Public Accounts Committee on March 1st, 2018

[RAdm Luc Cassivi]

It allows for research that supports some of those activities, so yes.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

We learned in defence committee this morning that they're having a very difficult time finding people to fill the new role of cybersecurity. Is any attention being focused on providing a curriculum? You're already doing the background checks, which is a requirement for having a new unit doing this type of work. Is there any curriculum dedicated to that, to help the forces generate this new unit that is in the very nascent stages of standing up?

[RAdm Luc Cassivi]

There is a cyber curriculum offered at Royal Military College. Some is offered to the folks who are selected and who want to become the cyberwarriors of the future. RMC is also co-operating with the Communications Security Establishment on those programs, particularly at the post-graduate level, with some of the research that takes place there.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Are you working with the forces in terms of what they need to have to fill the positions in the military? Do you work hand in hand with them, making sure your curriculum is benefiting the forces as a whole?

[RAdm Luc Cassivi]

Yes, we do, Madam.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Is enrolment at capacity, or is the low student-to-teacher ratio what you desire to have?

[RAdm Luc Cassivi]

Enrolment at the college is at capacity, based on the infrastructure we have for residency. There is room in class to take more mature students who would not live at the college.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

To the Auditor General, you mentioned that we don't have the quality of conduct expected of officers. Were you referring to a specific type of conduct, or a given instance that may have been in the news? Given there's no other university in Canada that is comparable to RMC, in terms of being able to compare leadership levels, what did you use as a basis of comparison? How were these conclusions arrived at?

[Michael Ferguson]

I'll start, and I'll ask Mr. Stock to provide the details. One of the things we looked at, for example, was the number of incidents that were investigated. We found that of the types of incidents that had been reported, in which there was some accusation against a cadet at the Royal Military College, about half of them involved third- or fourth-year cadets. By that time we would have expected, if some of those leadership traits had started to develop throughout the four years, not to see these cadets involved in those types of incidents.

I'll ask Mr. Stock to provide the details.

[Gordon Stock, Principal, Office of the Auditor General]

The way we did this work was that we looked at completed investigations. Our expectation was that these are members of the Canadian Armed Forces. They have to follow the DND and CF code of values and ethics. They also have to follow the rules of the college. There is a higher expectation of the officer cadets than there would be of people at a regular university. They are also salaried members of the Canadian Armed Forces while they are officer cadets, so there is a much stricter expectation, and we compared our work against that expectation, so that if there was an investigation or if there were serious incidents, then we looked at those and made our conclusions based on them.

From the academic side, we found that there was also a high incidence of plagiarism, close to 60%, as well as other academic issues regarding more senior officer cadets. In that perspective, we expected more of the senior officer cadets already there. They are a role model for the more junior officer cadets, and we did not see that they were performing in that way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to Mr. Chen, please.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I read this report and it was quite shocking to see some of the numbers that came out, and I want to first say a big thank you to the Auditor General and his team for doing this work. Thank you also to the department for being here today.

Some of the numbers I saw in the report were $55,000 per student, full-time equivalent, as the annual cost of education. When I looked at the operating expenses, I saw that, as with many educational institutions, staffing is by far the largest cost.

When I looked at the responses from the department with respect to the AG's recommendations, I saw, when looking at recommendation 6.44 in the AG report, that “National Defence should explore ways to reduce the Royal Military College of Canada’s operating cost per student and consider reducing the number of programs offered”. To me, there's the matter of the programs offered, but there's also the matter of how much money you're spending to offer those programs, and if staffing is by far your largest expenditure, then you have to look there.

One of the numbers from the report with respect to science is a ratio of five students to one professor. In engineering, it's seven students to one professor. I've been to university, and I can tell you, first year, you walk into a science class and there are 200 students and one professor. I understand that you can have better learning when you have a lower pupil-to-professor ratio, but there comes a point where it just doesn't make sense. I'm pretty sure you can have a few more students for that professor and it won't make any difference in the level of learning for the students with that professor.

