NDVA Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL DEFENCE AND VETERANS AFFAIRS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA DÉFENSE NATIONALE ET DES ANCIENS COMBATTANTS

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Friday, January 30, 1998

• 1934

[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Robert Bertrand (Pontiac—Gatineau—Labelle, Lib.)): Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to welcome you to the last leg of our western trip. We are the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs, and we are here to hear your views, your input, your ideas, on how we can improve the quality of life in the Canadian Armed Forces.

• 1935

We already have a list of speakers. We will go through the list, and after everybody has spoken, anybody else in the audience who wants to stand up and say their piece can just go to any of the microphones and do so.

For people who wish to have French translation, there are these little contraptions here. They're at the door.

[Translation]

Ladies and gentlemen, first of all I'd like to welcome you. You know the reason for our visit and I would remind those that wish to do so that they may make their comments in French.

[English]

I usually start by asking committee members to introduce themselves and tell you where they're from, what their riding is.

My name is Robert Bertrand and my riding is Pontiac—Gatineau—Labelle in Quebec.

Mr. David Price (Compton—Stanstead, PC): I'm the member for Compton—Stanstead, which is in the southern part of Quebec.

Mr. Dick Proctor (Palliser, NDP): I'm pleased to be the member for Palliser, which includes the city of Moose Jaw.

Mr. Art Hanger (Calgary Northeast, Ref.): I'm the Reform Party defence critic and my riding is Calgary Northeast.

Mr. David Pratt (Nepean—Carleton, Lib.): My riding is Nepean—Carleton, just outside of Ottawa.

Mrs. Judi Longfield (Whitby—Ajax, Lib.): I represent the Ontario riding of Whitby—Ajax, which is just east of Metropolitan Toronto.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Again, just to mention how it's done, I will call out the presenters. You can read from your notes and after, if any of the panel members have questions, we will ask you to stay at the microphone.

We will now go to our first presenter, His Worship Mayor Ray Boughen.

Mr. Ray Boughen (Mayor, City of Moose Jaw): Mr. Chairman, members of the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs, ladies and gentlemen, before we start I will just take a minute and allow Al to circulate to the committee a handout that has some information about the city and also a copy of the text I will be presenting this evening. So you don't have to worry about taking copious notes; it's in the handout.

I would point out, Mr. Chairman, it's somewhat significant, if you look at the file folder that contains all the various materials, you'll find on the front of it a pictorial summary that exemplifies the base and the city of Moose Jaw. You'll notice on the bottom it says “Moose Jaw” and then it also says “15 Wing”.

First of all, allow me to welcome you to the friendly city of Moose Jaw, and on behalf of my colleagues on council, and indeed on behalf of the citizens of the fair city, we take this opportunity to say welcome. We're glad you have come to allow us to share some time with you.

• 1940

Mr. Chairman, I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the fine relationship the city of Moose Jaw has enjoyed with 15 Wing. To no small measure, this relationship has been fostered and developed by Colonel Hunter and his administrative team on 15 Wing. We would also point out the fine relationship between all personnel of 15 Wing and citizens of the city.

I would cite for the committee the recent Freedom of the City exercise that was put together with personnel from 15 Wing parading on the main street of Moose Jaw with all the pomp and pageantry that surrounds such an event. It is safe to say that the large crowd of citizens in attendance certainly enjoyed the ceremony, and it drew a large number of people to that ceremony. This is but one example of the fine relationship enjoyed over 50 years of 15 Wing's presence in the city of Moose Jaw.

I believe it is fair to say that through the past 50 years, and certainly forward into the next 50 years, the social, economic, and cultural impact of the base on the city of Moose Jaw has been tremendous. When one considers the number of military people and civilian people working on this base, it is very easy to see that there is indeed a significant economic impact on the city as a whole. I would cite for you that there is no doubt that cultural activities involve many members of this wing in terms of drama, art, and music.

I would suggest that the social and economic issues that surround 15 Wing are no different from those found in a city the size of Moose Jaw and in a base the size of the base. The concern for proper educational programs for youngsters, the concern for places of worship, the concern for medical attention and all other city infrastructure systems certainly factor into the life style of the people on 15 Wing as well as the life style of people in the friendly city.

These issues are addressed weekly by a city council that is sensitive to not only the community of Moose Jaw but to 15 Wing proper. We are well aware of the number of DND people who reside in the city of Moose Jaw. As stated earlier, the number of civilians who work on the base and live in the city factor into our city as a whole.

It is my contention that a number of activities that occur on the base reflect very favourably toward the city. The one example that comes to mind is the Snow Birds. Moose Jaw is known as the home of the Snow Birds, and as such receives national and international attention due to the fact that the Snow Birds are residing on 15 Wing. It is difficult to estimate the impact this flying team has on the city. However, I am sure it is safe to say that the impact is indeed substantial.

In further consideration of various activities that occur on the base that impact in a positive manner on the city, I would draw to your attention the Saskatchewan Air Show. In the past number of years, this air show has indeed been one of the outstanding events in North America. A tourism magazine put out in the United States has listed the Saskatchewan Air Show as one of the events people should see on their vacation. It is of further interest to note that this event is indeed one of the few events listed in this tourism information for all of the western Canadian provinces.

When indeed one thinks of calling upon a neighbour, and I say this advisedly, when we experienced a high degree of flooding in the spring of 1997, the base helped the city, as good neighbours do. Our city commissioner decided that extra hands were needed to help with the control of flooding water. These extra hands were supplied by 15 Wing. The personnel who came forward did so on their own volition and pitched in and helped civilians to place sand bags at a number of houses in the flood zone. It is these acts of kindness and friendship that certainly will not go unnoticed by members of this community.

As well as issues previously mentioned and involvement of the base in various aspects of the city, it is of interest to note that members of 15 Wing serve on a number of committees and commissions for the city of Moose Jaw.

• 1945

One of those commissions that has been served very well by members of the wing is the economic development commission of the city. Throughout the course of this commission a member of 15 Wing has served in the capacity of board member, bringing forward ideas and issues that relate particularly to the wing but also that may well be incorporated into opportunities for development within the city of Moose Jaw. This involvement has been and continues to be extremely appreciated by the city.

The training of pilots continues to be the prime function of 15 Wing. In recognition of this training program, the city has presented a number of trophies for graduating students from 15 Wing pilot training programs, and will continue to do so in the future. These trophies are symbolic of the city's desire to be considered as part and parcel of the ongoing program found here at the wing.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, over the past 50 years, as I said at the outset, a fine relationship has developed between the city of Moose Jaw and 15 Wing. This relationship continues to grow today. When one considers all of the facets that can exist between two communities, those communities being the wing and the city of Moose Jaw, it is easy to see that all the bases are covered. The wing has been and continues to be an extremely important part of the city. We have enjoyed the past 50 years very much and look forward to a continuing fine interrelationship of people and personnel with 15 Wing for the next 50 years and beyond. We are poised and ready for the commencement of the NFTC project.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to share with you and the committee the various thoughts we have had about 15 Wing and the city of Moose Jaw. This partnership has been one that many communities and bases may well use as a model for understanding and approaching each other's involvement in a lifestyle that both can find acceptable. Thank you.

The Chairman: Any questions? Mr. Hanger.

Mr. Art Hanger: Mr. Mayor, I can see that there is a very positive relationship between the base and your city. I know there's so much change taking place around, and certainly all of that will have an impact on your city, the residents of Moose Jaw, as it will on the base.

I'm curious about your involvement with the proposed contract, the alternate services delivery side. Have you been a good part of that discussion? Have you made analysis as to how it may impact your community?

Mr. Ray Boughen: We have not had a lot of discussion with the various contractors who are looking to put together the NFTC program. We have suggested that as a city we are prepared to do whatever is required to make the program work and to supply infrastructure in terms of resources, men, material, and other people to work in whatever capacity is required.

Mr. Art Hanger: So I guess it's pretty hard to judge what kind of an economic impact it may have one way or the other.

Mr. Ray Boughen: True.

Mr. Art Hanger: Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

The Chairman: David.

Mr. David Pratt: These days, with all of the federal cutbacks occurring, one of the things that has been affected is the whole issue of payments in lieu of taxes. I'm just wondering what your situation has been that way in terms of negotiating with the base and dealing with that issue.

Mr. Ray Boughen: Well the truth of the matter is that the base resides in the RM of Moose Jaw, not in the city of Moose Jaw. So the base tax or the payment in lieu of taxes goes to the RM. That's one of those neutral questions. We don't gain anything and we don't lose anything. It's just not part of the factor.

We would very much like to roll the base into the city, but so far we haven't been able to pull that one off.

Mr. David Pratt: Are you not affected, though, by the outcome of those negotiations with the regional municipality?

Mr. Ray Boughen: No, no. What affects us is the people of the base who shop and live in our city, and we're very appreciative of that. But the tax base does not factor into our equation at all.

• 1950

The Chairman: Just a short question on the Saskatchewan Air Show: how long has that been going on?

Mr. Ray Boughen: Well, that's a good question, Mr. Chairman, and I'm not sure I have the exact answer. Perhaps some of the base personnel could help me.

A voice: It's been going on for 27 years.

The Chairman: Is there a lot of economic benefit for the city when this show is on?

Mr. Ray Boughen: There is indeed. I think we worked it out just last year with Great Trails tourism and other parts of Saskatchewan tourism. Probably about 1.4 million in a two-day show. It's of significant economic impact. That's likely on the low side, that number.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Mr. Ray Boughen: Again, thank you.

The Chairman: Master Corporal Terry Spence.

Master Corporal Terry Spence (Individual Presentation): Good evening. My name is Terry Spence. I'm representing a number of enlisted personnel I work with; they requested that I put forth these comments. I have edited them as much as I can, to be brief, and numbered them one through five.

(1). Interest rate differential: I guess there's a bitch here about that. It's presently not paid on postings. It's a request that it might be brought up and paid to members who are posted.

(2). Travel allowance: Presently it's not applicable to married personnel, yet it is allowable for common-law personnel. They suggest that it be paid to all personnel, regardless of marital status, and that if it concerns a military couple, maybe one could claim per year. This would help families with children keep in touch with their parents, grandparents, etc., and strengthen family ties, improve quality of life, raise morale.

(3). Segregation and representation: The segregation of enlisted personnel and commissioned personnel creates animosity. Due to the differences of classification, the enlisted and commissioned, there is an “us and them” mentality. Enlisted personnel believe that officers under-represent them. How can officers represent enlisted personnel properly if they deem them to be subordinate or inferior in abilities and character?

An example is the 30-day gratuity given officers on top of the severance package given to all other military personnel. Another example is pilots receiving box lunches while the rest of the workforce pack a lunch. I understand this has been recently rescinded, but it was mentioned and I included it. Distribution of CANEX shares to senior commissioned members was a point also brought up, which I included.

The introduction of blanket policies that would be applicable to all military personnel, regardless of rank, would also eliminate any misinterpretation of wrongdoing. This would also promote a team concept, which DND has attempted to attain but hasn't.

(4). Junior personnel have no input on senior personnel evaluations. In many companies, employees have an input on the evaluation of their peers. For example, a number of personnel are requested to fill out an evaluation of an individual from an “I am his or her customer” perspective. How is this individual helping me to complete the assignment? What are the good points? What are the bad? What could they do to improve? These are returned anonymously and used as an additional tool for improving the workplace. I support that one.

(5). The final suggestion here was from a woman who has a sick child. Living here in Moose Jaw, her complaint is that there aren't adequate specialists in the Moose Jaw area, and she has to commute to Regina or Saskatoon or even Edmonton for her son. In Cold Lake, members are allowed to claim for medical expenses and costs to take their kids to specialists because it is deemed a semi-isolated posting. Yet here in Moose Jaw, even though we don't have the specialists nearby, they're not entitled to claim.

That's all. Do you have a question for me?

• 1955

I do have one question of my own here. Will there be transcripts printed of the agenda tonight so we can refer...? I represent a bunch of people, and I'm sure they'd like to read through everybody's comments and what your responses are.

The Chairman: It will be available on the Internet in about a week.

MCpl Terry Spence: Beautiful. Thank you very much.

The Chairman: Sir, just hang on a minute. There are a few questions.

Mrs. Judi Longfield: He was trying to beat a hasty retreat.

Tell me more about this distribution of CANEX shares.

MCpl Terry Spence: I'm not too sure on that. I'd have to ask the senior officers here if they could help me on this. My peer group in servicing believe that senior officers get shares in CANEX. I don't know if that's BS or not, but it does create a little bit of tension there. It implies unfairness.

Mrs. Judi Longfield: Is there someone who...?

The Chairman: Colonel?

Colonel Tim Hunter (Individual Presentation): Mr. Chairman, I can address that, not only as a senior officer but also as a former member of the board of directors of CANEX. There is no truth to the fact that senior commissioned ranks receive any kind of payment or shares or share of the profits from CANEX.

The Chairman: Thank you, Colonel.

Did you have anything else?

Mrs. Judi Longfield: That's all.

The Chairman: We all had the same question. Mr. Proctor.

Mr. Dick Proctor: I wonder, Master Corporal, if you could just elaborate on that interest rate differential you enunciated.

MCpl Terry Spence: That one I'm not very exact on. I tried to look it up. I believe when you break a mortgage with a bank, if you lock in for a lower term or something.... The military will pay a penalty for breaking a contract, but not if you lock in for a lower term.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Captain Linda Tomlinson.

Captain Linda Tomlinson (15 Wing Community Working Group): Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I appreciate that you must be somewhat exhausted, having spent what I know to be a very busy week through some of Canada's western military bases. Tonight you are most certainly going to hear from the best in the west, here at 15 Wing. I'm glad you chose to save the best for last.

My name is Linda Tomlinson. After the visit of the Minister of National Defence in November, in which I voiced my concerns about the military family, I was asked by the chairman of the board of directors of the MCRC, the Military Community Resource Centre, to act as chair of a community working group preparing for your visit. My task was to listen to and consolidate the concerns of the families here at 15 Wing. As chair, I formed a committee of volunteers and we set out to understand and articulate these concerns. On this committee were the following individuals, all of whom will be speaking to you after me: Tammy Schneider, Rebecca Savard, Kim Dixon, Janet Edwards, and Melissa Van Dett.

On January 12 a town hall meeting was held in which members of the community came to express their views. The results of that meeting and the discussions that followed are what I and the other members of the committee are representing to you tonight.

Before I do that, I would like to tell you a little about my background. I am both a military spouse and a military member. My husband is the adjutant at the 2 CF Fighter Training Squadron here at 15 Wing. I have been a member of the reserve and regular force since 1982. I worked initially as a logistics officer in the naval reserve and then later as a public affairs officer in NDHQ. I survived the public affairs branch through both the Oka and Persian Gulf crises and decided it was about time I became a full-time at-home mother of my one-year-old son just as the Somalia affair was picking up momentum. I have been caring for and nurturing our two boys, age five and three, since 1994.

I have recently returned to the reserve as a public affairs officer. In addition to chair of the community, I was responsible for the public relations for your visit. I tell you this because I had some concerns about how, as chair, I would be able to communicate with families when spouses do not have access to the normal military communications that the member does.

