Public Accounts Committee on June 7th, 2016

[LGen Marquis Hainse]

Absolutely not.

I command an army and the reservists are an inherent part of that army. They are not the poor relatives. Every time we carry out an operation, we prepare reports after reviewing the activities. That is when we see what was done and what was not done. If there was a shortage of equipment—and I do not doubt it since it was reported and the Auditor General's office does very rigorous work—it is because some people lacked initiative at a certain point. There is no reason why certain battalions—since you are referring to territorial battalions—when deployed and in the field, would not have the necessary equipment at their disposal, like the vehicles and communications systems every one of our 10 brigades has. A brigade is made up of 10 to 15 units. So we are probably looking at a blatant lack of know-how on the part of certain people. It is a situation I have noted, and we aren't proud of it. There is no reason for that to happen.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Nevertheless, it is in black and white in the report. I agree with you, there's no reason for this to happen, but it happened.

Let's take another example. At the end of a mission, you do an analysis after the fact and you note certain things. What measures should be taken, in your opinion? In the wake of the Auditor General's analysis, should there be a transfer of budgets and some management changes so that you have the essential equipment to fit out our reservists properly?

Let's take another example. There is a process. There is an operation and you deploy people. Afterwards you analyze things and you realize that there is a problem. The next step is to take the means that are needed to correct the situation. You didn't say anything to me about correcting the problem pointed out by the Auditor General.

[LGen Marquis Hainse]

Mr. Chair, measures are being taken in that regard. In fact, we are going to make the process much more rigorous as of today. The territorial battalions will be the object of annual verifications to see whether they have the equipment they need. They are going to be given generic training to be able to face any mission. The process is going to be much more rigorous than it was in the past. Not only will it involve a verbal communication process, as it did before, but there will also be a written part, just as there is for people who are deployed in international missions.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you. Your answer is reassuring.

In another connection, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada mentions that the soldiers of the Canadian Army Reserve may sign contracts to serve full-time in their units. However, this is in breach of the actual act that governs you. How will you reconcile that?

[LGen Marquis Hainse]

Mr. Chair, I invite the chief of reserves and cadets to talk about this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

General Bury.

[MGen Paul Bury]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We certainly accept that recommendation. We're looking at the classes of service in terms of service for our reserve soldiers, sailors, aviators with a view to ensure compliance with the National Defence Act and amending QR and Os going forward.

It is addressed in the management action plan. I believe you have a copy. That will happen, I believe, by the end of 2017. We will address that and ensure that we are in compliance.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Chair, I know I don't have much time left.

The Auditor General brought to the attention of the Canadian Forces the fact that they were straying from the law. Major-General Bury, following the Auditor General's intervention, you say that you are going to adjust things. I note that you wait to react until you are told that what you do does not comply with the act, or that there are deficiencies in the system. Have you not read the act?

[MGen Paul Bury]

In fact, we have been dealing with this issue for a number of years. I referred to the study, PRECS, earlier. During the Afghan period there were a significant number of full-time reservists working in support of the institution in Canada deployed. We have looked at that in detail and have reduced significantly the number of full-time reservists to ensure that we are in line with a predominantly part-time professional force. We are continuing to work on that to ensure that we are meeting the regulatory remits and requirements.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, General.

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

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first question is for Mr. Jones.

This is quite a bad report. The army reserve is not a new entity. It has been around for so many decades, for over a century, I would say. There are negative factors like funding for 21,000 army reserve soldiers but only 14,000 people were trained; the skill gap is always there, and things like that. The recruitment and retention strategy is not working.

Was it not flagged internally? Why did you wait until the Auditor General pointed it out to start this review process and develop a new strategy?

[Bill Jones]

The short answer is, yes. We continually monitor and evaluate programs throughout the department, but I do want to caution you to be careful when you talk about funding for a certain level of employment, if I could put it that way. If the army reserve does not employ the full amount, then the funding is not provided in that magnitude, which is only appropriate.

I'm not sure if I've helped you.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

I'll come back to that.

Mr. Joyce, you explained in detail the recruitment and retention strategy. The Auditor General is of the opinion that you will not be able to reach your goal of increasing the size by 950 by 2019. What do you say to that?

[MGen Derek Joyce]

Mr. Chair, it's a good point. It's going to be difficult. I'm not going to sugar-coat it. The type of recruiting we're talking about is going to be a challenge for the current system. The recruiting system has just undergone a major renovation, if you will, and meeting those targets is going to be a challenge. However, we're committed to working towards them. We've put in a number of initiatives about recruiting, as I've mentioned, and a few more that I could go into, if you like, with which we feel we are going to be on track to meet those targets. It's going to be a challenge.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Joyce.

Mr. Hainse, you mentioned that, being part-time, the reserve force will be trained to the same standard but not to the same level as the regular force. Additional preliminary training just prior to deployment will always be required.

The Auditor General says the same thing, but he says that the skills gap was not always addressed during pre-deployment training. It appears that this has always been a well-known fact. Why is it still happening?

[LGen Marquis Hainse]

Mr. Chair, I don't doubt what was mentioned in the report. I think this issue deals a lot more with the reporting of data than of the actual training that took place. I have the assurance that in the case of the recent NATO mission, in which we had reservists deployed, they did indeed do the training, and we have in writing that operational declaration.

Now, was this well captured in all the personnel data for the reservists? I suspect it was not and I suspect this is really what the heart of the issue is here.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

In response to recommendation 5.84, National Defence said that commencing February 9, 2016, expenditures related to the reserve program will be incorporated in the financial reports briefed to senior management.

Do you agree with the Auditor General's opinion that National Defence may have provided incorrect information to Parliament?

[Bill Jones]

Mr. Chair, to the member, thank you for the question. The short answer is no. I believe that National Defence has always provided correct information to the best of our ability. I'm not sure I can add much more than that.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

I guess I have about 20 seconds.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Arya.

We'll move to Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I need a clarification on something. In the action plan, referencing paragraph 5.34 the issue is:

The Canadian Army should require Army Reserve groups to formally confirm that they are prepared to support domestic missions.

That's the OAG's recommendation. Then you responded by saying:

Agreed. The Canadian Army will review the process and develop a better-documented confirmation method. The Army conducts training on an annual basis for the 10 Territorial Battalion Groups and the four Arctic Company Response Groups. This training may be verbally confirmed through the chain of command, which is found to be sufficient for training objectives.

Help me understand. The whole problem was that it wasn't a formal confirmation. Anyway, help me understand why the verbal confirmation is okay, when a written one is what we were looking for, or am I misunderstanding?

[LGen Marquis Hainse]

Mr. Chair, I totally agree that this is confusing and, as I said before, we made a decision that we will, from now on, require not a verbal confirmation, but a written confirmation for all territorial battalion groups, and that is not well reflected in this action plan, as you just pointed out.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Well, not only is it not well reflected, I think it goes in a different direction. Do I sense that you will want to amend that, that you'll maybe give us an amended paragraph to consider?

I look at this, and it's confirming that you're going to stay with the verbal confirmation. What I'm getting verbally from you now is that you're going to move to a written confirmation, so I'm asking whether you're going to update that to reflect your answer.

[LGen Marquis Hainse]

Mr. Chair, we will update it.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.

Moving back to your action plan again, the first one, regarding paragraph 5.22, is all about providing guidance so that the reserve unit can prepare their soldiers for key tasks assigned to the army for major international missions, given that we found out that there are some inadequacies there. I'm looking at the key interim milestones, and I'm trying to figure out why it takes a year to go from where we are to December 2016, to December 2017, and to March 2018. I'm having some trouble understanding why it takes that long.