Public Accounts Committee on June 7th, 2016

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Christopherson.

We'll move to Mr. DeCourcey. Welcome here.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank all of the witnesses for being here with us this morning.

I'm pleased to be a part of this committee since I have the honour of representing a riding that contains the largest military training base in Canada, in Gagetown.

I've certainly heard on the doorstep, in a community with a rich military tradition, about the concern around the health of the military reserves.

I want to get back to the question of recruitment and retention, because I'm really interested in understanding more what they look like in a community such as the one I represent.

General Joyce, you talked about integration in the plan going on between reservists and regular forces. You talked about mental health, about diversity. You mentioned four phases. I'm interested in hearing a little bit more about that and about whether the financial and human resources exist and how you evaluate the work being done as you implement those four phases of recruitment and retention.

[MGen Derek Joyce]

Thank you very much for the question.

The four phases were specifically for the retention strategy, and we're looking at reaching final operational capability for that by the summer of 2018. That's looking at those specific elements.

One of the areas that I think you would be very interested in is the approach we're taking specifically for recruiting reserves. One of the initiatives that we have under way is a partnership between the recruiting group, the army, and the Royal Canadian Navy. In fact, right now we have a primary reservist from the Canadian Army in each one of our recruiting groups and most of our detachments. It's very important to have the face of the reservist out there meeting with the potential recruits. That's one of the initiatives we're looking at specifically for attraction. We have the same thing with the Royal Canadian Navy.

To speed up the recruiting of reservists is a real focus of ours. We're looking at reducing the time frame for bringing reservists in, to 60 to 90 days for processing. We need to capture their attention and keep them in the armouries, specifically. We're going to do that by transferring some of our workforce, about 12 individuals within the recruiting group, to specifically work on reserve force files. That is under way right now.

One of the other initiatives we have under way is something called a conditional enrolment. This is where an individual comes into an armoury and is interested in joining that armoury or that regiment, and then, because we have an intake process we have to follow that includes, for example, medical and security clearances, what we do is move those elements to later. We're bringing them in and welcoming them into the armouries with the condition that they meet the medical and security requirements later on. That process will definitely occur, but this will speed up the intake.

From the medical perspective, one of our bottlenecks is getting those medicals done for our new reservists. We're looking at doing a trial whereby we would have family doctors, for example, do these medical assessments.

These are a couple of areas we're looking at that will actually speed up the intake and processing, and therefore start to build on that recruiting bow wave to start reaching our targets.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

In the ongoing evaluation of that, are you confident that you have the resources and tools available to ensure that it helps increase the recruitment levels?

[MGen Derek Joyce]

Yes, I'm confident that we have the initiatives moving forward. We are certainly going to work towards those targets that I mentioned earlier. They are challenging targets, as I've said.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you for the good questions.

I will tell you this. I'm done with reading these briefings in the evening before I try to go to bed, because I had a tough night's sleep last night going through this briefing. Some of the reasons have already been brought up. Let me just read one. It's in your responses. Last night when I was going through this, I read where the Auditor General recommended:

National Defence should provide individual Army Reserve units with clear guidance so that they can prepare their soldiers for key tasks assigned to the Army Reserve for major international missions.

Then the Department of National Defence responded. The Auditor General has asked to make sure that they have clear guidance so they can prepare the soldiers. The response was that it will work towards improving its policy, improving its guidance for anticipated key tasks.

In one case where the Auditor General asks for clear guidance, clear directives, you will say, “Well, we'll do the best we can. We'll work toward it.”

Mr. Christopherson brought forward the other one which I read last night to formally confirm that they're ready for whatever mission they have. It came back that you will give a verbal confirmation through the chain of command that they're ready to go.

It was just frustrating going through the briefing last night.

Going back to the first one here, the clear guidance for key tasks assigned to them, what's the timeline for that commitment? What timeline can you give this committee that you will move towards that clear guidance, not just to work toward it, but to see that they get it?

[LGen Marquis Hainse]

Mr. Chair, thank you for the questions. I will get the first crack at the answer and then maybe General Rob Roy MacKenzie can speak as well.

First, I believe that we are now providing clear guidance to the reservists on what is expected of them. As I said a couple of times during this meeting, this guidance is being given in more generic terms for doing foundation training. This is predicated on the fact that during the 37.5 days of training they do during the year, they will do a continuum of training, do other types of training. If we have an operation, they will carry on and do some pre-deployment training. We will know at that time what guidance we need to give them.

Having said this, I side certainly with the Auditor General's remarks concerning some of the mission tasks that could be given right now to the reservists, which we could certainly improve.

