Status of Women Committee on April 15th, 2021

[BGen Andrew Atherton]

When we released the Path in the fall—and shortly afterwards there was the policy document that very clearly outlined the duties and responsibilities related to sexual misconduct—from our perspective that answered all 10 of Madame Deschamps' recommendations, as well as the recommendations of the OAG. We have made a lot of progress since 2019. In that time, since 2019, the final work would have gone into the release of the Path. From our perspective, we believe we have achieved all 10 of those recommendations. However, that is our opinion. We still require our audit committee to look at it and confirm our understanding of it.

Again, a lot of work has been done since 2019 to get us to that point of releasing that strategy, particularly in getting expert opinion and external advice to make sure that what we were releasing had expert informed care and a victim-centric approach that was aimed at culture change.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

All right.

Brigadier-General Atherton, last Tuesday, the Canadian Forces provost marshal was explaining to us that in order for an investigation to be launched, a complaint must cross a certain threshold. What are the criteria for crossing that threshold?

Ms. Preston could also speak to this process for victims.

[BGen Andrew Atherton]

We have taken a very broad definition of what sexual misconduct is, right up to, as we heard from the last panel, the criminal. But to preserve the integrity and the independence of the military police branch, they are allowed a certain amount of latitude to look at the evidence. Given that they have that authority, they determine whether it is or isn't a code of service discipline offence or whether it warrants a charge in accordance with the Criminal Code of Canada.

Every case is slightly different. Again, it depends on the professionalism and dedication of those individuals who investigate those incidents.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Ms. Preston, what are the differences between the military justice system and the public system in the way sexual assaults are handled?

From what we were hearing earlier, it sounds like the definition is the same, but is there a difference between the military and civilian systems in terms of handling?

[Dr. Denise Preston]

The first thing I should note is that the sexual misconduct response centre is not a reporting centre. We do have a military police liaison officer who is a member of the national investigation service who works with us. We are able to facilitate reporting with the consent of an individual who calls us. We do not actually take reports at the SMRC.

What I would note about definitions is that, as General Atherton has said, the CAF uses a very broad definition of sexual misconduct. It goes up to and including cases that would meet Criminal Code definitions for sexual assault or other types of sexual offences.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Fine.

Ms. Preston, as I understand it, your centre simply serves as a resource for victim support, but is not necessarily involved in the rest of the process.

Brigadier-General Atherton, is there a difference in the handling of a sexual assault complaint in the military and civilian justice systems?

[BGen Andrew Atherton]

Madam Chair, I believe the provost marshal or somebody from the JAG organization would be much better positioned to answer that with specifics, but I will say that we do have a very broad definition of what sexual misconduct is. As I've said, it goes right up to criminal...but it also targets those sorts of inappropriate behaviours that are more or less minor—if I can use those terms—because those are the ones that we believe, if left unchecked, can lead to more serious types of behaviour.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Perhaps we can come back to this.

Depending on how sexual misconduct is defined and the hierarchical level of the person committing it, there are still barriers.

Are you aware of the barriers military members face in reporting sexual misconduct?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Your time is up, Ms. Larouche.

Now we'll go to Ms. Mathyssen for six minutes.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

To the witnesses, one of the reasons we're discussing all of this is ultimately that, in a horrible situation, the ombudsman had approached the Minister of Defence not knowing where to go with an allegation, and the ombudsman was unwilling to release the complainant's information because that complainant had no assurances they would be protected from doing so in their chain of command.

We've heard a lot from witnesses directly saying that confidentiality doesn't exist. One witness, Madame Raymond, told us about hearing people talking about her case in the hallway when they weren't speaking to her directly.

I know, Ms. Preston, you talked about confidentiality and its importance, but there seems to be a disconnect here.

Can you both address that?

[Dr. Denise Preston]

Certainly. I can start.

All of the services we provide at the SMRC are confidential. We are the one safe space that CAF members have to call to talk about what's happened to them, knowing that we are receiving that information and keeping it in confidence until such time as they decide they would like to take action with that information.

In practice, we would only release information about any individual caller with their consent or when the usual limits to confidentiality apply, such as if there's imminent risk to an individual, but I can say that has never happened in the six years the centre has been operating.

[BGen Andrew Atherton]

We have a significant number of policies in place to protect an individual who comes forward with a complaint. It's been very clearly articulated in the policy document we released in the fall. The amount of personal and moral courage that an individual must have to come forward to make a complaint of this nature is beyond my comprehension, I know, but having been a commanding officer and a formation commander, I know how challenging and how difficult that is.

That said, we do have a number of policies that are there to protect the individual, but part of the work we need to do going forward is to understand what those barriers are. A part of the work and the successes that we've worked through via Operation Honour is to try to eliminate those barriers and provide a number of different options. However, as we've seen and heard, there are barriers that exist. We need to work through them and need to find out what they are, but certainly, there is a rigid system in place to protect the individual and to protect them from any form of repercussion.

