I don't have them at the tip of my tongue here.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Well, you know what? I'll come back to them if we need to because I have time, but I want to point out that it was treated as so unimportant that there wasn't even a meeting at the steering committee for all that time.... The fact of the matter is that you accepted something and then you used the excuse about how your structure works to say, no, we can't do it. Why didn't you say that from the get-go? This is the part that troubles me.

Why was it that you made the commitment that you accepted the recommendations, then when it came time to do it, you said no? When your way didn't work and it came time to fix it...the deputy is here saying that the centre is back in control. Somewhere between what happened in the past and what's happening now, there was a problem. I'm trying to get at that problem and, sir, you're not giving me the kinds of answers I'm looking for. You're being very—pardon the pun—defensive.

I'm looking for an understanding that at the top levels this didn't work. Who, for instance, knew that there weren't any steering committees and didn't care? I'm still not hearing the answers, sir, that I'm looking for.

[LGen Paul Wynnyk]

I would have to take that on notice and get back to you, but I certainly disagree with the assertion that nobody cared. I can assure you, Mr. Christopherson, that we care about this very deeply.