Among the types of mission tasks we are looking at right now is one that is currently ongoing in the area of influence activities. Civil and military co-operation is one of the tasks they have, and they receive clear guidance on this, because reservists are expected to do that task at any point at any time.

Other tasks that could be given to the reservists, convoy escort security and force protection, for example, are the types of tasks that they could carry on during an international operation, and we certainly could improve in giving clearer guidance.

There are also other tasks we are looking at. Our action plan should be completed by March 2018, once we have totally implemented the strengthening the reserve force plan that we have set in motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

It seems like a long period of time, but certainly, if it's accomplished, that's good.

General Joyce, thank you for what you said in regard to recruitment. That was one of the other concerns I had. I spoke to one who was a reservist, and he said that 20 years ago they could go in and sign up and really, within a matter of just a few short weeks, he said two or three weeks, they would be given an indication as to where they would have their basic training; that in two or three weeks they would know they were in the system.

He told me that currently it takes more than six months. I don't know whether that timeline is correct or not. You said today that you're going to be focused on 30 to 90 days.

Again, is that the correct timeline? Does it take approximately six months from someone's wanting to sign up? How are you going to speed it up?

[MGen Derek Joyce]

Mr. Chair, that's a great question.

I can say that some people probably do take six months. It depends upon their personal circumstance, on their medical situation, on whether they're from out of country. We have to take all of those factors into consideration as we look towards the processing of their file.

What we're looking at right now, and I covered a couple of these points already, is streamlining the process down to 60 to 90 days. To us, that is a fine balance between accepting risk and being risk averse. What this will do is ensure that we will bring the interested people into the armouries, number one, but it will ensure that we have a way to know that we have the medically fit people, because we need folks who are medically fit, able to be employed and deployed, and able to get security clearances.

To repeat, a couple of the things we're doing include the conditional enrolment and moving the medical exams out into the provincial sector through personal doctors. These are going to speed up the process, without a doubt. We're also reviewing the entire process for intake, for recruiting. We're looking at streamlining it as much as possible. We feel that our objective of 60 to 90 days is the target we want to achieve, and we're confident we're going to achieve it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

I'll tell you, I think some of the ads you have for recruitment are some of the best. Even for old guys like me, it looks like the life to live. I think that's a big part of the recruitment as well.

Just in closing, to our Auditor General, sir, is there anything else you think we should be requesting from the department, or from those that have given us testimony today, and is there any summary that you would have?

[Michael Ferguson]

I'll mention a couple of things. We do have an audit under way on recruitment and retention, and the plan is that we will report on that in the fall. You'll have another opportunity to get into that subject in further detail then.

One thing I did want to touch on was there was a lot of conversation about the numbers, and 14,000 soldiers versus 18,000, and 21,000. I'm afraid the main point in that has been lost a bit. I would refer people to exhibit 5.4, which is on page 11 of our report just above paragraph 5.49. In that exhibit, that's where we identified the 29,000 soldiers with 21,000 funded positions. The next thing we said was that 19,500 was the average number of soldiers, but not all of those soldiers are trained, and that's why it got down to 13,944 or essentially 14,000.

When we did the audit, we were saying there were about 19,500 soldiers, but 14,000 of them were trained. What we are hearing today is that there are now 18,500 soldiers, with about 13,200 trained, if I understand from the lieutenant-general.

The issue, or the most important point, is that from these numbers we reported there has been another decline of about 1,000 soldiers in the army reserve. In all of the conversations about the numbers, that message has gotten lost a bit. What is important is we both agree that you can look at a number of soldiers, and we had 19,500, but then we said only 14,000 of them were trained. Now we're hearing it's 18,500 with 13,200 trained. The issue is that there has been another decline of 1,000 soldiers in that time period.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much for summarizing parts of the problem of retention and the importance of recruiting and training. We can't just say it's retention or recruiting, it's the training part as well. You will be hearing from us again, or we'll be hearing from you again, with the deputy minister in the fall in regard to that.

I want to make sure we finish on a good note, because I think you've heard it by all members of this committee. Camp Wainwright is in my constituency. I can tell you how important the work you do is to our communities, to our country, and to all those. We're proud of the job you do. It's a tough job and a most difficult job. The government's top priority is to protect its citizens at home and abroad, in some cases fighting for democracy, and in other cases helping in times of national emergency. You guys respond every time. We thank you for your work.

Our work is to take an Auditor General's report, make sure there's follow up to it, and make sure there's accountability to it. We try to do our job. We know you're doing your job, and we thank you for being here today.

The meeting is adjourned.