Although the military made every effort to communicate the information through canforgen, routine orders, and e-mail, this communication necessarily relies on the CF members to then communicate it to their families. Knowing what I know about internal family communication, I decided it would be best if we made an attempt to phone all the married personnel at 15 Wing to let them know about the town hall and about SCONDVA in general.

• 2000

This information blitz was then followed up with the wing commander, wing chief, and many other members on the base, whose vocabulary for the past month has consisted of SCONDVA, SCONDVA, and SCONDVA. I am quite satisfied that all members of 15 Wing are aware of your mandate and of their opportunity to speak to you in person tonight.

There have been many concerns expressed about the military family. The military lifestyle, as you are well aware, consists of frequent moves, temporary duties, frequent military courses and conferences, deployments, and awareness by the members and their families that the needs of the military often must outweigh the needs of the families.

Much of the extra stress is due to the long and/or frequent periods of separation in which fathers, mothers, wives and husbands are apart from each other. The military lifestyle is fraught with uncertainties over when and where postings will be, whether to risk getting in and out of the housing market, when promotions will be granted, whether one will be close to family or not. In short, a CF member and their family are never really certain about anything with respect to their job and are forced to live their lives day by day.

While this may be a good philosophy to live by, most families do better in working conditions that offer stability, consistency, continuity. The military lifestyle, I'm afraid, cannot. This is particularly relevant for families where the spouse is often left to deal with whatever card the military deals the CF member.

While many issues were raised in the past month, I have divided them into five categories: employment for spouses, postings, housing, education of children, deployment, and communication.

I find with respect to employment of spouses that there are two general categories: single-income families and double-income families. Single-income families are those with spouses who consider wifehood and/or motherhood to be a career in and of itself. I use the term “wifehood” because although there are male spouses of military members, I have only met one in sixteen years who considered himself to be the primary care-giver, and that was only until he found employment.

The spouses in this category choose not to work outside the home, or if they do, they work on a part-time basis. Many of the women in this category are uncomfortable leaving their children in the care of others and therefore do not view day care as an option for them.

The one-income family tends to fall into the traditional family unit and thus value the stability of the family above any economic or social concern, real or perceived, that they may have.

The second category of families is two-income families. These are families with spouses who want to have a career or deem it economically necessary to have a second income. This family is very much dependent on the spouse's ability to find employment, as they tend to rely on two incomes.

For two-income families with children, the day care concerns are the same as for one-income families. However, they are more comfortable with day care than their counterparts. Kim Dixon will be making a presentation on day care later.

The two-income family tends to have more contemporary values and thus sees day care as a viable and often preferred option. For both categories of families, the difficulty in finding employment is the same: spouses often cannot find employment, depending on the location, or are forced into low-paying jobs.

Spouses with professions are particularly challenged. For example, on this base we have a military spouse who is also a pharmacist. To be licensed as a pharmacist she must pay a fee, which is not reimbursed by the military, to write the provincial exams and then complete a period of probation before she is qualified to work. Every time she has moved to another province, she starts this process again.

Another factor in spouses finding employment is that many local employers are unwilling to hire military spouses, as they do not want to invest in an employee they know will be moving two or three years down the road.

Postings are perhaps the toughest challenge for military members. Some members are told when they're posted that they will be there for a specific period of time, say three or four years. Most are just told they are posted. They do not know for how long they will be in the location they are posted to.

Posting season is from May to August. Often members are posted ahead of their families, leaving the spouse on her own to do a move. A suggestion was made to our committee that the postings for families with school-age children be coordinated with the school year.

• 2005

During training, the military must post the member to the locations where the courses are held. This is the most efficient use of military resources, and yes, it does mean the member has little choice in where they are going. However, once trained, many families believe more consideration should be given to their posting preferences. This will become more important as the move to longer postings becomes a reality.

Families tend to want to be closer to their extended families, and this would certainly contribute to family stability. CF members and spouses often feel career managers are just filling slots and not looking at the individual circumstances for each family.

While members are being trained, there are frequent moves to many locations for periods of usually less than a year. For a family just starting out, with or without children, the strains on the relationship are real. In some instances, the member may not be entitled to move their family, or, due to their own considerations, may opt not to. The member is at his or her lowest on the pay scale, and their jobs are on the line until they have completed their training.

In some cases, injuries may occur to the CF member while on training and the process is drawn out even longer. If a member needs to sit a medical or career review board, it is in most cases not done immediately, and these families hang at the mercy of the military until a decision is made on their career. None of these are good for family life.

One factor that helps members undergoing training is being able to secure adequate housing. For members who are trained, there is usually more stability, but not always. You will notice that I speak a lot in generalizations. That is because nothing in the military is absolute.

Having said this, with every posting CF families must make that ultimate decision: to buy or rent. Military housing may or may not be available, and it comes as no surprise that the higher the cost of living in any given city, the higher the demand for military housing. Sometimes military housing is not available at the time of posting but becomes available at a later date. That would mean two moves for a family to get into military housing, and the second move would have to be done at the member's expense.

There is accommodation assistance aimed at closing the gap in cities with higher costs of living. However, this program is only offered for renters. Families wanting to buy do not qualify for any assistance. There are a number of housing programs that have been set up to buffer the losses in the purchase and sale of homes. However, these policies do not always ensure that members will not lose money on the sale of homes; it merely diminishes some of the loss. It is almost inevitable, given the volatile housing market across our country, that losses will occur in the buying and selling of homes.

While the cost of living across Canada varies, the CF member's salary stays the same. This means that military families are subjected to constant changes in their standard of living based on where they are posted.

Moose Jaw, while perhaps not considered by big city lovers to be any kind of Mecca, does offer very affordable housing and a nice small-town atmosphere.

Education is always of concern to CF families. Moving our children to new school systems is never easy, and our children have no say in the decisions that affect them. Provincial curriculums vary across Canada, leaving children in some cases either behind or ahead of their grade level. This was particularly noted for children in French immersion programs, which vary greatly from province to province.

A suggestion was made that perhaps the military would consider granting an allowance to pay for tutoring fees in cases where children need extra help easing into a new school system.

Another uniquely military challenge is deployment. While much is done now through the military community resource centres to help prepare and support families while on deployment, this service from base to base is inconsistent. Regardless of any support, a military spouse is left on their own while the member is in another country under adverse conditions, sometimes unknown conditions, and communication with that member is limited. For families with children, the children are without a mother or father for a long period of time.

It must be noted that deployments normally are of a six-month duration. However, for the member and the family, the effects are felt long before and long after the deployment is over. The whole effect of a deployment on a family could be felt for a year to eighteen months. Once the member has returned, the family must readjust to a new equilibrium, as all members in the family will have changed during their period of separation.

• 2010

Sometimes deployments are known well in advance and the family can prepare for the deployment. In other cases, like the recent ice storms in Quebec and Ontario, it is pack your bags today, leave tomorrow.

I know of one family here in Moose Jaw who was affected directly by this. The CF member was deployed to Quebec, and he was the parent who dropped off and picked up the children at their schools and day care. His wife works out of Regina. In addition to having to take a couple of days off her full-time job, she had to call in her parents to take care of the children and take the children to the day care while she was in Regina. In her words, “I don't know how I could have managed without the help of my parents”. Luckily in her case, a stable alternative, grandparents, were within a couple of hours' drive. This may not always be the case.

Deployments are the military's raison d'être. For the member and the spouse, the separation is difficult. The member has anxieties about the family they leave behind to cope. The spouse has anxieties of not knowing where the loved one is, what danger they are exposed to, and will they be coming back injured or dead. In the case I described earlier, the wife had no communication with her husband for a few days and didn't know where he was.

The support to spouses on deployment is not consistent across commands. When the army deploys, they tend to be deployed in large numbers and thus are able to leave a large rear party to provide good support to the spouses. The navy, too, tends to have a cell of members assigned to take care of families. However, in NDHQ and across all bases where members are considered “onesies and twosies”, meaning a person here and there, the spousal support is not there consistently.

Another concern was raised about the sponsor program: that perhaps some men are not comfortable having another man assigned to take care of his wife while he is away. Equally, some women are not comfortable having a man be their sponsor, particularly if he is a stranger. This means that if spouses have problems that need to be dealt with, they do not have anyone to help them, or are uncomfortable with the person the military has assigned them. This lack of spousal liaison is also a concern with a spouse whose husband is posted ahead of their family, which is a common occurrence within the military.

This leads me, thankfully, into my conclusion about communication.

In our working group, one spouse told her story of how, on one move, she could not deal with the problem at the base level because the administration clerk insisted on talking to the member directly, despite the fact that the couple had power of attorney and was assured by the orderly room staff all would be well. This meant she had to phone her husband in Winnipeg to have him phone the clerk in Shearwater to find out when the moving van would be arriving. She, too, was alone doing a move.

Having been a military member for several years now, and now having been a spouse, I understand well the problems many spouses face in communications with the military. I know this is not a planned attempt to exclude them from having access to the military. However, I can see why their perception would be what it is. Spouses often speak of their feelings of frustration, anger, loneliness, and abandonment. While their husbands are away, they are left to bear the responsibility of the family, be mommy and daddy, often without any break from these responsibilities. During this time, they have in many cases no person who they perceive is caring for them.

The military family resources are doing their best, but they too are coming under budget cuts. In the end, no resource centre will ever be a substitute for a husband, father, mother, or wife.

• 2015

Spouses are classified as dependants in military terminology. They are grouped under the category “dependants, furniture, and effects”. One military spouse in our phone-around commented that if the military wanted her husband to have a wife, they would have issued him with one. While most CF members have become accustomed to using the term “dependants”, and most men think nothing of it, women find it offensive in the extreme, and understandably so. To list spouses right up there with the toaster may leave one with the perception that they are merely an object and not a person.

From all my experience with military spouses, and it has been extensive over the last four years, I know one thing to be true: spouses of military members are anything but dependent; they are some of the most independent women I have ever met. For this, they deserve to be recognized for the contribution they make to the stability of their family and the Canadian Armed Forces.

I would ask that you seriously consider the points I have raised here and the ones the other women are about to speak on. The work of the CF members needs to be recognized and valued. Please do not forget the spouses who take care of the families while the member is away. They make huge sacrifices in their lives and their careers for the sake of the CF and the Government of Canada. They do this with pride and are happy to serve their country. However, I believe they deserve recognition for this most valuable contribution.

Thank you for being here to listen to 15 Wing. I wish you luck and Godspeed in the task ahead of you.

The Chairman: Will you be able to leave us a copy of your notes, please?

Capt Linda Tomlinson: Am I done?

The Chairman: No. You can drop off the notes and then we have questions for you.

Judi.

Mrs. Judi Longfield: Thank you, Captain Tomlinson.

My spouse, listed as my dependant spouse from the House of Commons, will be pleased to know that he's not included as furniture and effects. I'll pass that on.

You mentioned a couple of things. You talked about one dealing with your career manager. I guess I'd always assumed that a career manager would stay with a CF member from start to finish, but I'm finding out that it doesn't happen.

Capt Linda Tomlinson: There's a gentleman here who can speak on career management, who worked in the career manager shop, actually managed. I don't know where he is right now.

No, there isn't consistency. The career managers are posted just like any other member.

Mrs. Judi Longfield: This leads me to another question. I heard something that seemed rather disturbing. A member had a career manager who was managing his career, and when the member went to talk to the career manager he found the career manager had been posted to the very job the individual had been looking for himself. There seems to be a bit of a conflict of interest here. Is this something that happens on a regular basis?

Capt Linda Tomlinson: There have been other concerns raised, which I didn't mention. There are times in the military when members must go through the chain of command in order to even talk to the career manager. They do not necessarily feel that their interests are always being expressed to the career manager.

For example, even within this group, we have three examples of people who were trained at the same time, the same rank, the same qualification. They needed someone to go to Shearwater and someone to go to Edmonton. There were two bodies. These two bodies wanted to actually switch and go to the other's posting, and they said no. It depends on.... It's a person-to-person kind of thing. In some cases it's granted and in some it's not. And when it's not, sometimes there is no reasoning for it either.

Mrs. Judi Longfield: Is the career manager also the one involved in the screening before you're posted?

Capt Linda Tomlinson: There's no screening that I'm aware of. There is screening on deployment.

Mrs. Judi Longfield: Yes, that's what I meant.

Capt Linda Tomlinson: No, not that I'm aware of.

Mrs. Judi Longfield: We were told that to get to Cold Lake there should be some screening, because Cold Lake is isolated.

Capt Linda Tomlinson: Right.

Mrs. Judi Longfield: I just wondered if the career manager is involved in that process, if you know.

Capt Linda Tomlinson: I'm not aware.

Mrs. Judi Longfield: It's something maybe I'll have the researchers find out more information on.

Capt Linda Tomlinson: There are people here who can speak on that.

Mrs. Judi Longfield: The other thing that sort of caught me is you suggested that after an injury a medical review might take quite some time. What kind of time are we talking about here?

• 2020

Capt Linda Tomlinson: A year, a year and a half. I've known people who have been in for up to three years waiting. Because of their condition, sometimes they cannot have the board yet. It's quite a complicated process, and I don't really feel qualified to give you all of the details on the process because I'm not that versed on it. Is there anyone here who is? Anyway, it can be very lengthy.

The Chairman: David.

Mr. David Pratt: I'd like to pick up on one comment that you made. You said that when members are on deployment communication is limited. One of the comments that has come up, and I can't remember if I read it in briefing material or where I got it, is that members whose spouses were posted to Bosnia felt they got more information from CNN than they did from DND.

Capt Linda Tomlinson: Actually, in public affairs, we used to watch CNN, and that's the truth. Often information was passed a lot quicker. As a public affairs officer, I know we do have problems with internal communication, and I think part of it is due to an unwieldy chain of command that cannot pass information quickly.

Mr. David Pratt: Have you got any suggestions in terms of how to address that?

Capt Linda Tomlinson: Well, it raises a huge issue and I don't feel qualified to talk on it, but I will say that whenever you tie a chain of information to a chain of command you're going to expect that information will not be passed quickly. It was a constant frustration for me as a public affairs officer. When I wanted to deal with the media openly and honestly and say what was happening, oftentimes it had to go through so many levels that I just couldn't get the information. That frustrates the media, and in turn we then get poor media coverage, because they learn to distrust us and they learn to think that everything we're saying is being screened. And it is.

Mr. David Pratt: Thank you.

The Chairman: Mr. Hanger.

Mr. Art Hanger: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Captain, for your presentation. It's a long one.

Capt Linda Tomlinson: I'm sorry. I had to represent my committee.

Mr. Art Hanger: Fair enough, and I appreciate that very much. I think it's important that you do get the points forward.

It's interesting that you address a number of issues that have come up before. Of course one that has been consistent is the moving aspects upon deployment. You mentioned here that the moving is arranged; the trip is paid for, I gather by DND; and then if there isn't available housing at the location to where the member is going, they're placed, what, in temporary quarters, I would assume?

Capt Linda Tomlinson: No. What I meant by that is that if there isn't military housing available they can't make a direct move from their house to the military quarters, so they must find some other accommodation. And if they want to get into military housing, because it's the preferable option because it's cheaper, they'll have to move twice.

Mr. Art Hanger: They'll have to pay for the second move, or arrange to have it moved themselves.