The peer group and the bystander will also play a significant role here in what they need to do or what role they will play, certainly as a member of their team, and to protect the member of their team as well.

There's a lot more work to do in this regard, particularly in understanding what those barriers are to reporting, and what those barriers would be to make an individual concerned or scared to come forward when they clearly have something they need to say.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

You were talking about those policies and the idea of that confidentiality being supreme, and earlier this week in testimony this committee also heard that there is a difference between the formal and informal leadership. It seems like we're talking about a lot of the same things here, right? There are the policies on the books and in the leadership that can be provided formally in terms of education and in terms of what we say. Even the last panel talked about what we say and what we do.

Maybe you could discuss that as well in terms of that formal and informal leadership and some of the recommendations you would have to increase both protection and confidentiality for women, all minorities or disproportionately affected groups going forward within the CAF.

[BGen Andrew Atherton]

Madam Chair, I'll make the first attempt at this.

Part of our culture change strategy is very much the effect, exactly as you've said. We have the very clear, mapped out and clearly published “what we expect our core values to be”, and also, we have identified that there is, in some cases, a variation from those things.

The other part of this is targeting those junior leaders, and leaders at every level, quite frankly, and understanding the role they will play in establishing command climate and culture within their organization. Part of this is very much educating leaders at every level to understand how significant an effect they have and the significant effect that they may have on barriers to reporting.

Also, part of the work that we will start looking for as part of this culture change is for every member of the CAF to understand where they fit in the whole process, where they see themselves, and to understand that they are in fact part of this process to change culture in understanding the effect it has on individuals who are harmed and the role they must play in ensuring they have the care they need.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Now we'll go to Ms. Alleslev in the second round for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

General Atherton, you can tell that my colleagues are struggling somewhat with the actual responsibility and role of your position. Could you give us an idea of what authority and accountability you have and what are the key objectives that your position is working to achieve?

[BGen Andrew Atherton]

Thank you very much for that very good question.

I am an element within the office of the CDS, as it were, but my day-to-day reporting is directly to the vice-chief. I have the opportunity and the ability to work with all of the different services to work through the programs that we are trying to put in place. Part of my original mandate, or my expanded mandate, is to look at all those aspects of culture that we need and what we want to be the embodiment of what Canada wants as members of the armed forces.

That is my mandate, and it's also to put policies into play that support those types of things. Also, part of it is to work with professionals like Dr. Preston, to work with our external stakeholders and to work with experts to understand: Are the policies that we have put in place effective? Where can we do better and how can we improve? Particularly as we move on to the next step of this journey, where can we help and what can we do better? That's really part of my mandate: to work with the chain of command but also to work with external stakeholders to provide that expert advice that we so need.

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

The key, of course, is around the metrics. You've said that you've made steady progress. How do you know that? How are you measuring that progress?

[BGen Andrew Atherton]

We measure progress in a number of different ways. A lot of it is through reporting: the numbers of reporting and how we track that, and the accuracy of reporting. We have a very dedicated reporting system and we track incidents throughout the course of the year. We work with the chain of command for accuracy. We work with them for auditing and provide them feedback and advice on how they can be better. It's that accuracy of reporting that will help us to determine the rate of increase or decrease or change on the reporting of sexual misconduct.

We also will work with things like StatsCan surveys, unit surveys and things like that to understand what command climates are out there and to then be able to work with some of the academic bodies we have to understand that and to help us better understand what the results are so that then we can design programs to fit.

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

We've seen that much of these policies and procedures have been in place for a long time. The military had SHARP training back in the 1990s, and there's Operation Honour. This is not a new thing. It's not necessarily a question of the military's not understanding what's expected and what the values of Canadian society are; it's about individuals not meeting that behaviour.

How are you measuring that, and how are you measuring the accountability of those individuals in those processes so they meet standards for behaviour?

[BGen Andrew Atherton]

We have said that sexual misconduct must never be minimized, excused or ignored. That is paramount through everything that we do.

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

However, we know that it has been, so how are we addressing this?

[BGen Andrew Atherton]

Absolutely. That's exactly why, as we move through the next step of this journey, we need to understand not only what we did well, what the successes are and what the positive aspects of Operation Honour were, but also where we went wrong and what some of the negative aspects of it were.

What we're also seeing is part of the aspect of the Path—understanding that culture change and our ethos are very much embedded into our education and training systems. This starts right at the recruit school and works its way through leadership training, junior leadership training, officer training and senior leader training. We understand that this is an important part of operational effectiveness and want to make people an essential part of our team.

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

Will you be reviewing the practices at RMC? We've heard from witnesses that it obviously has an incredibly strong culture. You and I were both there 100 years ago.

[BGen Andrew Atherton]

Part of my role is to work with other stakeholders, including the military colleges. I look at their training and education systems. We have a training and education organization within my directorate that works with the Canadian Defence Academy to make sure they're putting in place all these training and education systems we want and that they're in line with the Path and with Operation Honour.