Status of Women Committee on April 20th, 2021

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I want to welcome everybody today to the 27th meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women. Today the committee is resuming our study on sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces.

The meeting will take place in hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of January 25, 2021, and the proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website.

The matters we're discussing today are extremely sensitive, so I know that all members of the committee will show great respect—

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

A point of order, Madam Chair.

There's no interpretation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Is it better, Madame Larouche? Can you hear it?

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I'm not hearing the interpretation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We'll suspend momentarily while we fix the translation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We'll start again.

I want to remind everyone that with the sensitive nature of what we're talking about, and the fact that some of these situations are still under investigation by military police, we want to be very sensitive and respectful in all of our questions, and I know we will be.

I want to take this opportunity to welcome our witnesses today.

From the naval combat systems engineering, we have Lieutenant Heather Macdonald. We have Dawn McIlmoyle, registered nurse; Emily Tulloch, aviation technician; and MJ Batek from the Survivor Perspectives Consulting Group.

Each of you will have five minutes to make your comments. I will hold up my little card when you get close to the end of your time.

We'll begin with Lieutenant Macdonald, for five minutes.

[Lieutenant, N) Heather Macdonald (Officer, Naval Combat Systems Engineering, As an Individual]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First, I want to say that this issue is too important to get wrong.

For many years, we have been embracing doing more with less, trying to find efficiencies where we could. I feel we've pretty much reached the point where we can’t really do much more with much less.

We're starting to burn out our people. People in the military were already stressed, and then we had a pandemic. The pandemic has not helped. I worry that if nothing comes from this issue, which has so much heat and light, people in uniform will lose hope that any other issue can be fixed, and that could trigger more people leaving uniform than our organization can handle.

My second point is that the navy is unique. From the environment we operate in, the way we operate and the training it takes to make it through our junior ranks, we are unique. That means that any solution that is found to help us cement change for the better will need to be capable of customization for the navy or it will not work for the navy.

Getting justice for incidents of sexual assault is generally very difficult for the average female in our Canadian society. It becomes more difficult when you are trying to get justice through the military under the National Defence Act, where there are more options to plead down to an NDA offence that carries little consequences for the perpetrator.

It becomes even more difficult if you are in the navy and the incident happens on a navy ship at sea or in a foreign port. We do not have police officers with us on ship, so if there is a need for an investigation we rely on our coxswains and chiefs to do unit disciplinary investigations. This greatly reduces the chance that there will be admissible evidence gathered and preserved to help the victim find justice in a court of law. Most times, the victims pay a greater price than the perpetrators when they come forward, and that is why most victims are reluctant to come forward.

We need to fix this. We need to make this a better and safer place for females to work. The #MeToo movement very much exposed our societal gender problems. The military somewhat amplifies those issues, because of the fact that females are also a minority. As a minority we stand out, and we end up being more under a constant microscope than the average male sailor or soldier.

Added to that, females of all rank levels have a very fine line that they have to walk. Act with too much empathy or concern and you are labelled as “mothering”, which is not perceived as a positive or sought-after trait. On the other end, be too firm or decisive and you are labelled a different derogatory term.

One area that I also think we need to understand is what I have heard called the old boys' club. For the most part, what I hear is a denial that it even exists. We are in an organization that relies on the most basic trust of your fellow soldier or sailor. When we find ourselves in hazardous conditions, we rely on the people we are working with to have our backs, to keep us alive. This creates relationships that are strong and cohesive. This is what we want for our organization.

The problem happens when those relationships are taken off the battlefield and applied unchecked. They can further pervert the balance of power and make it even less likely for victims to get justice. We want these relationships to happen. We want to encourage that, but we also need to recognize when those relationships need to be checked. We need to put balances in place to make sure they don't end up poisoning our organization. We can’t get to that if we don't even acknowledge that they exist.

As well, any reporting system we come up with needs to make the victims feel empowered and engender trust in the system and processes. There needs to be independence from the normal chain of command for that to happen.

We really need to acknowledge this is not a black and white issue. There are many shades of grey here. I have worked with many outstanding individuals over the course of my career, and I think it's very important to understand that generally good people may not see the areas where they are doing or allowing harm to be done to others. We need to accept that good people can and should receive appropriate consequences for their actions, and in some cases, it shouldn't always be career ending.

I'm not sure where we go from here. I don't have the answers, but if I were to fall back on my project management skills, which I learned over the course of my career as an engineer, I would say we need to do some thorough options analysis and present some concrete options with the pros and cons, so that we can choose the option that will best achieve the goals of our organization and best serve the members of the Canadian Armed Forces.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

As a fellow engineer, I thank you.

Now we will go to Ms. McIlmoyle for five minutes.