Capt Linda Tomlinson: Yes, right.

Mr. Art Hanger: Is that a frequent occurrence?

Capt Linda Tomlinson: Yes, it is. There isn't always enough housing available. And there are even problems with that as far as the priorities and who's first on the list are concerned. It's a bit complicated.

Mr. Art Hanger: Another point that I might raise, since you brought the moving topic up, is that when items are damaged there seems to be a real breakdown as to who's going to pay. I don't know the arrangements per se; maybe you can fill me in in a little more detail. There seems to be an organization that does the packing, another that does the moving, and there are certain guidelines that are set down for the member when it comes to unpacking at the new location that this assigned group sort of finalizes the move themselves by unpacking everything and placing it in various locations. If there are damaged goods in there, those particular packers, I gather, are to file a report, and that is the only way the member is going to be compensated if something is damaged.

Capt Linda Tomlinson: That is correct.

• 2025

Mr. Art Hanger: If it's done any other way, there's no compensation.

Capt Linda Tomlinson: That is correct. When I spoke to the administrative clerk here in the orderly room, they said that it is a constant source of complaint for them. The military sort of steps aside and they can't really do anything due to the terms of their agreements with the moving companies. And oftentimes there are claims for damaged goods that aren't settled at all or it takes a long time for them to be settled.

Mr. Art Hanger: There should be some way to resolve these matters quickly. It appears it is often tossed into the lap of the member then to solve that problem when it really isn't even his or hers in the first place.

Capt Linda Tomlinson: Yes, that is true.

Warrant Officer G. Branchaud (Individual Presentation): I'm Warrant Officer Branchaud, from Regina. I'm working for the armoury over there.

Just to answer your question, sir, I just moved from the Middle East in August, and when they moved all my furniture and everything, the damage was incredible. It's over seven months, and I'm still waiting for the adjustor to come to my place to find out how much money I have received from them. That's just to give you an example of long it can be.

Mr. Art Hanger: Seven months?

WO G. Branchaud: Yes. I've been waiting for them since August.

Mr. Art Hanger: Where is the dispute and where's it breaking down?

WO G. Branchaud: For example, I have two pieces of furniture they completely scratched, and there's no way I can replace them and there's no way they can fix it.

When I was posted in Germany I brought some furniture back to Canada. It was in storage, and when I came back I figure there was about $2,000 damage on it. They know all that, because I put all my paperwork and everything, detailed everything about the damage. And I'm still waiting.

Mr. Art Hanger: I'm going to bring up another point here, because this is a point of contention for a lot of people who have been caught up in this move where damage has resulted. I am of the understanding that a report is to be filed. I don't know if this is common knowledge to all the members when the move is being completed on one end, but it is my understanding that the military member or his family is not to touch anything, that the movers or the unpackers, if you will, are to be placing those contents in the house. That way everyone can see.

WO G. Branchaud: Yes, that's the new policy from three years ago. As an example, when I moved this summer—-when you're gone for 18 months, sometimes you don't remember what you have in your box. Those guys, when they come in, they say give me a chance; I don't know what's inside that box. That's the new thing they're doing now.

I know that in my comments on the sheet we had to fill out I said I disagree with that. They have to give us a chance to bring the stuff and give me the time to find out what is inside that box to tell you where to put it.

Mr. Art Hanger: All right. There has to be some arrangement there to resolve these matters much more efficiently, if you will, and to the satisfaction of the member.

Ms. Suzanne O'Rourke (Individual Presentation): My name is Suzanne O'Rourke. I'm married to Master Corporal O'Rourke in the military.

When we moved two and a half years ago, the rules changed from the previous move two years before that. When we moved here we had damage and we had missing items. China—I had one piece of china missing out of the whole china set. They said it was on us. The base had nothing to do with it any more; it was up to us. We had to take our moving company to court and sue them for damaged electronics, missing china. And it took us a year before we finally got our money.

One time when we moved, we had representatives, but they can't make it now with all the cutbacks. They've got, what, one person who handles all the moves? A year later, it took me.... And we had to take them to court—nothing to do with the military.

I had to have an electrician come in to certify that all my stuff was working. I paid for that. I had to pay for them to come in and make sure my grandfather clock was movable. That all came out of my pocket. But when I come at this end and I have these receipts proving that these things worked, they fought me on it.

• 2030

Mr. Art Hanger: Was it the moving company that fought you on it or the insurance company—

Ms. Suzanne O'Rourke: Yes, the moving company.

Now, at one time we used to have a representative with the military who would fight for us. Now the moving companies know we're on our own.

Mr. Art Hanger: So where does the insurance company fit into the scheme of things?

Ms. Suzanne O'Rourke: That's the moving company's insurance company, and they know we're on our own, so we have to take them to court now.

Mr. Art Hanger: I guess I'm having a hard time thinking that every member who is involved in a move has to battle this out themselves.

Ms. Suzanne O'Rourke: I'm not the only one who moved that same year. They had the same problems.

Mr. Art Hanger: I'm picking that up from a lot of others, and others who have also missed some very valuable items, some replaceable and some very personal.

Ms. Suzanne O'Rourke: That's right.

WO G. Branchaud: Another example of that, too, which I missed, is that in my move they lost a four-kilogram box. The packer packed it; don't ask me what they put inside the box. The mover told me that if I could not identify what was inside that box, they could not give me my money. How could I identify what the packer packed in that box when I was not there?

When those guys come in, you have to walk around and make sure you know what they're doing. What we're talking about is a four-kilogram box, a big box, and they have the guts to tell me, if you can't identify what we lost, no way, don't think about it.

As she said—and I'm a clerk myself—yes, we used to have a guy from traffic come to make sure everything was okay. But two or three years ago they changed that, and now it's only the mover coming to take care of us.

Mr. Art Hanger: Thank you.

Capt Derek McInnis (Individual Presentation): Just having completed a move within the last month, I think the problem is twofold. First, the armed forces doesn't give us the resources, either in time or in terms of logistic support, having a corporate entity to back us up to go against the moving companies. Second, as you were mentioning, there is the actual time of having an inspector and an unloader unpack and come in. There just isn't enough time to get it done.

You basically have a day. The furniture will arrive on one day. The next day, if there's time, they'll come to unload it. But naturally they're working on a contract, and the longer the people are there.... For the amount of rigour they want in terms of unpacking and checking each item, it's impossible to do it in that amount of time. Both the insurance and moving companies know this. They can take advantage of the situation.

Also, given the fact that with CF spouses, small children...and the fact that often when members are moving they have to be at work the next day, it just creates a system that's available for abuse.

Mr. Art Hanger: It seems as if the lack of corporate punch, if you will, to support the member is really a key point in this whole aspect of moving—somebody to go to bat for you. I find it quite unreasonable that you yourself have to fight to try to get that straightened around each time you have damage or a loss.

Capt Derek McInnis: Thank you, sir.

Mr. Art Hanger: That's certainly going to be noted.

Mr. Chairman, I do have another question to the captain pertaining.... I don't mean you, but Captain Linda.

Capt Linda Tomlinson: I thought I was done.

Mr. Art Hanger: I found something else new in the list of concerns expressed from the different bases, and that is this business of the military assigning sponsors for a spouse whose husband or wife is away from a long period of time. What is that?

Capt Linda Tomlinson: Normally the army has a rear party, which is a group of people tasked with taking care of the family while the other large group is over on deployment. The army moves in huge numbers. They're moving masses of people, so they can do that. So what some bases have come up with as an alternative when they have only one or two members going, which happens often in NDHQ and even actually a lot on air bases as well, is that they assign a sponsor to take care of the spouse. If they have any concerns, they can go to the sponsor.

But there are problems with it. Sometimes the sponsors are not motivated to be good sponsors. They may not like the job. They may not like being assigned, and sometimes they don't show up for the training that the MCRC offers them. Some men are just not comfortable with it and some women are just not comfortable with it.

Mr. Art Hanger: And there are men who will be assigned to....

Capt Linda Tomlinson: To act on the woman's behalf. Say, for example, his pay doesn't show up in the bank account and she needs to talk to somebody; she phones her sponsor. She gets snowed in and she needs her driveway shovelled and just can't do it; she'll phone the sponsor, and the sponsor will come over and shovel the driveway. But again, it's one of these things that when you're dealing with just one and two people.... They need training, which the military community resource centres offer for sponsors, but how do you motivate someone to do that?

• 2035

Mr. Art Hanger: As an alternative, is it possible for that spouse to pick his or her sponsor?

Voices: Yes.

Capt Linda Tomlinson: Okay, so I guess they can.

Mr. Art Hanger: All right, thank you.

The Chairman: Mr. Proctor.

Mr. Dick Proctor: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and congratulations, Captain Tomlinson, on a very comprehensive presentation.

I want to ask a question about housing. Specifically, if you were paying $300 per month for accommodation in Moose Jaw or here at 15 Wing and you were transferred to, say, Comox, it's my understanding that the rent goes up in some relation—

Capt Linda Tomlinson: Significantly.

Mr. Dick Proctor: —to the fair market value in the community that you move to.

Capt Linda Tomlinson: Absolutely.

Mr. Dick Proctor: I'm understanding that this is a fairly significant and substantial problem. Has your group thought of some alternatives that might work?

Capt Linda Tomlinson: There were a few. Rebecca Savard mentioned what the...was it Australian? I'll let her address it. There were some alternatives we had thought about, and Rebecca has one.

Ms. Rebecca Savard (15 Wing Community Working Group): Good evening. My understanding is that in the Australian system they take the average across the country of their provincial taxation and the average will be deducted from the.... That is what you're talking about, Linda, right? Oh, it's the housing. I'm sorry, I'm confused.

What the Australians do as far as housing goes is actually buy houses within the community instead of having, as we have here at 15 Wing, a group of houses owned by the base right by the base, solely inhabited by military people. They will pick several different communities in the city and buy houses between five and fifteen years old, and those will be the accommodations for the military people. Across their country you are guaranteed, if you have three children, that you will have a four-bedroom house with two bathrooms. There are certain standards. You are guaranteed that no matter where you are, your rent will always remain the same.

From our experience in dealing with friends of ours in the Australian air force, they don't seem to have that same stress with moving. They know what to expect; they know what they're going to be paying. They're not affected as much by the cost of living in a specific area.

Mr. Dick Proctor: Are there some offsets for the person in terms of taxes and things like that if you are paying a higher rent? Is there some benefit that comes back, or does all of it just go to the extra rent? There are no tax breaks or anything?

Ms. Rebecca Savard: In the Australian system?

Mr. Dick Proctor: No, I'm sorry, if you were moving to Comox—

Ms. Rebecca Savard: I believe there is, but it's minimal, and as far as I know it is still taxable.

Capt Linda Tomlinson: It depends on...the cities with higher costs of living. For example, we moved from Ottawa to Moose Jaw in June of this year. In Ottawa, as a family, we were receiving $118, and it's based on the number of dependants within the family unit. You get a certain amount of money. But we got $118 in Ottawa that went towards our rent, and that was recognized, because in Ottawa and places like Toronto and I think Esquimalt now, cities with higher costs of living, higher rental costs, you will be granted this accommodation assistance. It's enough in some cases. It was for our family; it might not be for other families.

But it is taxable. That's true.

Mr. Dick Proctor: Thank you.

The Chairman: Did you have a comment to add to what was said before?

• 2040

[Translation]

Would you please identify yourself?

Ms. Edith Lévesque (Individual presentation): My name is Edith Lévesque and I'd like to say something about the subject of moving. We are all required to move and arrangements are made for removing our possessions, whether we have two cars or whatever.

We have a 27-foot sailboat and although it was previously moved for us, we are now responsible for making the arrangements ourselves. Right now we are living in Moose Jaw and we expect to be moving to Bagotville. It's going to be very hard for us to cross Canada with a sailboat.

So if you require people to move, take charge of their entire removal without any exceptions, whether it be a sailboat or anything else. It's not just something minor. That is my opinion.

The Chairman: Thank you.

[English]

Captain Tomlinson, I have one last question with regard to spousal employment. We heard last night that when a spouse is posted to a different base and he or she has to leave his or her job, sometimes these people have difficulty in getting their EI benefits. Is this a problem here?

Capt Linda Tomlinson: Yes, it is, and actually Rebecca Savard is also going to comment on it, and about pension plans as well, which is linked with that.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Capt Linda Tomlinson: Thank you.

The Chairman: Mrs. Tammy Schneider.

Mrs. Tammy Schneider (15 Wing Community Working Group): Good evening, and thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I was part of the working community committee and my assignment was stress of the military families. I found that Captain Tomlinson spoke on most of my issues, which are moving, employment, education, deployments, secondary duties, and distance. You would find that I would be reiterating a lot of her comments, but there's just one thing I would like to comment on, and that is secondary duties.

Secondary duties are additional voluntary taskings and responsibilities taken on by the military member. At first military members volunteered for these taskings because they were of genuine interest. It has now evolved that in order to be recognized for promotion, one must not only do their job well but also have an extensive list of secondary duties and courses on one's evaluation report.

Secondary duties are only secondary in definition. They play a primary role in evaluations. The time required to complete these duties actually takes away from the family's quality of life. Not only is the parent gone through the regular work day, but countless numbers of weekends and evenings are then taken up completing their secondary taskings. This scenario presents a no-win situation. The family is forced to sacrifice one for the other.

As you have heard from Captain Tomlinson, moving, employment, education, deployments, secondary duties, and distance each severely impact on family life. However, compounded, their effect can be devastating. These are the stresses that military families deal with on a regular basis. This is what makes us unique.

Thank you.

You were listening, weren't you? Thank you.

The Chairman: Do the members have any questions?

Mr. David Price: Could you give me an example of some of the secondary duties?

Mrs. Tammy Schneider: Secondary duties would be, for instance, sandbagging when there's flooding. We know that is a national problem and so, yes, we would have to do it.

Mr. David Price: Yes.

Mrs. Tammy Schneider: But other ones would be being a cub scout leader or a hockey coach or a financial adviser. Those are just a few of the secondary duties.

My husband is actually the Block Parent adviser. He's the vice-president. So he's in the community, but that takes away from the family.

Mr. David Price: So it's general community volunteer things.

Mrs. Tammy Schneider: Yes. At first, of course, it is the genuine interest of the military member. However, it has become a competition. “Oh, I have five on my list”, and then “Oh well, gee, I had better do one better than you”, and it's just snowballing. The families never see the military members any more because they're out doing not only their job but these secondary duties.

• 2045

Mr. David Price: And there's an actual slot on the evaluation for this?

Mrs. Tammy Schneider: Yes, there is, for courses completed, what you do in the community.

Mr. David Price: Courses completed...?

Mrs. Tammy Schneider: Such as French immersion, being sent off to St. Jean or whatever.

Mr. David Price: For the betterment of yourself towards your job—

Mrs. Tammy Schneider: Yes, definitely.

Mr. David Price: —or for the community also?

Mrs. Tammy Schneider: Mostly for the job, I believe. I can be corrected if I'm wrong.

Mr. David Price: Okay. Thank you.

Mrs. Tammy Schneider: Thank you.

The Chairman: Judi.

Mrs. Judi Longfield: We're asking the same questions today. You've covered what I wanted to know. Thank you.

