Status of Women Committee on March 25th, 2021

[LCol Eric Leblanc]

Folks can come to our unit. There is a section within the NDA that allows the VCDS to issue an instruction, but I have yet to see it happen.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That's very good. Unfortunately, we've come to the end of the time.

I want to thank the witnesses. This was excellent testimony. I appreciate your coming and the work that you do and your service.

We're going to suspend momentarily while we do the sound check for the next panel.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We'll continue with our study.

We're very happy today to welcome Marie Deschamps, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Madam Deschamps, you will have five minutes for your remarks, and then we'll go to our rounds of questions. You may begin.

[Marie Deschamps, Former Justice, Supreme Court of Canada, As an Individual]

Thank you for the invitation.

I greatly value your committee's work. I actually used it as inspiration when I was drafting my report.

During my previous appearances before the Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defence and before the House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence, I mainly insisted on the responsibilities the Sexual Misconduct Response Centre should have had, in my opinion. I am specifically talking about the authority needed to receive complaints and reports, be they confidential or not. I also insisted on the need to support victims throughout the process, including the process used to discipline the perpetrator. I also insisted on the expertise the centre should have to be able to assist the Canadian Armed Forces in terms of training programs. Finally, I especially insisted on the fact that it would be important for the centre to act as the central point of data collection. In fact, without data, we will never know what is happening in terms of sexual assault or sexual harassment.

Today, I would rather like to talk to you about something else.

There are two other issues that I discussed in my report but on which I never insisted. The first is leadership. It is a very well-known management rule that without personal engagement of the senior leadership, there will be no change of culture. I made that point in my report.

I'll read the first sentence of section 4.4.2, which I titled “Proactive Leadership”:

In order to bring about cultural change in an organization, and to reduce the occurrence of sexual harassment and sexual assault, it is essential that senior leaders, and particularly those with general oversight responsibilities, become directly engaged in cultural reform.

As soon as August 2015, the then chief of the defence staff issued an operation order in which he stated that he would establish a global strategy and an action plan for responding to sexual misconduct. I thought my message had been heard, but it took more than five years before we got to see this global strategy. I have already made some comments on this strategy. Amongst my other comments, I said that I thought it lacked concrete measures. Apparently, this is in the action plan, but the action plan, I understand, is not public.

I want to repeat here that without strong engagement from the senior leaders, the armed forces culture will not change. The years that passed only made it more difficult to restore the trust in the leadership. I can only hope that the new leaders will have understood the situation and will rise to the challenge. That's my point on leadership.

My second point concerns the lack of clarity of the policies and procedures on intimate relationships. That, I understand, was mentioned by the current acting chief of the defence staff. On that issue, I refer to section 6.2 of my report, where I expressed the view that the policies needed to be clarified to address more explicitly the power imbalance, including by creating an administrative presumption that where the relationship is not properly disclosed, the relationship should be considered to be an adverse personal relationship.

To my knowledge, the policy on personal relationships—that's DAOD 5019-1—has not been changed.

The text of that policy is a source of confusion. The organizational structure of the Canadian Armed Forces is the reason behind an inherent risk of abuse of power. That is what my recommendation on the presumption of harmful relationships was intended to remedy. I can only note that there appeared to be a lack of will to change in 2015. I hope the message is now clear.

I am available to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you very much.

We'll start with Ms. Alleslev.

You have six minutes.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

First and foremost, thank you so much, Madam Deschamps, for all the work you've done for many years. We truly would be lost without your research and perspective. Thank you very much.

I wonder if I could start for a moment with the legal aspects around the Minister of National Defence . Is it your opinion that he has the authority and the responsibility to ensure that good order, discipline and all conduct rules are enforced, investigations occur, results are reported back and offenders are held accountable?

[Marie Deschamps]

I'm sorry, but I'm hesitant to give any legal opinion in this forum. Obviously, the minister is the head of the organization, and I think—

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Even if we're not looking at a legal opinion, Canadians—

[Marie Deschamps]

Your question is a legal question, and it calls for a legal opinion. I was told that I was here to comment on my report. If I'm drawn to other fora, I'm sorry; I prefer not to engage in it. I leave it to others.