[Dawn McIlmoyle, Registered Nurse, As an Individual]

When I left the military I felt betrayed, abandoned, broken and like I was still at fault. I could not comprehend how I got charged for being raped. They used my statements against me and forced me to stand beside my attacker.

I couldn't understand why I was harassed on ship and then got released straight out of the psych ward, so I kept asking questions.

I got my release changed, and then I kept thinking, “I'm not the only one”. When I found someone else who was like me, we finally went forward. We went public in Maclean's, and we heard other people come forward. We thought that maybe change would happen.

I was optimistic. They started the ombudsman and they talked about it. Then it all got swept under the rug.

I started a 1-800 number and had people call me because I just wanted people to know they weren't alone. Then I nearly went insane because I had two small children at home and a non-supportive husband. When I left him, I went to nursing school to learn how to actually help people, but I wouldn't even tell people who I was because I was embarrassed for having gone public. I was embarrassed for putting my face on that article and for having been raped in the military.

I had people put me down for it, degrade me for it and tell me that it didn't even happen. In every instance, I've been told that it didn't happen, but because I know myself, I've concentrated on my healing journey. I've put myself through nursing school, working full time with two little boys. I thought I was a failure because I only got 65%. No, that's an accomplishment because I did it while working full time with two little boys. I rarely ever slept.

I went into a field that.... I cared way too much. I wanted to help people, but I burnt myself out constantly because I didn't know that I was supposed to look after me. I was totally about service. I always wanted to help people. That's why I joined the military.

I had to take a cold, hard look at myself because when I left the military I had no self-respect, no self-worth and no self-value. I instilled those into my boys. Then I had a granddaughter and I had to look and see that I needed to change so that I could make a difference for her and for my boys. The only thing I was going to make a difference with was me.

I have spent the last little while.... I have found like-minded people. I started to heal and then I started to see that not everything was a failure. I changed my mindset.

I was also over-therapized because they all knew I had PTSD, so they kept sending me to therapy. It wasn't helping me because I wasn't in a state to hear what they had to say. Plus, they sent me to a child psychologist. They didn't know what to do with me.

I went to Maryam Monsef in 2016, when she was promoted to the minister of the status of women. I laid all of the Maclean's articles out for her and told her that we needed to do something and make a difference. She just said to make another appointment. One of her assistants said to join an organization and write a proposal. I was like...oh, my goodness.

I went back to school and I took indigenous studies because I'm constantly educating myself so that I can see different perspectives. Now I can look back at all of it and I can see the change that has happened. I get people telling me, “Thank you for what you did.” It's completely blowing my mind because for 20 years I thought that I was hated and that I did a horrible thing by going public. Now I am starting to see that I am the time-stamp that they can't deny. They can't say that they didn't know it was going on, no matter what.

I have accepted the fact...and I have also seen change happen. I've reached out in very angry ways to high-ranking officials. Instead of being angry with me, they've seen my frustration. They have acknowledged my hurt and my trauma and they've come back with “Thank you for everything you've done and your concern for the military” and “Hold your head high” and stuff like that. It's kept me going.

As bad as a lot of the things were, I hold on to the good of the people I've met along the way. I am still that optimistic person who thinks that change will happen—even though I see it get put down, see it get politicized and see these issues get totally put into an arena that they shouldn't be in.

Now the left takes it too far to the left. The right takes it too far to the right. The actual issue has been forgotten. Every time I see this on the news, I have to remember that I came forward in 1998 and didn't get heard. Many others did too.

There are a lot of people out there who are wanting change. They are wanting to see it happen so badly. They're seeing just little tiny pieces of it, and then they're being disappointed and broken-hearted and devalued because nothing happens. It's empty words. It's broken promises. It's copy-and-paste letters that are all the same to other people. They're just paying lip service.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I'm sorry. That's the end of your time. We'll get to the rest in the questions. Thank you again.

Now we go to Ms. Tulloch for five minutes.

[Emily Tulloch, Aviation Technician, As an Individual]

Hi and thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to speak to you today about my own personal experiences with sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces.

I joined the Canadian Armed Forces in July of 2018. Since then, I feel like I've experienced a lifetime's worth of sexual assault and misconduct. I'm here today to tell you that I was raped only one month—one month—into my basic training in Saint-Jean. I was also sexually assaulted during my training in Borden. I have been groped and kissed unwillingly at crew parties and mess events. These degrading behaviours are more common than you think.

On top of all that, I have put up with misogynistic and sexist comments all throughout my career. They range from being told that I only got in because I'm a girl to what an instructor in Borden said to me while looking me dead in the eye: If you've had daddy fix everything for you in your cozy little life, let us know so we can give you a hand.