The Chairman: That's it?

Mrs. Tammy Schneider: Thank you.

The Chairman: Rebecca Savard.

Ms. Rebecca Savard: Good evening again. I'd like to speak to you tonight as part of the community working committee.

One of the prevalent topics of discussion at the townhall meeting on January 12 was that of spousal employment and the effects on the non-member's pension plan. Historically, employment of non-military spouses has been an enormous social and economic issue to the military family. In the end, the decision to either seek employment or remain in the home is affected by a number of different factors directly linked to the military lifestyle.

Those who decide to remain at home do so for a variety of reasons. For some, employment in their fields may not be available in the local workforce. For others, local employment practices prejudicial to the hiring of military family members prove too difficult to overcome. This, compounded with a lack of availability and rising costs of child care during the times when the military member is deployed make it much easier for a spouse to make the decision to remain at home. But above all, for families with children the need to provide a stable home environment in a lifestyle full of upheaval and uncertainty becomes the overriding issue in this decision.

Although staying at home is not in itself a huge sacrifice, its impacts are far-reaching. One of the large compromises in this decision is the pension plan of the non-member spouse. This is mainly seen in the inability to contribute to either the Canada Pension Plan or an employer pension fund. As well, contributions to a tax-deductible RSP, either primary or spousal, are lessened in a single-family income.

For those who do obtain employment, the issue of pension can also prove to be a problem. This is evident in many private sector jobs where pension funds are non-transferable between the provinces. As well, many non-member spouses are unable to cash out pension plan contributions if they have worked for that employer for less than a specified amount of time. In both instances, non-member spouses are seeing their retirement pensions compromised.

A suggestion was brought forth at the townhall meeting to create a pension plan specifically for military spouses. This plan could be contributed to either by an employer or a serving member, would overcome provincial barriers, and would provide the same tax benefits as a regular pension contribution. This could ensure that the spouse's retirement would not be jeopardized by the demands of the military lifestyle.

In closing, I would like to thank you for this opportunity. I look forward to hearing your recommendations over the coming months.

The Chairman: Thank you. Does anybody have any questions?

Coming back to the question I had posed before regarding employment insurance, people who are transferred and try to draw benefits and are having problems, could you expand on that? Is it serious?

Ms. Rebecca Savard: I can only speak at this point on my own behalf. This was not something extensively covered through the committee.

In my own experience, yes, it is definitely a problem. In my own case, I had been working in Comox. We had gone to California, which was a real hardship, and subsequently moved to North Bay. Upon arrival in North Bay, I applied for employment insurance and was flatly turned down because of the six or seven months we had spent in the United States. It ended up that I had to go through our local MP, basically, to get the assistance I needed in that case. As I said, I can only speak on my own behalf on this issue, but it is my feeling that it is an obstacle.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Ms. Rebecca Savard: Thank you.

• 2050

The Chairman: Mrs. Kim Dixon.

Mrs. Kim Dixon (15 Wing Community Working Group): Good evening. I am also part of the committee. I'm a military spouse and I'm currently the nursery school teacher here at 15 Wing. The issues I would like to speak about this evening concern child care in the military community.

Child care has always been a concern for both military and civilian families in Canada. The need for quality child care is an issue that affects many people in our society. The military community is a small, diverse group of people, consisting of a wide variety of cultures, languages, and age groups.

In the past military families consisted mainly of one military member spouse, a civilian spouse, and their children. This type of family unit was common in the military community of the past. However, today the military family is made up of many different family units, each very unique and requiring alternatives to the child care policies of the past.

Today the military family consists of three different family units, each requiring unique and similar child care needs. The following is a brief description of these family units found today in our changing military community.

First, single-parent families: Single-parent families are becoming common in our military community as a result of changing views in our society and the increase of divorce in the military. Single-parent family units require the most child care because of the military parent being the single provider of income and parental guidance for the child. The single-parent family unit requires day care or care-givers on a daily basis.

One of the unique problems of a single-parent military family is that of obtaining long-term quality child care because of deployments, training courses, and postings. When a military member of a single-parent family unit is sent on temporary deployment, he or she must arrange long-term child care, which is very costly and stressful to the family.

Most military families do not reside in an area where there is an extended family presence to offer such support. Many single-parent families often must depend on the family resource centres for child care options. However, many military family resource centres do not have the budget necessary to accommodate such needs because of funding and grants available to these essential non-profit centres.

Second, double military member family unit: The double military member family unit is a unique family unit consisting of both parents who are members of the Canadian Armed Forces and their dependants. The need for quality child care is important and essential for this family unit since both parents are military members and are therefore equally subject to deployments, postings, and training courses. This family unit must deal with the possibility of both parents being away from the home for extended periods because of military commitments.

Third, the traditional family unit: The traditional family unit consists of one military member, one civilian employed or unemployed spouse, and their dependants. Although also affected by the stresses of military life, this family unit requires more short-term respite care than any other military family unit.

When a military member is away on a temporary deployment, the civilian spouse must assume both parenting roles. Many military families do not live near extended families, therefore the support from this group is often not present. If a situation arises for the civilian spouse while the military spouse is away, such as a medical emergency, the civilian spouse is forced to deal with this alone.

There is a serious concern for the civilian spouse who does not possess a valid driver's licence when the military member of the family is away, as often it is very difficult and costly to maintain the same quality of life as before the temporary deployment because of a decrease in accessibility of required services. Many military bases are not close to large centres, where the use of public transportation and proximity to services are available.

The traditional military family unit is faced with the unique stress of post-deployment. When the military member has been absent from the family unit for an extended period, the dynamics of the family change in order to adapt to the additional responsibilities placed on each family member while the military spouse is away. On the return of the military member, it is very difficult for children to adapt to the military member's presence in the family unit again. Often counselling is needed to ensure the transition is as stress free as possible. The need for counselling for children because of deployment is a unique need of the military family.

• 2055

Proposed solutions: The following is a list of proposed solutions that will increase the quality of life for military members and their families in relation to the need for child care in the military community.

First is a 24-hour emergency care help line. This service would be available to all military families who have a spouse away on temporary deployment. This service would enable a spouse to call for emergency child care 24 hours a day in the event of an accident to a spouse or other children that requires a hospital emergency room visit when respite child care is unavailable at military family resource centres.

Second is respite care, the availability of short-term respite care at family resource centres for the spouse of a deployed military member. Because of funding difficulties as a result of cutbacks, family resource centres are unable to offer respite child care during the day to handle non-reserved child care.

Many spouses of deployed military members would benefit greatly from having this form of support available to them for personal time out during the day when the military member is away for extended periods. This would also help alleviate the problem of in-service days at school, which often find the working spouse of a deployed member in a difficult and costly situation. The cost of child care would be paid by the using military families and could even be booked in advance for certain days of the week set aside for deployed military member families as well as in-service activities, which would also be available.

Third is house-hunting child care. When military families are notified of a posting, they are given the option of taking a house-hunting trip, which enables the military member and his or her spouse up to seven days to view a number of real estate properties in the posted area. These trips are essential to many families who require housing and are unable to secure military housing because of waiting lists and availability that coincides with the clear-out date of the military member.

To date, military families using the house-hunting option are able to be reimbursed for child care provided by non-family members because of a house-hunting trip. This results in military families having to leave their children with neighbours or child care centres for up to 7 days of 24-hour care. This places a great deal of stress on families who for financial reasons must choose to leave their children with non-family members in order to search for real estate in the new posted area. The option of paid extended family member care currently does not exist.

If extended family members could be paid as non-family members are for house-hunting child care, this would certainly make such a time of transition less stressful for both the military member and his or her family. The extended family member who is being paid to provide child care would have to declare any moneys received for this service in their total income for the taxation year. This would result in military families having the option—and I must emphasize, the option—of what type of quality child care would best suit their needs and the needs of their children.

In conclusion, the unique needs of the military family affect children greatly. The absence of quality child care made available to military families is a concern which needs to be addressed by the SCONDVA committee. Child care is a priority in the military community because of the ever-changing role of the Canadian Armed Forces today.

Thank you.

The Chairman: Mr. Hanger.

Mr. Art Hanger: I have one question, Mrs. Dixon. You brought up a point about single-parent families and some of the conditions they find themselves in if they are posted. If there is a single-parent family and that single parent is a military member and she or he has one or two children, what does she or he do with those children at present?

Mrs. Kim Dixon: Right now? Child care. Day care, if they are not in public school.

Mr. Art Hanger: And if she's posted?

Mrs. Kim Dixon: Then she's going to go to her neighbour, who she knows, if she's very lucky, and ask them to take of her children for five to seven days while she tries to arrange housing for that family.

Mr. Art Hanger: And on a tour overseas?

• 2100

Mrs. Kim Dixon: That's tricky.

Mr. Art Hanger: Does it face many—

Mrs. Kim Dixon: Yes, I've had about 400 children in the last five years of teaching nursery school. I've encountered seven such families. Usually what happens is the member will pull their child out of public school, day care, or nursery school, fly them to whatever province their parents are in, and leave them with that extended family.

Mr. Art Hanger: How many members would find themselves in that condition?

Mrs. Kim Dixon: As I say, I've had five years with the nursery school and we've had.... As far as I'm concerned, one family is too many.

Mr. Art Hanger: Yes, I can appreciate that, but I want to know the extent of that kind of dilemma, if you will.

Mrs. Kim Dixon: I can't answer that.

Mr. Art Hanger: You can't answer that question. Would anyone here know?

A voice: It was quite common in Petawawa.

Mr. Art Hanger: Yes, I think it is more of a concern on other bases than maybe what we know of right now.

Thank you very much for your presentation.

The Chairman: Mr. Pratt.

Mr. David Pratt: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is not really for Mrs. Dixon but is directed more towards departmental staff. I don't know if this request has been made over the course of the hearings, but I think it would be very useful if we got some statistics on separated and divorced members of the Canadian Forces and compared those with the rate in the general civilian population.

The Chairman: Mrs. Janet Edwards.

Mrs. Janet Edwards (15 Wing Community Working Group): I am part of the working committee too. I have a question for you folks, actually, more than a concern to raise.

The concerns and issues facing the forces and their family members have been researched a lot. They have been researched by DND through their directorate of social and economic analysis. It has been researched by scholars and there's no lack of published information about this.

Recently, in October, the Moose Jaw Times Herald reported that an internal DND study done in 1996 on quality of life issues for the forces highlighted 50 broad recommendations for improvement, but in the report the response to recommendations about postings being lengthened and having the right to refuse a posting was that the CAF are too small for such a policy to be adopted. Other issues such as quality child care and low-interest loans for mortgages were nixed as being too expensive. This was done last year: 50 broad recommendations on quality of life. This information should be available to you.

My question is what is SCONDVA going to be doing differently? Are you going to be listening and acting? Are we going to be hearing back results? How can you instil our faith in you about having our quality of life improved?

The Chairman: We have been asked the question at every place we have visited. The only thing I can answer to that is that the work that the minister asked us to do was asked for by the former Minister of National Defence, Mr. Young. With this Parliament Mr. Eggleton has asked us to continue what we had started before. He really wants to see our report. He really wants to enact the recommendations we will make.

When we do our report, which I hope will be done by the late summer or beginning of fall, we will be making some recommendations, many and far-reaching. Now, whether they will all be accepted by DND and by the minister and by cabinet is another subject. But I know everybody wants changes and they are waiting for our report.

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Now, all the other reports that were worked on.... I believe the one you were referring to is the Phillips report.

Ms. Monique Beauregard (Committee Researcher): What report?

The Chairman: I don't know what happened to that one, and I wouldn't even care to comment.

Mr. David Pratt: Mr. Chair, maybe we could get a comment from the departmental staff on where that whole thing sits, because it forms part of the committee's background information.

Major Glen Robertson (Individual Presentation): That particular report has been provided to the committee and some of the recommendations are in the course of being implemented right now, those ones where we have the power of persuasion.

Mr. Art Hanger: I think your question is a very valid one. I know there are expectations out there in the military about our trip throughout the military community. All kinds of studies have been done, there's no question. The more one looks into the issue as an opposition member, the more one recognizes that there have been comments and studies and reviews every which way.

I know that the chairman and even the rest of the committee may full well agree on everything that has to be looked at as an issue, and we will agree on very much of what has been said here and make a delivery to the minister, but the power of the committee is very limited. All we can do is make a recommendation, and then the issue comes before the minister and is transferred over to the cabinet, if you will, the finance minister, the Treasury Board, as far as its guidelines on how people are paid, how arrangements are made, policy.... We're talking about policy changes here that some of these recommendations will bring forward. Then it becomes virtually out of our hands as a committee.

But there's more involved, too.

The chairman will work behind the scenes with the Liberal government to do what he can. The opposition is going to do what they can in bringing the matter into Parliament, because ultimately what has happened in some of the areas is disgraceful, when it comes to how this government and governments of the past have dealt with the military. They should be corrected, and this is what our intent is.

Mr. Dick Proctor: I would just like to comment as well, to say that you raise a very important question, Mrs. Edwards. I want to say the same thing to this group as I said to the Chief of the Defence Staff when he was before our committee back in October.

I was then, and I remain, on the skeptical side of the utility of this arrangement. I don't consider myself to be an expert on pay equity, on what the value of work is, but there are Canadians out there who not only do that but have done that in looking at the military situation. So we're engaged in an important exercise.

I agree with the comments of Mr. Hanger, that we will be able to make a recommendation, but it will be limited. In my skeptical moments, I'm wondering if this is busy work, so that we're not looking at some other things that we might better look at.

So we're glad to be here. We're going to continue this work and we hope to produce a report that will.... I guess we have to take the minister and others at face value, that, yes, things will come out of this, but in the back of my mind you can colour me skeptical.

Mr. David Pratt: I think what we're seeing here with this committee is a reflection of the importance the minister places on the subject.

In the report you referred to, there's definitely going to be—I think at least, based on my own perception—a lot of overlap in the recommendations. From what I gather, the focus groups that were held are feeding information into DND.

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Our involvement is at a completely different level. It's directly to the minister, because he has requested the report. It's going to be tabled in Parliament. I can't for the life of me think the minister would ask us to do this work if he didn't have the intention of implementing a good number of the recommendations.

There's a greater issue here too, though. Some of the things that are contained in this report are going to cost the government money. In order to do that, you have to be able to marshal a certain amount of political support. I think that is at least partially what this exercise is about also. It's about informing members of Parliament about the issue, allowing us to go back to our respective caucuses.

Four parties are represented here tonight. In that respect I suppose we have a responsibility to educate our colleagues on this, because if it does—and I'm sure it will—require the expenditure of money to deal with some of the grievances and issues, then we have to be able to come together, I hope on a united basis, to see if we can make some difference in the budget priorities of the Government of Canada.

So there are a whole lot of reasons for doing this. I suppose one of the things that come out of these types of studies is that expectations are raised but in the short term people don't see any immediate resolution. From my own standpoint, all I can tell you is that individually and collectively as a committee, we're going to do our very best to drive the message home when we get back to Ottawa and when Parliament gets back in session.