I know you're doing a number of reports and you're comparing the cost per pupil with allied educational institutions. Are you going to actually look at the positions you are hiring and whether or not they are necessary? Are you going to look at how much they're being paid and whether that salary is appropriate to the amount of work they do? If you have a professor with five students, that's a lot less marking than a professor would have in a school that has 100 or 200 students. What do you plan to look at in your analysis?

[Jody Thomas]

There are a number of elements to your question. First of all, we'll take the salary of the staff. Those are public servants and their salaries are set by the Treasury Board based on their academic standards, qualifications, how they publish papers, and so on, like other academic positions in the public service. So I don't have specific control over their salary, and it's not based on their student ratio.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

What about the non-academic staff, because in the Auditor General's report it was identified that the salaries of the non-academic staff was an issue?

[Jody Thomas]

Again, for the majority of the non-academic staff, if they're civilians, they're public servants and that is a public servant's salary or they're military, so of course, they're paid according to their rank. We can look at the number of staff and that's one of the things we will do over the course of the year.

Reducing the number of programs offered will help reduce the cost. The two programs you cite with a 5:1 and a 7:1 ratio are very specific science and engineering courses that we're offering in French at RMC. It is anticipated that, in the future, le Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean will offer those programs, so that we will have programs in French with bigger classes at CMR and programs in English with bigger classes at RMC. Again, that will increase the student ratio—not to anything unreasonable—and at a lower cost.

Yes, 7:1 is a very low student-to-professor ratio. We don't have an objective standard of what is reasonable. Certainly 200 is too high and we won't ever be at that point, but we take the point that we need to reduce the number of courses, so that there are more students in any one course. We have to look at the number of non-academic staff hired by the college and we have to look at the military staff.

The costs for the infrastructure are fixed costs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Chen, thank you.

Monsieur Deltell.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, gentlemen, madam, Rear-Admiral.

I welcome the fact that my colleague Mr. Massé asked a very relevant question about the courses offered. My Conservative instinct bristled a little when I knew what classes they were.

On this subject, I would like to ask Rear-Admiral Cassivi and Ms. Thomas some questions.

Another item surprised me a little when I read the Auditor General's report, and it appears in paragraph 6.92:

Recommendation—The Royal Military College of Canada should ensure that before senior Officer Cadets are appointed to leadership positions, they demonstrate high standards of conduct and ethical behaviour.

Honestly, if there was one place where I thought that discipline was in order, it was at the Royal Military College of Canada. As noted, there was no response to this recommendation.

Rear-Admiral Cassivi, I would like to hear your comments on this.

[RAdm Luc Cassivi]

Thank you for this excellent question.

Yes, some positions have been granted based on merit in the past. That's the predominant method. However, we must also challenge our cadets. They must all be in command positions so that we can evaluate their behaviour, guide them and mentor them during this time. Otherwise, they will not have the experience and learning needed so that we can assess their leadership abilities at the end of the program. It's a balance.

People need to be trained for the highest positions, but for other positions as well. It's about giving the right challenges to the right people.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

I understand, Rear-Admiral, but we are not talking here about the development of talents. We all know people who did exceptionally well in their studies but did not acquire the necessary skills to practise their profession. We are not talking about skills here, but about behaviour. In his report, the Auditor General talks about proper conduct and ethical behaviour. We are not trying to see whether the person is a good leader or not. We are talking about proper behaviour.

How can you tolerate that, Rear-Admiral?

[RAdm Luc Cassivi]

Students who are assigned to a command post will have a record of good behaviour. That is one of the criteria we established since the report was published.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

The Auditor General concludes that that is not at all the case currently at the Royal Military College.

[RAdm Luc Cassivi]

That was the case last summer. We made these changes after the investigation in order to ensure that these situations will not reoccur.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

We are talking about a few months of experience. What makes you think that the situation is resolved?

[RAdm Luc Cassivi]

I did not say it was resolved; I said that the selection process was settled. Each session, when senior officer-cadets are replaced, we will see whether there were mistakes. We will learn from these mistakes and correct the process as we were asked to do.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

In conclusion, we simply want to say that if there is one place in Canada where we expect that order, discipline, proper behaviour and ethics will be respected, naturally, it is the Canadian Armed Forces.