National Defence committee  Robyn has a lot of those details. Certainly, the most common complaint we receive is around benefits. I will say, though, that when I do visit the bases and wings, obviously a bit more virtually nowadays, the most passionate points that come up are from families and from members who have family issues, whether it's child care, access to child care or affordable child care.

National Defence committee  I would just reiterate for the committee that with regard to issues and complaints like that, which are criminal in nature, we will refer them to the proper law enforcement agency to deal with. That is not within our mandate to deal with. As to the issues that are non-criminal in nature, it's hard to say at this point, I think, whether we're seeing a significant change in the chain of command properly dealing with them.

National Defence committee  It's very difficult to speculate on what the government will do in that particular case. I have briefed the minister on this particular case, the same briefing that I've given to a number of audiences, including in my press conference last year and in the position paper that I put forward at that time.

National Defence committee  I'll ask Ms. Hynes to respond to that. We do have the details of that, and we can forward that to the committee later on as well. Perhaps Robyn can respond just to summarize that particular response.

National Defence committee  That's a very difficult question to answer, but I have to come back to the role of the office of the ombudsman. Just to reiterate that for everyone, and I've talked to a lot of you already, our role is to ensure that the processes that are available to people, whether for misconduct, sexual misconduct or any type of issue, grievance or situation that they may be dealing with....

National Defence committee  As I said almost a year ago, and I continue to say it to diverse audiences, there are a number of reasons you have an ombudsman's office. First of all, we are meant to be that civilian oversight—in this case, of the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces—to ensure that people within the defence community are treated fairly, their complaints are heard and their complaints are dealt with.

National Defence committee  In this particular case, one of the reasons I came forward, and all of my predecessors before me had come forward, was to ask for greater independence, in particular reporting to Parliament as an officer of Parliament. It is to ensure that, as I said when I talked about the grievance system, there is greater trust that there is a completely independent—and perceived to be completely independent—organization that has oversight over, in this case, the Department of National Defence and the military.

National Defence committee  Certainly, I would expect that if there's imminent physical danger, it's not dealt with through the grievance process. If it is an imminent danger to an individual, that would be dealt with through the various law enforcement agencies or through the SMRC. If we receive a complaint or a call from an individual who is in imminent danger or we feel, after talking with them, that they may be in imminent danger, then we will refer them to appropriate supports.

National Defence committee  Certainly on the comprehensive military family strategy, when it came out and we were briefed on it about three years ago, we were very, very supportive of it. Any way we can support our military families, who are, as I said and as it is commonly termed, the “backbone” of the military members in order to support them while they're serving....

National Defence committee  I believe it was in 2018, but I'll ask Robyn if she has an update on that.

National Defence committee  As I said in my opening remarks, I think there is a crisis of trust within the military around whether people are going be treated fairly. That is the core part of our mandate. When people come forward to us, they're looking for fair treatment and we try to help them get that. The other element, though, is that the misconduct crisis that is clearly in the news and continues to be in the news is certainly causing people to lose trust.

National Defence committee  Okay. Very good.

National Defence committee  I think I'll just focus, then, on the last theme, family matters. The government's defence policy, “Strong, Secure, Engaged”, places its commitment to its people. There are still major challenges facing members of the defence community on the home front. Overall, I've heard good reports about those transitioning to civilian life in the new process of transition; however, our office continues to intervene in cases where a member is days, if not hours, from release and lacks appropriate preparation.

National Defence committee  The major problem with the grievance system that we are hearing—and one of the reasons that we do intervene more often and earlier in some of the complaints because of compelling circumstances—is those delays. Certainly what we're hearing is that there's a resource issue, in not having sufficient resources in order to be able to support the grievance system.

National Defence committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon. I want to thank the committee for inviting me here today to discuss recruitment and retention in the Canadian Armed Forces. I am joined, as you said, by Robyn Hynes, my director general of operations, and we are pleased to be with you over the next hour to provide you some sense of those issues, based on the evidence we have found.