This is something that is going to take some time. I'm not sure if the chair mentioned it, but we are going to be going to the east coast to visit those bases, Gagetown, Valcartier, Halifax, Goose Bay; all of that is part of this process. We're going to visit Bosnia as well. We discussed this on a number of occasions, but it may take a while before the report comes together over the summer months. Again, I wouldn't want to raise expectations, but our hope is, and I think a realistic objective would be, to try to get the report tabled in Parliament early when Parliament resumes in the fall of this year.

That just gives you some idea of the time lines we're dealing with here. I wouldn't expect significant change to happen overnight, but as I say, I think we're all essentially pulling in the same direction and we want to see something done.

The Chairman: Thank you, David.

Melissa Van Dette.

Ms. Melissa Van Dette (15 Wing Community Working Group): Good evening, ladies and gentleman. I've been a military spouse for six years. These are my own observations and opinions, although my views are shared by many of my colleagues on the committee.

My husband joined the military because he wanted to serve his country. His dedication to the Canadian Forces and his national pride have been unwavering over the past 10 years.

My husband has twice served as a Canadian peacekeeper. He did so with enthusiasm and great pride, knowing that his contribution to the military helped to maintain a Canadian image that is highly respected around the world.

The sense of esprit de corps in the military, which at one time was overwhelming, seems to have vanished into thin air in recent years. During World War I, several million young men joined the war out of pride and love for their country. It was considered an honour to be called upon to serve, and to be part of this effort was a glorious sacrifice. Young men felt it was an irresistible adventure as well as their noble duty to defend their country.

Despite the present-day low morale in the military, and in the face of taunts and adversity, our personnel still perform their tasks beyond the call of duty. Whether Canadian soldiers are keeping the peace in a country ravaged by war, making peace in a region where there is none, or simply performing daily tasks, the Canadian Forces are not receiving the positive endorsement of encouragement they have dutifully and faithfully earned.

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For example, when the Minister of National Defence, or the military brass, are on TV, why aren't they taking advantage of that opportunity to extol the virtues of our Canadian Armed Forces? It is a fatal blow to military morale when the heroic efforts of our members are not validated with vigour. This inaction by the upper echelon is perceived as an indication from the military that the individual's efforts and sacrifices are not worthy of praise. As a rule of thumb, resentment tends to grow when good deeds go unrewarded.

I have observed among many of our military acquaintances an overwhelming impression of abandonment by the military. This has left the members and their families feeling disillusioned and betrayed. For example, the fact that it took five years for the military to recognize those who served diligently in Somalia was an intentional slight felt by many members.

A short time ago the Minister of National Defence visited 15 Wing. His visit coincided with the presentation of the Somalia medal to five military members here at 15 Wing. I was disappointed to learn that he was unable to attend a 15-minute ceremony. I know my husband, as well as the others who were receiving their medals, would have been honoured by the minister's presence and it would have greatly boosted morale.

Our Canadian Forces are ambassadors for our country, ambassadors who save lives and improve quality of life both overseas and on the home front. These accomplishments are rarely given the recognition required. As the spouse of a military member, I am acutely aware of the negative public perception of the military. Our soldiers have been taught to lead by example. The high echelons of the military need to set a more positive example to illustrate and reinforce the fact that we as a nation are proud and grateful for their exceptional performance and superior dedication.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Lynn Cooper.

Ms. Lynn Cooper (Individual Presentation): Good evening. What I have to say basically has already been addressed, but I would just like to expand. I'm thinking of the employment of dependent wives.

I feel military spouses are deserving of first priority when it comes to hiring in base positions. If you ask any military spouse, they will tell you we are strongly discriminated against by local businesses. The first question asked on a job interview is, “I see your spouse is military. How long will you be here?” Employers know they cannot depend on us for long-term employment.

We are intelligent people who give up promising careers to follow our spouses. Our supportive role in the lives of our soldiers plays a very large part in their ability to perform their tasks to the utmost of their abilities. We need to know we can expect attempts to attain positions in a friendly and familiar environment as we leave our jobs to assume the next posting.

I'm not suggesting we be hired based solely on our relationships. I only ask that we be given a chance to compete for a position among our peers before it is opened to the general public. Not only will this make your soldiers' home life more bearable, but our accumulated military knowledge would be extremely beneficial to the military structure as a whole. Just by osmosis, we are familiar with many of the military's various requirements and procedures. After initially being hired and trained by the military we can carry our acquired experiences from base to base as we travel the world.

Thank you.

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Mr. Art Hanger: Mrs. Cooper, you brought a point up in reference to employment in a friendly environment. Meaning what? The availability of jobs on base?

Ms. Lynn Cooper: When we apply to get jobs out in the civilian component, we—

Mr. Art Hanger: Run into difficulty.

Ms. Lynn Cooper: Yes, every time. I've been here for six years and I've probably applied for 40 jobs, and 38 of them said “When will you be leaving?” and I didn't get the job.

Mr. Art Hanger: What is the availability of jobs on base?

Ms. Lynn Cooper: I don't know what they are, but I believe there is a criterion that a base has to employ a certain percentage of the civilian component from the community itself. For example, in Moose Jaw we have a requirement.

Meanwhile this woman becomes a central registry clerk at the orderly room and I'm swinging donuts at Tim Hortons. I should be able to have a job that is equal to my standards, that I know I can perform. A local Moose Jaw person still has that opportunity. She still has that opportunity to go to any lawyer's office in Moose Jaw and get a clerical job, whatever she wants. We don't have that.

Mr. Art Hanger: So there are some jobs available to citizens who are not military personnel per se, but for the most part is there a policy in place that prevents the spouses of military members from having a job on base?

Ms. Lynn Cooper: There's no policy, but we have to compete against the whole town. They have a chance at any job within the city of Moose Jaw and they have a chance at any job here on the base. I have a chance only at any job here on the base, really, unless I want to work at Zellers. We don't have the same opportunity.

Mr. David Price: I heard just this afternoon—and I just wanted to get it on the record—that when you apply for a job or go to Manpower they actually tell you there not to list that you come from the base. Is that so?

Ms. Lynn Cooper: No, but my resumé says that I was in Germany. So I worked for headquarters, Canadian Forces Europe. I lived in Halifax, in Germany. This person was in Petawawa and Gagetown; it's written right there. We don't have to have it written that, yes, I am a military spouse, but our resumé speaks to that.

Mr. David Price: But have they told you that? Have you heard that?

Ms. Lynn Cooper: I know they shouldn't be allowed to ask that question.

Mr. David Price: But they do it.

Ms. Lynn Cooper: Oh, every time, and I'm sure that every—

Mr. David Price: Thank you. That's all I wanted to get.

Ms. Suzanne O'Rourke: I was told by Manpower to take off all my addresses on my resumé, because I was getting nowhere for eight months, and that's what I did. I took every place, town, city and province off my resumé. I just listed my previous employers, but I gave no addresses, just so I could even get in for an interview.

I finally got a job. It's part-time, I like it. But it took me eight months, every week pounding the pavement, handing out resumés. At the unemployment office they finally said, “Suzanne, take off your addresses; you're not even getting in for interviews. You're qualified, you have experience, but it's to get in the door”. That's what I had to do.

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Ms. Darlene Lévesque (Individual Presentation): I had the same problem, but my address is Bushel Park, and when they see that, they say “Oh, my God, you live up at the base; your husband's military”.

I went to a labour board with this problem, because I went to an employer who told me, “You won't be here that long; we want job stability”. So I went to a labour board. They said, “Well, it's your word against theirs”. They had the gall to tell me, “If you know somebody downtown, use their address”. That's fine; use their address. But as soon as they catch on to that and hire me, there are grounds for termination right there: I lied on my résumé. Where do you go with that?

Ms. Norma Willows (Individual Presentation): I'm Norma Willows. I can relate to what these ladies are saying.

When I arrived here, I went for some consulting on employment, etc. It was suggested that I put a line in on what I really planned to do here in Moose Jaw. Well, we plan to stay here forever. I don't know what the crystal ball says my husband's career is going to do with base closure, the government. We can't tell. So I was told to lie.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Sandy St. Pierre, please.

Ms. Sandy St. Pierre (Individual Presentation): That was one of mine. I think everybody has hit on practically all of mine.

I have been asked questions in interviews, and they said, “You're fully qualified for the job; we know you can do the job”. The last question was—I don't know how they knew, but they said it—“I guess I have to ask you this question: is your husband in the military, and how long are you going to be here?” That happens quite a bit.

One employer here in Moose Jaw told me they do hire people from the bases, but they look at where they want to put you in their system, because they know you're not going to be there for a long time and they don't want to train you. Some jobs take a lot of training, and they don't want you to leave. That's the thing.

One thing I had was about the interest rate differential. That has been talked about. At one point it was paid. The Treasury Board decided not to pay it any more. It's a legitimate penalty to get out of your mortgage when you're forced to leave, and I think they should reinstate it.

We've been through the home buyer's plan. That's another thing there.

This province is one province that doesn't have military flights out of it. When space is available spouses can take flights and go to visit family or whatever. This is one province.... You have to go to Edmonton or Winnipeg to catch a “flip”, as they call it. I was just wondering why it isn't available here. I'm not sure. I know some people would use it if it were around, even if it were only once a month or so that it was available here.

That's about it. Everything else has been pretty well covered.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Second Lieutenant Cory Robinson (Individual Presentation): Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a point about spousal employment in town. From my personal example, it doesn't happen just to spouses. My situation is that because of the cost of raising a family and my wife being pregnant—she cannot be employed—I have had to seek secondary employment.

It doesn't happen just for the wives. I am discriminated against simply because I am in the military. A lot of employers seem to feel, well, you're in the military, you get paid enough; what the heck do you need a secondary job for? My point to them is, well, I wouldn't be looking for secondary employment if I didn't need the money.

I just wanted to make the point known that it doesn't happen just to the non-military members. It happens to the military members as well.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Hanger, you have a question for the gentleman?

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Mr. Art Hanger: Your reason again for seeking secondary employment was?

2Lt Cory Robinson: I just got married. My wife is pregnant and I have a two-and-a-half-year-old child. My wife can't work when she's pregnant. Unfortunately, she has a medical condition that precludes her from that.

Quite frankly—and this actually ties to an earlier point—I happen to be one of those members of the military who has gone through the career review board process and I am waiting to see exactly what my future is going to be. I was a pilot. I ceased training in May 1997, and to this point I have absolutely no clue where my career is going to go. My only direction that was given was well, you'll know something within three to twelve months. I still have no clue as to what that something is.

So I'm kept at a junior level position, where, quite frankly, as a second lieutenant, I don't make very much money. I have to raise my family, and to do that, unfortunately I have to seek employment outside of the military. That's why I did that.

Mr. Art Hanger: Thank you. I guess that's not very unusual with a lot of members. When we were in Esquimalt there were young fellows who were trying to make ends meet with the expenses they had in their households. All it required was one emergency and they had to go and seek another job.

Many of them, I found, were not willing to discuss the fact that they had to seek other employment. Some had been delivering pizzas. In fact, several of them had been doing that just to make ends meet. I don't find that acceptable. I think there should—

2Lt Cory Robinson: My position isn't much better. I'm a security officer at a mall. Quite frankly, I have to suck in a lot of pride to do that. It's actually the mall here in town, so here I am, supposed to be an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces, and in the evenings I don a really bad suit with a terrible clip-on tie and run across members of the military from this base, commissioned and non-commissioned. Especially as an officer, I'm supposed to project a better image, but here I am, a mall security guy chasing teenagers around through the mall. It's a pretty big blow to the pride, but it's something I've had to do.

But I faced a lot of obstacles just to get that job, again because I was in the military.

Mr. Art Hanger: Thank you for sharing that with us. I commend you for it.

I would also like to ask if there are many members here who actually have two jobs just to make ends meet.

Capt Derek McInnis: No, sir, not at the time, but when I was a second lieutenant I had to do the same thing. I was in Esquimalt and I was driving a cab. That was three years ago. It's very common, amongst officers as well as NCMs.

Ms. Suzanne O'Rourke: My husband will have been in the military for 25 years next summer. He's away on course right now and we're missing his second income. He's been working at part-time work for quite a few years now to make ends meet, because we believe that keeping our children in activities will keep them out of trouble, and that costs money.

We're not making enough to cover all the bases, the mortgage and everything else, even with me working. There are a lot of military members who have second jobs, and when they have to go on course and so on, it is missed. We're scraping.

He's away until the end of March, so I do without.

Sub-Lieutenant Mike Cue (Individual Presentation): I'm in the reserves, so I'm getting paid a lot less. I work at two jobs, but I also do volunteer work at the Moose Jaw food bank. We have at least nine members from this base, regular forces, who use my services down there. It's the same thing; they just don't get paid enough, especially when they have small children and a spouse who can't work.

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I'm also a social worker, so I can add that perspective, because I do free counselling for members. The last thing they want is their name on paper.

I find it's a national disgrace. You're paying soldiers who might have to go and fight and, God forbid, die for their country, and they have to come down to my agency and scrounge food. I just look at the priorities. I'm sorry, you might not want to hear this, but you have soldiers on this base using the food bank in town because they just don't get enough support from the bureaucracy.

Mr. Art Hanger: I've heard it now.... I know at least 25 families use the food bank in Gagetown. We have heard it in other bases across this country. You're absolutely right, it is a national disgrace.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Second Lieutenant Claude Bertrand.

[Translation]

Second Lieutenant Claude Bertrand (Individual presentation): Mr. Chairman and members of the forum, do you expect to be taking a coffee break soon?

The Chairman: Probably, but not immediately because we have a lot of people left to hear.

Second Lieutenant Claude Bertrand: I ask this question because other people are wondering about it.

Your Honour and Mr. Hunter, if I may, I'll make part of my statement in French and the other in English.

When he visited the base recently just before Christmas, Minister Eggleton mentioned that the remuneration of members of the armed forces was linked or was comparable to that of public servants. I was very surprised by this remark since the situations are extremely different. In the public service people can work in the same place for 20 or 25 years, buy a house and enjoy all these advantages of stability so well expressed by Captain Tomlinson and all the others who have spoken here this evening.

I think that such a comparison is most inappropriate along with the expectation of a wage increase to catch up with public servants. The situations are fundamentally different. It should be emphasized to Minister Eggleton that it is not enough to catch up with the 5 or 8 per cent but it is essential to establish independent salary scales taking into account the fact that our country is extremely large and that our members are required to spend a lot of money on travelling for themselves and their families.

Everyone here knows how difficult it is to make reservations by using the Canadian forces travelling system. It's easy to go in one direction but you never know whether you'll be able to come back the same weekend. So most of the time we end up paying our travelling expenses out of our pockets. There are lots of disadvantages that go along with our jobs. Once again, I repeat that this is an inappropriate comparison. We should set aside this comparison and set up a new scale.

I'd like to turn to my second point. Since it's rather awkward for a member of the military to use the word union, I won't use it. But I will say that it's high time that the government or the department took the initiative of offering members of the forces the chance to enter into negotiations, perhaps somewhat similar to what is done for the RCMP. It would be a kind of bargaining unit representing members, made up of members and elected by members. I know that this is a rather radical proposal. It's been widely discussed and we know there are countries where the armed forces have set up a committee to represent members and I think that such a step is essential here.