I believe in the importance of the military. I hope to continue my career and to serve my country to the best of my abilities. My experience with our military justice system, however, has been quite negative. It has left me with a lot of questions about how military police should conduct their investigations. I had three interviews with the military police since I first reported misconduct. Two of those interviews were honestly dreadful. These so-called interviews felt more like interrogation. During these interviews, I felt that investigators were not treating me like a human being. I was just another case file to them. There was no empathy or humanity. It was so frustrating that I left early during the second interview. I felt like I wasn't being heard and was being treated like a criminal. No one should be treated like a criminal when they are that vulnerable and in need of help.

The military police need to improve their training for how to conduct interviews of sexual assault victims. There needs to be a specific course made to teach them that victims need understanding and empathy. If there already is a course, then they need to tear it apart and rebuild it from the ground up.

I also believe that an officer of the same sex of the victim should conduct the interview. In my situation, it wasn't offered that I could speak to a female officer until halfway through my interview, when I started crying. Even then the military police said they would have to reschedule for the next week, because there was no female officer available.

In basic training the leadership tries to ingrain the core values of the military in recruits. These values are duty, loyalty, integrity and courage. These values are taught through PowerPoint and workbooks. However, these values are falling through the cracks. That is how we get this toxic culture that we have been dealing with for so long. It has been abundantly clear that military leadership has not been able to uphold the high ethical standards of integrity. If the leadership can't follow basic core values and set a good example, how are the majority of troops supposed to?

In basic training we are shown this cartoon video that oversimplifies the concept of consent. In my view, the video is little more than a joke. It's all fun to watch, but the topic of sexual misconduct isn't fun. It should be uncomfortable enough to realize that this is a real issue that needs to be dealt with.

In regard to Op Honour, I believe it has served its purpose. It is time to end that course of action and start something else. Op Honour certainly got the conversation going and improved resources and education available to CAF members, but the leadership has been wilfully ignorant of the fact that it has been seen as a joke for years. For many of us, Op Honour has aged like rotten milk. It just leaves a sour taste in your mouth. Serving members at the rank-and-file level constantly make fun of it and degrade its message. To make matters worse, in a cruel irony, it's apparent that the man who created the whole operation is now being investigated under the same pretenses that he swore to fix.

I know that the organization has the potential to evolve and that we can end the toxicity surrounding the military, but that starts with changing the way people think. The only way to do that is by having these discussions, by hearing the stories of victims and by ending the stigma of coming forward to try to right this wrong that has been going on for far too long.

I want to say thank you for giving me this opportunity to tell my truth. As anybody knows, this has not been an easy process for me. Thank you for this opportunity and the chance to speak to you today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you so much.

Now we will go to Ms. Batek for five minutes.

[MJ Batek, OCdt, Survivor Perspectives Consulting Group]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm here as a veteran military sexual trauma survivor, a military domestic violence survivor and as a representative of the Survivor Perspectives Consulting Group, also referred to as SPCG.

SPCG was recently created by a small group of military sexual trauma survivors. For decades, we have watched in silence and have now come together to take action, to ensure survivor voices are heard and to create solutions to help combat this crisis.

Just as the Government of Canada uses gender-based analysis plus, which goes beyond sex and gender to other intersecting identity factors, such as race, ethnicity or age, the Canadian Armed Forces should consider the perspective of military sexual trauma survivors at every stage of strategy and policy development.

We at SPCG are willing to work towards the provision of that perspective in a professionally coordinated format. We do not propose to have all of the answers as we are not organizational culture or military justice experts, but we are the unfortunate experts by experience of military sexual trauma.

We can help define this problem, the full extent of which is still unknown. We can point to specific gaps, deficiencies and issues. We know, for example, that the internal reporting mechanism is flawed and that independent oversight is badly needed.

We can help find and develop solutions—immediate, medium and long-term solutions—because we have ideas. We have ideas that can be developed into plans, policies and programs.

For example, we have developed a one-day workshop that can be used in the immediate term to help kick-start the culture shift that is desperately needed throughout the organization. This training package, called the frontline workshop, is survivor born and is based on civilian best practices curated specifically for the Canadian Armed Forces.

The frontline workshop will challenge and confront the social norms and unconscious biases of the attendees. It will shake their foundation and open their minds unlike anything the military has done before. We can provide feedback on and input into strategies, plans and policies every step of the way, during development, implementation and monitoring stages.

Just like any GBA+ analysis of various identity factors, we want to provide the military sexual trauma survivor perspective with potential solutions to the Canadian Armed Forces as a professional voice, as well as to other stakeholders such as Veterans Affairs Canada.

