Mr. Speaker, consensus in this House can be elusive.
However, on one point we all agree: our women and men in uniform deserve our highest respect. We must support our soldiers deployed around the world. We must recognize the dangers and discomforts they face, and we must compensate them fairly for their sacrifices.
The Department of National Defence has in place an impartial and transparent process to ensure that we do. Every member deployed receives a comprehensive compensation and benefits package. Sometimes that package includes a hardship allowance and a risk allowance, two monthly payments to compensate for conditions that are more uncomfortable, more stressful and more unsafe than those on a base here at home.
Decisions regarding whether a mission warrants those allowances do not happen at the bureaucratic level. The Treasury Board Secretariat is at the table, but in the chairperson's seat is a brigadier general. All around the chairperson are lieutenant colonels, majors, RCMP officers, women and men in uniform who have been on tour, who know the realities of combat, and who have made the same sacrifices we ask of our current troops abroad.
What is more, no one on the committee is answerable to the chain of command. Everyone can make their decisions without outside influence, without fear of reprisal, and without concern for operating budgets. Cost is never a factor. The committee's sole interest, then, is to determine hardship and risk levels that reflect the actual conditions on the ground, assign hardship and risk levels that represent the true stresses and hazards in the field, and lastly, assign hardship and risk levels that are objective and defensible.
The committee looks at 21 individual factors that affect a mission’s hardship score. The committee weighs everything from the quality of drinking water and the availability and cleanliness of washrooms to the receptiveness of the local population and the demands of soldiers’ daily routines. Similarly the committee weighs six factors for the risk score: from civic instability and the threat posed by hostile forces to the presence of infectious diseases and the risk of a natural disaster. The committee examines the probability of each hazard and considers the severity of the possible impact on our troops.
The evidence for their conditions? It comes straight from the source. Thirty days after the start of a new mission, the committee requests information directly from the field. In the case of the operations in Kuwait, senior military officials submitted a 20-page report on the conditions in the theatre of operations.
A doctor familiar with the mission, and an intelligence officer with his ear to the ground in the Middle East provided insights, too. At the time, soldiers were deployed to three locations in Kuwait: first, where our CP-140 Aurora and CC-150 aircraft were based; second, where our CF-18 fighters took off and landed; and third, where a small group of staff people was posted. Effective October 2014, all three were deemed medium risk. However, as you are well aware the security situation in the region is fluid.
Circumstances change continually and, in some regards, change dramatically.
For this reason, the committee reviews levels regularly, with regard to risk and difficulty, to ensure that they continue to reflect the actual conditions of a specific operation in a specific location. When the committee reassessed the risk scores for Kuwait in March 2016, all three operations dropped slightly. Two slipped just below the medium-risk threshold. They dropped again for one of the operations six months later, when conditions had changed significantly enough to warrant yet another review.
Finally, in December 2016, the committee reviewed a combined assessment for the two locations in Kuwait where personnel are deployed for Operation Impact. The hardship level went up, and the allowances paid to soldiers went up immediately too. The risk level, however, went down.
Soldiers will continue to receive risk allowances based on the earlier, higher rate for six months following that decision. In other words, personnel will have six months' grace, until June 2017, before they see the actual risk score reflected on their paycheques. As a result, soldiers have not yet seen any changes in their pay.
For some members of the House, the issue is not about the pay itself but rather the applicable tax break. The Income Tax Act states in black and white that risk allowances for medium- and high-risk missions are eligible for tax relief. Any mission with a risk score of 2.50 or higher receives the relief automatically. Missions that score between 2.00 and 2.49 receive the relief when the Minister of Finance designates them as medium risk.
The Minister of National Defence has always asked the Minister of Finance for that “medium risk” designation for our troops. He has always sought that tax break for our soldiers, and he has always received it. Once a mission’s risk level falls below medium-risk threshold, however, it is out of the Minister of National Defence’s hands.
The Income Tax Act simply does not allow for tax breaks on relatively low-risk missions. The two locations in Kuwait now fall within that category. Brigadier Generals, Commanders, Lieutenant Colonels, and representatives from the Treasury Board Secretariat agree on this.
The committee followed every rule in the book to ensure the same considerations are given to all service members everywhere. Their assessments specific to the postings in Kuwait are fair, objective, and rooted in the realities on the ground. Should those realities change, we will reassess the country’s hardship and risk levels.
In the meantime, we will continue to support our troops, and we will continue to provide first-rate compensation and benefits packages. We will continue to ensure our soldiers benefit personally, professionally, and financially from their hard, much appreciated, and much respected work.