It is quite remarkable, and I would commend you for having come here to listen to us. However, it is regrettable that we do not always have the opportunity to sit down at the table with our employer, who is in fact one of the largest employers in Canada, to discuss the situations which are difficult for the members of the Canadian Forces, and to propose possible solutions.

[English]

My third point...and I'll do it in English. I fully realize I'm in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and I am aware of the sensibilities that are involved and the fact that it's very much a political point.

I'm also aware that aviation is primarily an English matter. As you may have guessed, I'm relating to a French-English element. I would never contest that ATC, air traffic control, would be an English element. No, it would be unshakeable.

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Moreover, someone would have to have lived under a rock for a long time not to know there are linguistic sensibilities associated with the francophone community, of which I am a member, throughout Canada. Like many of my French-speaking colleagues, I have chosen voluntarily to join the armed forces to serve my country, but I should not have to leave my language or my culture at the door in doing so.

There are many of us here tonight.

I'm referring to services offered to the members, be they through the school—I think this issue has been raised before—or through general visibility. Again, it's a very political thing.

I wouldn't want to leave the impression that I am borrowing somebody's place. I believe I have a place here, I belong here. In the same way I shouldn't have to excuse myself for using French or for requesting that in certain instances it be allowed—that it be promoted, almost.

Again, I realize that for a very few a cost is associated. But we have one country, and as was demonstrated not so long ago some people want to do something else with it. I think we have to be very proactive. Even if it's a matter of imagery or appearance, we ought to be very proactive and do something that clearly illustrates to all Canadians of both official languages that yes, the armed forces are a place for them to belong.

The same can be done at this school here. This is the only school where a Canadian can come and learn how to be a pilot and serve his country as a pilot in the military. So we don't have the choice. This is the one.

I invite you to visit the base. I'm not criticizing anyone in particular. It's a natural thing, I think, for it to be in the state it is in now. It takes an extra effort to make it what it really should be. If you visit the base you'll see how few services are available in French, or how little presence there is, for example, in signage everywhere.

I am glad to see here “French-Français”, “English-Anglais”. That's very special here.

I would like to conclude that way and thank you again. I hope there will be an improvement in that aspect.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Mr. Bertrand, I would like to take this opportunity to point out that you have expressed your position very well. The floor is now open to anyone else who might want to ask you questions.

[English]

Mr. David Pratt: Thank you, Second Lieutenant. I appreciated your comments on all three points, but I guess my question goes really to the issue of salaries and pay in general. What I want to talk about is the issue of the pay increment paid last fall. We had what I thought was some very colourful testimony earlier from a member in Esquimalt. When someone on the committee asked about the increments, he said “They paid us just enough to piss us off”.

It has taken well over two hours for us really to get into this pay issue, and I think that is unfortunate. We've had some figures thrown at us about general, across-the-board increases. Rear-Admiral Thomas in Esquimalt suggested 10%. Colonel Leslie in Edmonton upped the ante at 15%. I'm interested in knowing, as a sort of straw poll, what people think about what is due to them on the basis of a fair day's salary for a fair day's work.

2Lt Claude Bertrand: I would be hard pressed to come up with a number tonight and say I believe a second lieutenant ought to earn this and a captain ought to earn that. I would like to suggest the proper way of doing this would be to look at it as if we were today starting a new armed forces altogether and we were deciding, now, we're going to hire captains, we're going to hire people to do the following jobs; there is a certain element of danger in some of the positions, there isn't in some of the others; the element of danger is therefore worth so much.

How about the fact that we move people every year or every four or five years? That's probably worth so much.

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How about the fact that there's family stress resulting from the frequent moves? That's an element. There are additional costs. You have to go on a posting. As someone expressed before, you have to get babysitting services or some child care of some sort, perhaps private schooling.

There are a number of costs that a civil servant just doesn't have to pay. You have to tabulate all of those, and only then will you have a number that really represents what you ought to be paying the people of the Canadian Armed Forces if you are going to continue to have the quality of personnel that ought to be joining the forces. If as the years go by the quality personnel decide not to join the forces, then the people who will be there will be perhaps those who are more desperate than any other people.

Again, if we want to remain with the quality people, those who are able to take the training, dedicate themselves to the position and have the peace of mind at home that everything is well taken care of at home—“I can dedicate myself to my job”—you can't talk about 8%, 10%. Let's start with a clean slate and ask what this job is really worth.

In the National Hockey League of 20 years ago, what was Bobby Orr earning, $100,000? Now Mario Lemieux has signed for $40 million. So there was obviously inequity somewhere. It's just that at one point somebody woke up and said, hey, we're worth something.

I'm not suggesting that we are going to rise and say we're worth something, but there ought to be a recognition by Canadians that for as much as a postman.... I don't want to say anything derogatory about the people from the postal services—

Mr. David Pratt: Be my guest.

2Lt Claude Bertrand: —but if we look at the level of skills and the level of danger involved....

I think the people in the postal services earn as much as they do again because of the bargaining power that they have and the ability to say, look, this job is not going to get done unless you pay me for this.

I am not suggesting for one second—and I'm being truthful about this.... These are the armed forces, and obviously you can't have people taking this attitude. Nonetheless, there has to be some way of meeting us half-way.

Look, I'm willing to put my life on the line at one point in my career, and probably more than once if everything goes the way I would like it to be, being a pilot. On the other hand, as someone expressed before, the Canadian people ought to be able to compensate to some degree and recognize that there's hardship associated with the job and we ought to be able to make a good living out of it, and proudly.

Mr. David Pratt: I have a supplementary on that.

Just because I ask a question, by the way, doesn't mean you have to answer it. But I thought you answered it very well.

There's a wider issue, a bigger issue, here on the pay issue. That is the whole issue of operational effectiveness now. You may not want to comment about the unit here in Moose Jaw, but from your assessment, and based on people you've talked to in the Canadian Forces from across the country, do you feel, regarding these pay issues, that the basket of concerns that is out there right now, for the lack of a better phrase, the whole range of concerns that are there, are now affecting or have the potential to affect the operational effectiveness of the armed forces?

2Lt Claude Bertrand: I see lots of heads nodding.

I myself have been in the forces only since last January. I was a civil servant for ten years in Ottawa, proudly serving the civil service. I made the choice of joining the military, and I knew that the salary was just not going to be there. That was a personal choice. I would nonetheless welcome a decent salary that would be commensurate with the amount of knowledge and skill that I have to demonstrate in my duties.

To speak of one instance, we know there's a large exodus of pilots to the private sector. So it's one group whose skills have been recognized by the private sector, and they are moving away at rates that far exceed the ability of the school to train pilots.

We anticipate, or it has been speculated, that in the future the U.S. may start accepting Canadian pilots without trade restrictions on the ability to work over there, which would considerably increase even more the exodus of pilots. So if there was sufficient compensation, I'm sure many pilots would decide to stay here and serve their country and do a job that is in many ways very challenging and exciting.

• 2150

That's to speak of one skill, and I'm sure there are many other people who would take the opportunity to move out or who would choose not to come here. Maybe I'm being very verbose here in saying yes.

Mr. David Pratt: I wasn't so much thinking about the issue of attrition as the member who decides to stay but has all these concerns. That's more what I was getting at. But maybe we should just leave it at that for now, unless you have any further comments.

2Lt Claude Bertrand: No.

The Chairman: Did you have a question?

Mr. Dick Proctor: You mentioned a board like the RCMP board, Mr. Bertrand. Do you or perhaps others in the audience know if in other countries they do things a little bit differently? For example, it seems to me that at least one of the Scandinavian countries, perhaps Denmark, does have a bargaining unit for the military.

A voice: Sweden and Norway.

Mr. Dick Proctor: Okay. There may be some elaboration coming, then, and we can hear about that.

2Lt Claude Bertrand: Well, I can't elaborate on it.

Mr. Dick Proctor: It sounds like this man can.

Lieutenant Alain Savoie (Individual Presentation): I was just mentioning that the Netherlands also had something like that.

Mr. Dick Proctor: Some folks here have travelled fairly widely. Is that an option that could be available for the military in Canada to look at, to be able to sit down with a representative group of military folks and say this is what we need in terms of pay and rations in order to do the job the way we think it should be done and the way we think you want us to do it?

2Lt Claude Bertrand: Personally I think it's essential. But because of the nature of the military, I think the first move has to come from the government, from the ministry. It would be strong career suicide for a member to advocate anything like this outside of the scope of a forum like this.

The Chairman: Judi, you had a question for the lieutenant.

Mrs. Judi Longfield: Yes, getting into this whole business about pay. You said maybe we should start from scratch, that danger is worth so much, etc. Right now the only time you get an increase in salary once you've reached the end of your incentive level is when you get an actual promotion. What about lateral progression, skills and knowledge?

2Lt Claude Bertrand: Could you expand on this?

Mrs. Judi Longfield: It's just the idea that if a promotion was not forthcoming, you would still be able to anticipate some increase in salary based on increased skills, increased knowledge.

2Lt Claude Bertrand: I wouldn't want to discard the idea, but I think what I'm raising is much more fundamental. The base pay structure we have is, to put it kindly, outrageously undervalued.

Mrs. Judi Longfield: I appreciate that, and as Mr. Pratt is pointing out, probably I should be asking an NCM as opposed to an officer. But this whole idea that—

2Lt Claude Bertrand: Just to answer that, ma'am, 10 years ago they made a study in DND about qualifications, courses and everything—for example, an airframe tech compared to a cook. The trades are very different. They made a study, and we never found out where that study went.

The answer is yes, they did it, and it was a good idea to pay by trade qualification, to give more money, as they do in the United States. In the United States a guy can be a corporal, but he can earn more than his sergeant because his trade makes more money. They did that 10 years ago, I think it was, but we never found out what happened with it. I think it went down the drain.

Capt Derek McInnis: Ma'am, just to add to this, they're doing it now in the Royal Navy. I got back from England about three years ago, and there aren't pay incentives over there. Pay is based only on qualification progression, and it does work. Also, in some ways I think it provides a little more esprit de corps because people actually feel they've earned their pay increase. They have to progress; they have to merit it instead of just breathing.

Mrs. Judi Longfield: Thank you.

The Chairman: Do we have any more questions for Lieutenant Bertrand?

2Lt Claude Bertrand: Second Lieutenant, sir.

The Chairman: Excuse me, Second Lieutenant Bertrand. I gave you a promotion there.

• 2155

Thank you very much. Mr. Price is next.

[Translation]

Mr. David Price: I now have to address an issue which may be somewhat sensitive. To ensure that it is clearly understood by everyone, I will make the point in English.

[English]

Language is always a touchy subject, but I think it's unfortunate in many ways because we're kind of missing the boat here, and it has happened because our numbers are decreasing. The numbers are the reason. If there were more numbers, we'd be able to offer more services. Unfortunately that's what's happening. It's too bad, because people in the anglophone sector in the rest of Canada are missing out on the French culture, which is a very rich culture, and it probably goes the other way too. In an ideal situation, maybe we should send all anglophone recruits to do their basic training in Quebec and send all Quebeckers out here to do their basic training.

A voice: We do.

Mr. David Price: We do? Well, it doesn't seem to be working that well. That's just a comment I have.

The Chairman: I think we're done.

Corporal Terry Warner (Individual Presentation): Sir, I'd like to add a point to Mrs. Longfield's question. It's TASK, “Trade Advancement for Skill and Knowledge”. That's the name of the study from about 10 years ago, and it was shut down apparently because it was too complicated.

The Chairman: Thank you. Monsieur Savoie.

Lt Alain Savoie: I just want to add a comment that I think ties together everything that was mentioned tonight.

Mr. Pratt mentioned just a few minutes ago that it took two hours to address the issue of pay. Well, I think in a way we've been talking about it for the whole time we've been speaking here. There have been people mentioning soldiers going to food banks. There have been very hard-working spouses talking about their situation. There have been people mentioning child care and how costly it is, how important it is to us, and all kinds of family problems. So we've addressed a variety of issues that I think you people from the committee of SCONDVA could really work to solve.

I'm happy you're here, but it has raised a lot of expectations on our part. We're happy to be here and to take this time, but when you go back and write that report and you speak with people from your different caucuses, could you please tell them how important it is. These people here don't want to look like people who complain. It's very hard to come here. There's a lot of pride swallowing, and it's very difficult to come and say, look, I think I should be paid more. When you think about it, if people who work for DND were paid in a very fair way, it would solve a lot of problems that were addressed tonight.

Capt Derek McInnis: I'd just like to say that it is embarrassing for me, and I've been up here a couple of times tonight. But I feel strongly about some of the issues that have been mentioned.

With regard to pay, we're asked about what we feel is fair. About five or six years ago, with our last pay increase, I felt we were making a good wage. Part of the problem is that the cost of living has gone up. I realize the government is having difficult financial times, but if we can't give ourselves a raise maybe we could reduce some of our expenses.

The thing is that people want to take home more money in their pockets. They don't want a pay raise, but perhaps there could be taxable allowances and things like that. In the United States, for instance, many of the soldiers don't pay state income tax, because they can elect to choose their state for that. One problem I know we've experienced since moving here is that Saskatchewan and certain provinces have very high taxes. Perhaps members of the armed forces can be given a special tax allowance or dispensation, or at least be able to pay a rate of provincial tax that is one of the lower tax rates in the country. It might just give them the extra dollars in their pocket.

It's just a thought, sir.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Major Gross.

Major Christine Gross (Individual Presentation): I wanted to comment on the French language issue. The first one was just to mention that there are difficulties not only here for francophones but also in Quebec, for example at Valcartier, for anglophones.

• 2200

Within the last few years a number of people augmented the group that went from Valcartier down to Haiti. Unfortunately, those anglophone members of that particular group who went down found it extremely difficult to work in that environment. It had mostly to do with the fact that the Valcartier group wished to work exclusively in French. That caused difficulties for the anglophones wanting to do the job and actually to be informed about the tactical and operational situation. It put them at risk. It put the rest of the unit at risk.

I imagine that has probably happened for francophones in anglo units.

The other issue is just a personal one. Some years ago I was on a French course. The idea was that I would then work, at the time, at FMCHQ, so I needed the French language skills for that. It turned out I was then able to go into a field unit, and of course one of the choices at that time was Valcartier. Between myself and another woman who was going to be put into a field unit, we decided it would probably be best for each of us to go to our respective language units. So I went to Calgary, she went to Valcartier. I had spoken to the man who was going to be my commanding officer and he actually told me point-blank that he would make absolutely no adjustment for my being an anglophone. So I would have been in that unit and swimming around, not seeing the light.

I imagine that also happens in anglophone units for francophones.

That's just an observation I would like you to take into consideration. Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Madam Godin.

Ms. Yvonne Godin (Individual Presentation): I just wanted to let you know the language issue also affects spouses. We lived in Valcartier, Quebec for seven years. I was not able to work there because I don't have the French language. Even on the base they will not hire an anglophone.

I've lost all my training, all my skills, because of going to Valcartier. Now I can't get employment. I've been out of the employment field for too long and I've lost all my experience. My husband retires in 12 years and I have nothing to fall back on.

The Chairman: Thank you for your comments.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to suggest a break.

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• 2227

The Chairman: Our next presenter is Corporal Terry Warner.