In the previous committee that I participated in, a number of witnesses were willing to give their legal opinion on that. I prefer not to engage in this, just as I fend off all media requests because it all leads to this kind of question.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you. It was only because you talked about the critical need for senior leaders to engage.

[Marie Deschamps]

Yes.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

I think Canadians would say that the minister is the most senior of senior leaders. If no one is accountable to ensure that this culture change occurs, then we feel somewhat adrift as to whether we'll ever be able to achieve a culture change, but I respect....

In terms of senior leadership, do we not need them to get engaged? Do we not also need to ensure that they are without fault? They won't have credibility to change the culture if they, themselves, have been complicit in this behaviour in the past. Do you see that as a stumbling block in terms of the culture change in the military?

[Marie Deschamps]

Senior leaders must be role models. In the commercial environment, I'm sure that you know that many organizations have as a rule that there can be absolutely no intimate relationships with staff, never mind their rank. Many CEOs have lost their jobs over this kind of issue. It's still my view that senior leaders must act as role models.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

If they haven't been, then perhaps we need to look at doing something to ensure that the senior leaders that we have are. Is that what you're suggesting?

[Marie Deschamps]

We need to ensure that we have good leaders who can act as role models.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

In terms of the lack of clarity on intimate relationships and why.... It's hard to understand why when you clearly outline that this aspect of the code of discipline needs to be clarified, and I'm understanding that it's a source of confusion, but it also could, perhaps, be a source of abuse. I'm wondering if you could explain why that is so important.

I asked a previous witness this: How would you know if something is consensual or not when it's a senior leader and a junior, particularly in such a hierarchically strong organization like the military?

[Marie Deschamps]

Personal relationships are very difficult to address in all kinds of settings. In a large organization of 100,000 people where people live together and where many people are single, it's very difficult to impose a complete ban. There must be limits imposed in order to protect those who may be vulnerable.

This is why I indicated that, to me, the avenue for solving this issue was to start with the premise that the relationship can be abusive, so start with a presumption of a prejudicial personal relationship. In their jargon, that's what they call an “adverse” relationship. However, the way it was solved was through disclosure.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Yes. I don't have much time, but would it be possible, in your opinion, to have a complete ban of intimate relationships for, let's say, the general officer rank because they are held to a much higher standard? It might just be a consequence of being a general.

[Marie Deschamps]

With regard to intimate relationships, it depends—and I don't want to contemplate every single situation—but if the two people are single, if they are willing, if the relationship is disclosed.... That's why I stayed away from complete bans. These people have their lives to live, so a complete ban I'm very afraid of. That is why I didn't go there.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Now we're going to go to Ms. Dhillon for six minutes and a little bit extra.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mrs. Deschamps, I am really pleased to see you here. I followed your career and your work with great interest over the years. Thank you for participating in our committee today to discuss this extremely important topic.

Your report mentions that hundreds of individuals collaborated on your review. Could you tell the committee what major concerns could have dissuaded members of the Canadian Armed Forces from breaking the silence?

I would ask that you answer this question very briefly. Thank you.

[Marie Deschamps]

There are a number of them. I actually talk about them in my report. The largest concern is definitely a fear of reprisals. Victims are afraid of suffering reprisals not only from the chain of command, but also from members of their unit. A unit is seen as a small family. If a complaint is filed against a member of the unit, there may be a ripple effect where the other members of the unit would act as a shield for the perpetrator. When that is the case, the victim ends up being thrown out of the group. That is why we must work at all levels.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

The majority of people who enrol in the army have a desire to serve their country. Despite all the reporting and all the horror stories, women should not hesitate or not join the Canadian Armed Forces if that is their dream.

How could we increase the feeling of safety among women who want to enrol in the Canadian Armed Forces and so encourage more women to do that?