We are currently in the building phase of our organization, but we are aiming to represent multiple identity factors, including men, indigenous, veteran, LGBTQ+ and civilian survivors, among others, as this is not specifically a women's issue. Yes, I did say civilian survivors, because it is important to note that the impact of a sexualized military culture is not limited to members of the military. The impact reaches beyond the perimeter of the workplace and negatively affects the lives of military families, spouses and children as well as the community at large.

A sexualized military culture, in many cases, may lead to military domestic violence, child abuse and civilian sexual assault. Not only does this culture provide a safe place for perpetrators to hide and exist under the protection of a uniform, but it also inadvertently teaches the victims to tolerate the intolerable, which leads to lives plagued with mental health challenges, potential homelessness and future abusive relationships.

The social cost of allowing this toxic culture to survive extends to the Canadian public, and that makes this is a Canadian problem, with real financial and social costs affecting all taxpayers.

In closing, when Lieutenant-General Eyre testified before this committee on March 23, he explained that his approach to changing the sexualized military culture was based on two streams, the second of which included listening and learning. This is exactly where SPCG fits in.

Our team can provide the perspectives needed to ensure that every strategy, every plan, every policy and every program aimed at tackling this crisis is viewed through a survivor-informed lens.

We want to be part of those meaningful consultations as a way to help make the Canadian Armed Forces a better, safer place for those who come behind us.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for this opportunity. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you very much.

Now we're going to begin our first round of questions. We'll start with Ms. Alleslev for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses.

I would like to take a moment to assure you that many of us on this committee and the defence committee recognize that we are the last line of defence. We are the elected officials, and in a democracy it is our responsibility to ensure that our institutions and those who honourably serve in them are protected and are a reflection of our values. We will do our very best [Technical difficulty—Editor] and we have failed. We have known about this, as you so aptly pointed out, for 25 years. When I was a recruit, when I was at military college, we knew. The fact that we haven't done what it takes to fix it is unconscionable.

I thank you nonetheless for still pursuing, coming forward and making sure that we know what we need to know. As you put it, Lieutenant Macdonald, this is far too important to get wrong, and if we don't get it right this time, it will affect everything, our Canadian Forces and our ability to protect the values of our nation and embody them ourselves. It took great courage, and I sincerely thank you.

First, Ms. Tulloch, what bravery, what courage and what an attitude you have to come forward, so right on ya, girl! Don't back down. You deserve this career. Stay with it.

Can you give me some understanding of why it's a joke? Why is sexual harassment not taken seriously? Why do you believe they think it's okay to do what they do?

[Emily Tulloch]

Honestly, I think people think it's okay because it's been going on for so long and nobody's corrected them. As Lieutenant Macdonald mentioned, there is a boys' club. It is filled with type-A personality jocks who have a pack mentality, who stay together and who want to stick up for each other. What they think is okay may not be okay for the minority of the Canadian Armed Forces.

That is why we need to speak up today, and that is why we need to improve what we're doing now and completely change the way people think, because that's where it starts. That is how we make a difference and make people more comfortable, either reporting and coming forward or just being themselves in their own careers.

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

Well done.

Lieutenant Macdonald, could you give us a little more information about pleading down and how that happens, and how testimony, evidence and critical information can be lost on ship, which jeopardizes any investigation?

[Lt(N) Heather Macdonald]

If you're prosecuting something under just the Criminal Code of Canada, within our court systems you can plead guilty to a lesser charge. That is increased when you're in a military court system because it's not just criminal codes that you can plead to. You can plead down to a National Defence Act offence, which will not stay on your record beyond the military. There are options of pleading guilty to a lesser charge that is an NDA charge that will not show on any criminal record because it's not under the Criminal Code of Canada.

There are greater options there to.... You can have all the evidence and you're actually going to court, and then it's “Oh, no, we're going to plead down to something that's totally military and isn't going to...”. It's a slap on the wrist.

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

How does that contribute to the lack of severity and the lack of seriousness that you and the rest of us perceive and that this would fit into?

[Lt(N) Heather Macdonald]

The victims wear it a lot more than the perpetrators. Quite often the perpetrators are allowed to continue their careers unhindered, whereas the victims just can't. It's led to many victims not coming forward.

Being on a ship, we have unit disciplinary investigations that happen. That goes to our senior NCMs, so our chiefs are the ones who run that. But our chiefs are not necessarily professional police officers. They don't have a career in that sort of training, so relying on them to collect and preserve evidence that would be admissible to a court of law is, I think, an unfair burden, and it depends on who you get and what level, how much—

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

Would you happen to know if, on a ship, there is a rape kit?

[Lt(N) Heather Macdonald]

I'm not sure. If it were held, it probably would be held by the medical technicians in the sick bay, but I'm not sure. I don't know.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you.

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

Thank you.