Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 31st, 2024

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

His own official—

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I don't think your behaviour helps veterans.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Let's let him answer the question, then, but he needs to answer the question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Minister, please go ahead. You have the floor.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, the reprieve was announced by the chaplain general simply because his directive was so badly misinterpreted and misrepresented. As I think he made very clear in his directive and in subsequent communications, it was about making all commemorative events more inclusive to enable every Canadian to participate in a reflection or prayer, no matter their beliefs. It was a respect for the diversity of our country—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

It's inclusion by exclusion. Your own official has said that he is not to be included.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

—and for all people to participate in these reflections.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Come on, guys.

Minister, I'm sorry.

With all those interruptions, Mr. May, you only have four minutes left for your intervention.

Please, go ahead.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for being with us today.

I certainly am looking forward to having an early Remembrance Day ceremony that's held in one of the rural communities in my riding, this Sunday. I'm looking forward to Father Frank Squires bringing the benediction. I can assure all in this room that I will certainly not chastise him for doing so.

To kind of bring us back, if we can, I, too, met with Persian Gulf veterans, actually, this morning.

It struck me that one of the representatives from that group said to me that that he wants to be an advocate. He wants to be a recruiting tool. With all this around the Persian Gulf not being considered a war, it's challenging for him. It got me thinking about recruitment and retention. We know the importance of service and how important recognizing and commemorating service is. We also know that potential young people are actually looking to DND and CAF as an employment opportunity.

I am wondering if you or potentially the general can share, in the limited we have left, the larger plan on recruitment and retention, focusing on that commemoration piece as a potential recruiting tool.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Thank you very much for the question.

People are our most important asset. There's not much point in buying boats and submarines and planes if you don't have sailors and airmen to service them and to serve on them. Our new chief of defence has been working really hard with her team on a new reconstitution for the Canadian Armed Forces, and I'd like to give her an opportunity to explain a little bit of the plan.

[Gen Jennie Carignan]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You're absolutely right. The work of commemoration helps educate Canadians of all ages about the contributions of the CAF and the veterans to the overall security of Canada, so they go hand in hand. We have an extensive program in place where active members are deployed to various speaking engagements during Veterans' Week to make sure that the work of commemoration is being accomplished and shared. This is extremely important and, of course, part of helping the CAF to become better known.

In terms of recruiting, we are acting in many different ways, because it's not just one thing that's going to make us successful. For example, we will be addressing short-term issues, the ones that we can change at the moment—right now—and in the next few months to ensure that we streamline and modernize our recruiting process. We're also addressing the long-term issues that require more time for implementation; here I'm thinking about the digitalization of our processes and modernizing the whole business process of recruiting.

We are already making changes, for example, in the medical standards, modernizing them to make sure they are fit for 2024. We are also looking at how we do security screenings, and we are, of course, working at onboarding permanent residents who are showing up strong at our doors and want to contribute to security. I will tell you, for example, that within one month, we onboarded over 188 permanent residents, which is a significant increase, and we're already starting to see changes in terms of increased capacity for onboarding new members of the CAF.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

That's excellent. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much. We're going to stop right here.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for their testimony today.

We had with us the Honourable Bill Blair, Minister of National Defence, and from the Department of National Defence, we had General Jennie Carignan, chief of the defence staff, Canadian Armed Forces, and Major General Erick Simoneau, deputy commander, military personnel command.

Once again, thank you to our interpreters. Thank you to the staff.

This meeting is adjourned.