Cpl Terry Warner: Thank you, sir. I'm glad we had a break here, because what I have to say would not have had the same effect on a full load of venom.

I have three or four initial points. The first thing I want to say is that Treasury Board mileage rates are unrealistic. Even though I have a little diesel car, it costs me 16¢ a kilometre to run it. The most I can get is 9.5¢ per kilometre to run my car if I'm required to use it for transportation.

Something I could say only in this forum is that I feel compulsory membership is a breach of my Canadian Bill of Rights freedom of association and assembly. I am ordered to belong to a mess, but it is an undemocratic, unnecessary institution in my personal circumstances today. I'll leave that with the committee.

Every month I pay a $3 base fund levy. I have absolutely no idea where that money goes. I never get a chance to vote on it. As far as I'm concerned, it's simply a tax; a tax I'm not able to act on. Again, it's a money issue.

About commuting assistance, in accordance with CFAO 209-28, except with permission, members must live within a published radius of the base. In Moose Jaw it's a circle around city hall. I can be moved from one location to a base and spend as much as $12,000 or $15,000 of the taxpayers' money, whereas leaving me where I am and paying me a commuting allowance is considerably more economical.

I have a house in Regina. My life is in Regina. I was posted here to Moose Jaw. I commute 85 kilometres every day. As a matter of fact, my wife is waiting for me. So I could have spent as much as $13,000 to be posted, yet even though I've asked, the base will not pay $700 for a commuting allowance.

• 2230

The final one is much more extensive. I'll try to be brief. I entitle this presentation “The Army That was Afraid of Guns”.

Firearms are an essential part of military service. Defence has the nation's permission to inflict death and damage upon the enemies of the state. Infantry close with and destroy the enemy, vital point guards stand sentry, naval harbour defence parties and ships' boarding parties carry firearms. Airfields are too valuable to be left unguarded.

It would seem obvious that the CF would emphasize a high standard of marksmanship and skill at arms for most trades. It would seem especially important as these commands are now becoming more important. I'll probably have to summarize, but this presentation would indicate that exactly the opposite situation has occurred.

If a crisis were to erupt, Canada would have few trained riflemen and even fewer experienced trainers to produce their reinforcement. Comparatively few members fire an annual qualification each year.

As an aside, sir, during the break a second lieutenant asked me about getting a range qualification.

A member may go for years without ever touching a firearm. Individual members encounter regulations for private ownership of firearms that place military orders above the Criminal Code.

Safe ranges are unavailable, for a number of reasons.

The senior leadership—and I would emphasize the highest leadership—concentrate on their environmental concerns to the neglect of support personnel training and readiness.

Cadet organization shooting programs are continually mistreated by the regular force.

Rifle associations and interested civilian shooters have an exceedingly difficult time in offering their collective wisdom and experience to the military.

In short, the CF is a military that is afraid of guns.

How does this affect SCONDVA? You are the people who will recommend direction to the minister. I am asserting that the social contract between Canada and its military is based on a fundamental principle, and that is to return servicemen and servicewomen to their families after their service in the same condition in which they joined. After wartime, that would be alive.

When troops are deployed to a hostile theatre, doesn't Canada owe its young men and women the absolutely best preparations? No member of Parliament is likely to get shot at, but some 19-year-old private getting shot at needs to know how to shoot back much more—respectfully—than members of Parliament need to feel important. Please don't forget that your loyalties are to the young men and women of Canada.

I'm going to quote my old branch motto: Servir armatis, or “Support the Arms”.

Let me start by suggesting how the CF arrived at this situation.

Shooting and marksmanship training are dying the death of a thousand cuts. Money is never plentiful. Virtually every decision these days becomes financial. A day at the range is expensive in terms of ammunition, food, fuel, vehicles. Sometimes there's an embarrassment, a social cost, when supervisors don't know how to run a range or are afraid of contravening very complicated range standing orders. Paperwork is involved if something goes wrong. Exposure to the elements might lead to injuries and then again more paperwork. Of course time on the range is time away from the primary mission and duties.

Given the choice of an operational training or development or organizational development, it seems easier today to answer the pressing concerns of Parliament than, for example, to go shooting.

Learned and sincere reports have found the CF lacking in various areas.

Every unit has to produce a business plan to account for its budget. Believe it or not, military training areas have to be rented nowadays. That's within the military's internal budgeting.

People attend anti-harassment and racism lectures. Computer and language courses are regularly available. Pre-deployment training now includes cultural training. Last year everyone in the air force took a three-day seminar on workplace change. A few years ago army supervisors had quality-of-worklife training. Recruiting centres went on total quality management. It is all very useful on a day-to-day basis, but quite apart from the very basic mission of the military.

Last fall my unit had a sports afternoon. If people didn't play sports, they could shoot, rifle or pistol. One junior officer remarked that this was the third time in his ten years of service he'd fired an annual qualification. Another said he hadn't fired a shot in years but had taken harassment training every year for the last five years. Some of the officers had never fired the C-7 rifle, which was introduced ten years ago.

The scores were terrible—but the men were polite.

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Physical fitness is almost a religion on some bases. Members can be adversely rated if they fail physical tests or do not participate in sports. It becomes a secondary duty, as we mentioned earlier.

Unit, base, local, regional, and national teams get full sanction and support, but individual shooting skill development is unheard of as fitness. For any number of reasons, which in isolation may appear legitimate, ranges are very closely controlled. Those that do remain often languish unused. Ask a very serious question, sir: how many enemy soldiers were ever killed by a volley ball? Clearly, the Canadian Forces purports to encourage shooting, but frankly it does not.

This situation is not equal across the entire military. The land forces and the militia have an individual battle training standard or warrior training. Soldiers are tested annually on their run, jump, and shoot skills. They wear a little gold, silver, or bronze badge on their right pocket flap.

Peacekeeping operations in the former Republic of Yugoslavia have validated this training as relative and important; however, there are no similar skills programs across the other commands. If it doesn't get the ships off to sea, keep the airplanes flying, or run the rat race, the other commands just don't seem to care.

Suppose a unit does want to go shoot. The lessons learned from the former Republic of Yugoslavia in the army found that they did not have sufficient qualified small arms instructors to give valuable training. Imagine finding a small arms instructor's unit on an air force base. Who sets the standards of that kind of personal training on non-army bases? Obviously low scores are acceptable, even if they become harder and harder to meet. Except for the land force, where the need is apparent, shooting and skill at arms in other services is not a priority.

I'd like to ask a question of the people in this room. How many people have fired a qualification in the last 12 months? Five.

Every regular force and reserve member learns the rifle on basic training, and other than drill or perhaps if they're posted to a field unit, that might be the last time thousands of members ever touch a gun.

There are about 20,000 personnel in land forces—the army. We have three brigades with about 5,000 men each. The best trained riflemen in the brigade are the infantry. The other combat arms are trained, but their standard is not as high as the infantry. In the brigade you might find between 1,500 and 1,800 infanteers. I'm saying we only have 5,000 trained, skilled riflemen in the entire Canadian Forces—5,000—who are trusted to load, aim, and fire.

Think of it this way. Virtually the entire land forces command was deployed for the Manitoba floods and the eastern ice storms. Almost all of Canada's trained infantry, crewmen, engineers, gunners, truckers, wrench benders, cooks, storemen, medics, etc., left their bases. What happens if they are needed in several places at once? Wars can get big all of a sudden. Realistically, do we have enough trained soldiers?

Years ago there was an axiom: servicemen first, tradesmen second. Lessons learned from Yugoslavia—and the army is very good at learning its own lessons that way—suggest that this has been reversed. As the CF becomes more operationally focused, any member, especially in support trades, is likely to deploy to a hostile theatre, whether it's a public affairs officer, a clerk, or a medic.

Since there are only so many combat arms troops to go around, any one who draws pay could be asked to stand guard duty. I know this for a fact.

While the world watched the attack on Baghdad seven years ago last week, the clerks and the signallers mounted guard on the headquarters in Bahrain. I was behind a machine gun when CNN was launching that famous night sight. We stood guard for two weeks until we were relieved.

• 2240

For most military members a trip to the range is nothing less than a trip to hell. Brutal parade square range commands.... Intelligence and honest leadership have gone by the wayside of strict drills. Dire warnings to behave and not to breach the numerous and complex range safety orders.... No room to absorb the process, to think about what to do better; just lie down and shoot. No wonder the ranges are feared and avoided.

How many times have scores been falsified with the famous 5.56 calibre pencil when some poor laggard couldn't score high enough? Even holding their scores in a disgracefully large centre of mass sometimes is impossible.

The C-7 rifle is a very easy rifle to operate and fire, quite unlike the FNC-1, which we got rid of. Good scores should not be hard to get.

In October 1990 I joined 90 Canadian Signals Squadron to go overseas to the Gulf. We were a cross-section of clerks, cooks, signallers, intelligence people, and staff officers, to support then-Commodore Summers for the Persian Gulf War. In Kingston we were issued unfired rifles right out of war reserve. I was able to score a good enough score on the ranges.

One master corporal clerk beside me couldn't hit the target, a 4-foot-square target, at 200 yards. He was hopeless and, worse, wouldn't try to do any better. I believe the range officer got so fed up he ordered the target markers to peel a few patches off the target to make a small enough group so we could all finish on time. This Canadian soldier was going into a hostile area with a rifle he didn't know and couldn't fire properly, yet he was declared operationally ready.

Six months later, in March 1991 in Kuwait City, I drove Commodore Summers and a party of senior officers around the streets where the Palestinians and the Kuwaitis were shooting at each other, three weeks after the war. A driver is also a bodyguard. Whenever we stopped, I loaded my rifle and was prepared to protect a Canadian general officer and two full colonels. I was the driver because I was the only spare person after the engineers had their tasks. Could that master corporal clerk have delivered effective fire to defend Canadian officers? You decide.

A second story: A Canadian nurse—and I've been told I can use her name—Lieutenant (Ret.) Abigail McCarter, formed up in Calgary with other medical personnel en route to Croatia. One check-off is the personal weapons test. The Geneva Convention permits medical personnel to defend themselves; to save lives, to save their own life, but not to take lives. The nurses were having a tough time qualifying. They were trying to fire groups with their rifles and they were not succeeding, and they were getting tired towards the end of the day. The range officer running the range stopped, took the nurse's rifle, fired the magazine at the target himself from 10 yards, and declared, “You passed”.

Who was helping whom? These people were on their way to a very ruthless and volatile place, and their records were falsified so some exasperated trainer could get things over with. Is this the glory of Canadian peacekeeping?

The Army Lessons Learned Centre has published several summaries of questions to units which units have found in the planning, deployment, operation, and repatriation phases. Several times units have stated that combat support personnel, guys like me, were improperly prepared for operations. Personnel from outside land forces were frequently unable to pass the army's initial screening standards of run, jump, and shoot. Their jobs would take them into hostile areas, but their back-home supervisors did not take any interest in their readiness.

Is this common? Probably. Is this going to continue? Very likely.

My solution is three simple words: shoot more often. Every unit in the Canadian Forces must emphasize marksmanship in their annual training plans, especially for the support trades.

• 2245

Skill at arms includes shooting at paper targets, which by itself is not really very challenging. Rifle ranges are predictable, but the battlefield never looks like a range. Still, the experience of breaking routine, dressing for the elements, drawing weapons, handling drills, safety briefing, and load and fire all add up to a reinforcement of basic, practical military skills. Marksmanship is not something you had once and can do on demand to a high standard.

I will change the topic slightly.

As I mentioned, there are Canadian Forces policies that I feel contravene the Criminal Code. Canadian Forces security orders, known as A-SJ-100, chapter 36, paragraphs 36.85 and 36.86, state conditions for privately owned small arms in Canadian Forces married and single quarters. It is my opinion that the Canadian Forces is unwisely interfering with the personal legal responsibilities of its members for safe storage of firearms. There is a double standard, because members living off base do not have to comply.

I have seen military databases in the form of information binders with personal particulars, addresses and firearms descriptions, including retired members, stating their addresses—information that would be available for review or theft by any person at the reception counter. I would say, sir, this is an unconscionable breach of privacy.

In 1988 I was ordered to deliver either the whole firearm or a movable part to the military police in Saint-Hubert. Without telling anybody, they gave that box to base operations. It took days to find it again. Eventually it was found and returned. Later, when I was leaving for the Gulf, I discovered the locks had been cut off my two handguns and the guns partially disassembled. I had no way of knowing who had handled them and what had been done with them.

I was very emphatic in a letter to my regimental sergeant-major that I was the registered owner of these firearms and was liable for their safekeeping. If firearms are legal property, then the Canadian Forces is obliged to facilitate a member's legal responsibilities unimpeded.

Earlier I implied that ranges were difficult to access for informal practice. The ranges are normally used only during regular working days. They're not used on evenings, holidays or weekends. Rarely do individuals sign out the key to the range.

Why should it be so difficult to shoot on the best-equipped and safest ranges in the country? Well, the orders require sentries, barricades, an ambulance at the firing point, so many first-aid kits, two people on the radio to range control.... The list is endless. This is a belt, braces and elastic precaution that the average jogger and golfer does not have to deal with.

Who benefits from these strict rules? In my opinion, one person—the base commander's reputation.

Any situation can be turned into a safety concern when discussing rifle ranges. These are things no civilian sportsman club would tolerate. It is my belief that the Canadian Forces is deadly afraid of accidents, quite to the detriment of common sense; hence, this rigid culture around shootings and marksmanship training.

There are outdoor ranges across the country closed for all kinds of reasons. I would say, in fact, they're strategic resources to be preserved for the decades and not left to year-to-year decisions.

Not long ago millions of dollars were put into St. Charles range in Winnipeg. The structure is great, but it holds rainwater like a bucket. The markers can't see if a shot hits the target. The targets need extensions on the legs to be seen. The list of engineering mistakes goes on. Was anyone ever disciplined? Not from what I've heard.

• 2250

The St-Bruno range in Montreal and the Burdick range in Moose Jaw were designed for the old .303 cartridge. They were acceptable with the more powerful .762, but somehow when the lighter .556 round was adopted, the danger areas were too short.

Where is the long-term corporate memory to challenge these decisions? The military seems reluctant to listen to civilian marksmen, who could offer free, competent advice.

The latest reason for closing indoor rifle ranges is concern over airborne lead, but the ranges are never replaced and they're never upgraded; they're just closed. The regular force hardly ever shoot indoors.

Ms. Paula Lesnick (Individual Presentation): I'm sorry, I don't want to be rude, but is there a limit on the amount of time one person can talk?

The Chairman: There's no limit.

Ms. Paula Lesnick: It's just a general feeling here that....

The Chairman: People are restless?

Ms. Paula Lesnick: Yes.

Cpl Terry Warner: As I said, the ranges are rarely upgraded but never replaced.

The cadets, on the other hand, almost always shoot indoors. The regular force decision-makers don't seem to listen. These young men and women shoot air rifles and worn-out 1945-production .22 rifles—rifles two generations too old for the regular force, which I might add the regular force will soon cease to maintain.

The rules keep changing. The cadets keep taking their share of the death by a thousand cuts.

I have two more points.

I must state for the record that relations between DND and civilian rifle associations is strained and unnecessarily bitter. CFAO 50-11 and CFAO 29-1 protect and preserve the supposedly close and nurturing relations between active military and civilian shooters. The associations have a depth of knowledge to run matches, provide good competition, and serve as reservoirs of skill and knowledge. They are nothing less than professional associations with an interest in marksmanship.

There was a study done by Major-General (Ret.) Wheatley and others, who have tried to find out why this has deteriorated. There is no real answer.

This is my final point. I would like to conclude by referring to Canadian firearms law. The nation needs men and women, serving and retired, who know shooting and firearms. In the biggest sense of the word, this issue is too important to be left to the military. Yet time and again lawmakers ignore the advice and testimony of the negative effects in their single-minded pursuits. DND leaders are not accustomed to challenging legislation; hence the service loses.

For example, a soldier can no longer own a few spare 30-round rifle magazines. They are prohibited, even if issued ones are untrustworthy. A member must jump through very tiny, flaming hoops to purchase a civilian-pattern rifle to practise his own skills. Yet the police will say no way. I will quote my friend Tom Krahn, retired Prince of Wales' Own Regiment and winner of the Queen's medal for champion shot. A police clerk belittled him for wanting “to own arms”.

The nation's lawmakers have vilified firearms to the blind neglect of honest, useful, and necessary enjoyment of firearms. Their prejudices are naturally reflected in other Canadians serving in the military. It is the lawmakers who will be impossible to find when Canadian servicemen and women are killed because they haven't had enough training to fire and defend themselves.

I thank you for your indulgence.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Mr. Art Hanger: On this whole aspect of firearms and firearms training and how it impacts generally on the military members, are there a lot of members who feel there should be more firearms training? Do they feel they are at a disadvantage by not getting that training, if there isn't enough?

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Cpl Terry Warner: You're asking an audience of pilots, sir, and they rarely get out of their airplanes.

Mr. Art Hanger: All right, I'm probably asking the wrong group. But maybe I'm not.

I guess I'm looking at things from a slightly different position. Everyone is in the military. Is there not a series of qualification requirements such that you train on arms frequently? I can say from my experience as a police officer, from the chief on down they were required to train and qualify on side arms, small arms, every quarter. That was mandatory. Is that not the case in the military?

A voice: May I say something? I remustered from the infantry eight years ago, and eight years ago was the last time I fired a Canadian Forces weapon.

Mr. David Pratt: Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. This presentation has been interesting and the whole subject is obviously very interesting, but it doesn't really relate to the reason why we're here.

Cpl Terry Warner: Respectfully, Mr. Pratt, sir, this is a matter of operational readiness and operational preparations.

Mr. David Pratt: I agree with the member, and I would like to hear him, but we are dealing with socio-economic issues related to the forces and the impact on morale; those sorts of issues. As I say, this is interesting, but it doesn't bear directly on the subject we're attempting to deal with. There may be another time, another place, for us to deal with this issue, but people came out here and we still have a fair list of people to deal with who haven't had an opportunity to speak. If there's time at the end, maybe we could have a discussion then, but I think the committee would be better served by dealing with the issue we're here to discuss.

Captain Larry Arnold (Individual Presentation): Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a comment. My name is Captain Larry Arnold.

I think one point of this issue that is very much to the point is that one of the reasons we don't have as much training and are not able to meet our annual qualifications as we should is that there's no time and there's no money.

[Technical Difficulty—Editor]

Mr. Art Hanger: I would like to make a comment on the member's statement. I think it's very much to the point. We're looking at issues that go right across the military. After all, it is supposed to be an armed force. I believe it impacts on the lives of many of the members who join the military in that fashion and I think they have every right to voice those concerns.

I am very curious...and I would like to ask my question again. Is there a policy within the military to qualify on firearms over the course of time?

Cpl Terry Warner: Sir, I believe only the army asks that of its soldiers.

Mr. Art Hanger: And the air force and the navy do not even qualify in side arms?

Cpl Terry Warner: Not to my knowledge, sir.

Mr. Art Hanger: Thank you, Corporal.

The Chairman: Thank you, gentlemen.

I will now call on Sean Callaghan.

Mr. Sean Callaghan-Tudor (Individual Presentation): Hello.

I'm 16 years old. I'm currently undergoing grade 11 at Central Collegiate downtown. I'm representing a group of teenagers around my age on the base who have voiced some concerns about the education system across Canada—for example, changing school systems.

I am now in high school. All my marks affect my university education. There is a hard time transferring the credits. In Alberta, for example, you need, I think, 100 credits to graduate into university. Classes count for up to 5 credits. In Saskatchewan, on the other hand, you need 24 credits, and every class is worth 1 single credit. I find it a little difficult to come from Alberta, where you get 5 credits for an English class, into Saskatchewan, where they don't know how to treat that. That is one of our concerns about how the education system differs.

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The other thing is provincial education; it's all run provincially. When you move from province to province every four years or less, you'll get into a class and the teachers will say, “But you learned this last year”. “No, I was in a different province; we learned something else”. You have no idea what they're talking about.

One of our ideas was that instead of having a provincially based education system, we should have a more federally based education system that is standard and transferable.

Another point we raised was fitting into groups. Social aspects for teenagers are a great issue. What we do now affects our future. In moving here, for example, I had a hard time adjusting because of the lack of social interaction here. We are referred to as “military brats” by most of the civilian community. That gives us a bad reputation right off the bat. You have to fit into groups that have been together for years and years. They know each other's strong points, weaknesses, faults. You're coming in. Who are you? What am I doing here? That was the other issue raised.

Those are the two main education problems we have. I would just like the board to consider our idea for a federally based education system and more social interaction programs for adjustment for teenagers our age.

The Chairman: Judi, you have a question?

Mrs. Judi Longfield: Yes.

First of all, Sean, I thank you for coming out. Earlier today I was talking to some members and I said the only people we haven't heard from since we started travelling in Yellowknife are the children of military personnel. I'm so glad you're here because now I feel that at least we've had a complete spectrum.

I can identify with the concerns you raised with respect to Canadian standards and learning to fit in. I taught for many years and I know how difficult it is for people who are moving from province to province just under normal circumstances. I know that as a child of a military person it's compounded. It's not only getting into post-secondary.... I have a son who's had to go back to high school to get qualifications for post-secondary for a masters qualification.

So I understand that this is a very critical issue. I think it's one that I'm not certain the committee has all the answers to, but we certainly need to address.

Again, I thank you for coming. I know you've been here a long time. Some of the issues may or may not have been interesting to you, but it adds to what we have to deal with, and we'll take it into consideration.

Mr. Sean Callaghan-Tudor: There was one thing that I forgot. It's when you transfer out of different provinces. For example, I have a friend who just moved here. He transferred out of Quebec. He was in first-year CEGEP. Now he's taking grade 12 courses over again just to catch up.

Mrs. Judi Longfield: We've put you through enough already. You shouldn't be doubly penalized, I agree.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Sean.

Master Corporal Gerry Dumont is not here.

Sergeant Dan Ross.

Sergeant Dan Ross (Individual Presentation): Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

I have two issues I want to address. The first one is service policy and the second one is the guaranteed home sale plan, GHSP.

The present terms of service policy have negatively affected the morale and dedication of many military members. This is particularly true in 500 series trades—aircraft technicians. Under the current policy, as I understand it, a member on a 20-40 intermediate engagement is considered for new terms of service in their seventeenth and/or eighteenth year of service. The following is an indication of the results of the current policy and how it has affected me and numerous other military personnel.

I had 13 years service in 1993. I was promoted to sergeant and posted from Cold Lake, Alberta to 402 Squadron Winnipeg. In 1995, with 15 years, I was course-loaded for a continuous French course, which I successfully completed ten months later, in 1996. I was posted to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

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In November 1997, my seventeenth year, I was informed by the visiting career manager that I would be receiving an offer of three years continuing engagement in January 1998, which I haven't heard about yet. There would be no future opportunity of an indefinite period of service offer, which takes you until you are 55. The career manager stated that only the top 25% of the rank and trade were being offered indefinite period of service.

I was under the impression that I would still be considered again in 1998 for an offer of indefinite period of service.

I and other members, shocked to find ourselves in this position, are wondering why we are being passed over for a possible IPS offer, even though our current circumstances have evolved through no fault of our own.

We worked hard to progress through the ranks, finding our jobs very satisfying and believing we have served well. We thought that this drive and initiative would pay off with the privilege of receiving an indefinite period of service offer, as many of our co-workers have. Under previous policy, it would have been virtually assured.

Unfortunately, what we considered would be, in recognition of our dedication and excellent performance, a logical progression with the possibility of advancement and some job security has become a stressful situation where we are feeling let down and very unsure of our future military employment options.

In view of the continuing engagement offer, I and others feel that we are being discriminated against, possibly for some of the following reasons.

The newest member in a unit, regardless of rank, is most often placed near the bottom of the list for performance evaluations and naturally ends up low on the career manager's merit list for that rank and trade. Given adequate time and meeting certain performance criteria, they can progress up the list in the course of a few years.

In my situation, because of my last moves being so close together, and having not yet had sufficient time to advance into the top 25% on the merit list, I was unfairly passed over for an IPS offer. For myself, there was no prior indication that this would happen. The moves to Winnipeg and the French course were not negotiable. It was through no fault of my own that I was posted three times between my fourteenth and seventeenth years, ending up at a new posting in my seventeenth year.

Some of us feel we have been penalized for being promoted. It appears, in many cases, that had we stayed in our former ranks and postings, many of us would now be receiving IPS offers, as is occurring for those individuals who have remained in the same unit and at the same rank for a considerable time.

Perhaps there is some relation between the lack of IPS offers in Moose Jaw and the current circumstance of NFTC taking over as part of the alternative service delivery program, which will result in a surplus of personnel here. Could it perhaps be being used as a downsizing tool?

We feel we're victims of circumstances beyond our control and that the method used to determine who receives an IPS offer and who does not is highly unfair and inconsiderate to most of us who have worked so hard. We believe we have yet much to offer the military, including our experience, which will be lost to the organization if we are released.

That's all I have for the terms of service.

The other one was the guaranteed home sale plan.

A number of military personnel have had negative experiences when attempting to utilize the plan. It's seems that frequently the offer made by the company providing the service is substantially below what a member paid for their residence. In many cases, this involved the loss of a considerable amount of equity upon the sale of a home. This results in a very stressful situation for the member who is attempting to understand the reasons for the discrepancy. The member is already under a lot of stress involved with the move, and this just adds to it.

When my family and I moved from Winnipeg to Moose Jaw, I applied for the plan, being optimistic that this plan would provide some peace of mind in the knowledge that the sale of my home in Winnipeg should progress quite smoothly.

When we purchased the residence, we did a lot of research on home prices in and around the area of the city near 17 Wing. After seeing several homes in the area, we were shown the home that we eventually purchased. The purchase price reflected the market value of other homes in the area.

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I transferred unaccompanied to Moose Jaw on July 3, 1996, confident that the GHSP was in place. When we finally received an offer from the Prudential company, we were astonished to discover it was $8,000 less than what we had paid. When we attempted, though the Winnipeg real estate board, to determine if the market value of homes in the area had dropped during the three years we were there, they indicated they could not provide the information. The bank and the City of Winnipeg placed the value at the purchase price.

A Re/Max agent assured us that we had paid fair market value for our house and that the market had not dropped but was very stable. He said we should easily be able to market the home for the purchase amount.

At this point we were very confused and disillusioned with the GHSP. We considered our options and refused the Prudential offer.

I feel that in our situation and that of other members the plan to assist members through the GHSP failed miserably and left the members feeling abandoned and frustrated. Again, this negatively affects the attitude of those personnel and their well-being.

Perhaps there should be a review of the method used to determine the way companies implementing this plan calculate the amount of their offer to military members. I question the method used to acquire appraisals of members' properties. Are the appraisers more interested in fairness to the military member or do they have issues to consider involving the company contracted to administer the GHSP?

Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Judi has a question.

Mrs. Judi Longfield: I have a question about the GHSP. Are you not allowed to have your own appraiser in the mix, or do you have to take the appraised value from GHSP?

Sgt Dan Ross: You're provided with a list of appraisers. You select from that list, and if I'm not mistaken you can select outside that list as well.

It just makes me wonder, why the big discrepancy in appraisals? There was no indication. It was just a bit of a surprise, and not a nice one.

Mrs. Judi Longfield: But as far as you know, you could have selected outside the list provided for you.

Sgt Dan Ross: I can't say I couldn't have. I'm not 100% sure.

Mrs. Judi Longfield: Okay. Well, it's something we'll investigate.

Sgt Dan Ross: Thank you.

The Chairman: Mr. Hanger.

Mr. Art Hanger: Sergeant, you indicated that the appraisal was done. Was a pay-out paid directly to you as to the appraised value of the home? Is that what you're saying?

Sgt Dan Ross: Two appraisals were done. Those go to the company that's implementing the GHSP, in this case Prudential. After they had received that, they determined what offer would be given to me.

Mr. Art Hanger: Was it the appraised value?

Sgt Dan Ross: Of the appraisers that...yes. Well, I never did find out what exactly the appraised value from the appraisers was.

Mr. Art Hanger: I've heard descriptions of other circumstances. I don't know how frequent this is on a move, especially if you own your own home, but there seems to be a consistent loss of value from the price paid to what is delivered on the appraised value, and then there is the penalty pay-out for breaking the contract with the mortgage owed on the house. So you pay two losses, which I gather you're not compensated for.

Sgt Dan Ross: It's a possibility to be compensated with home equity assistance, but the value of your property has to have dropped at least 10% in market value. You have to lose at least 10% because of a market drop for that area.

Ms. Norma Willows: I went through that myself...

[Editor's Note: Inaudible]

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Mr. Art Hanger: If the residence is sold, I gather it's then placed on the market to be sold by a local real estate company.

Ms. Norma Willows: It's on the market.... When you sign the paperwork, there are 30 days when you can try to sell the house for whatever you think it's worth. After that point there's a certain amount that they think it's worth and it has to go down to that price. They kind of take over from there. After the 30 days, they kind of run the show. If an offer comes in, it goes through them.

Your house approval, the way I understand it, is done on a 90-day sale: what price would you get for your house if you had to sell it in 90 days? I saw our appraisals, because we put in an appeal—I don't know if “appeal” is the right word—because we didn't think the price was fair. We lost on ours too. They offered us less than we had paid for it.

Our real estate agent said it was valued around $100,000. We had two appraisals. One appraisal was $99,000 and the other was $98,000, but they automatically took $5,000 off the top because of the time of year and the 90-day sale. We got a late posting message in June, and by the time we got our posting message and we got the house on the market, we had missed the big influx of people coming into the area.

Then they didn't send people out to appraise our house until August, because they weren't prepared for the number of people who were coming in who were going to try the plan. So they didn't have enough personnel to deal with it at that time, so you ended up in a later season when your house was appraised. Then they automatically took $5,000 off the $99,000 and the $98,000.

They compared your house to other houses in the area. They would say, you have a fireplace, or, you don't, and you have newer floors and they don't. So you would have to work your way up from other houses.

Mr. Art Hanger: How regular is this occurrence on a transfer, on postings? Does it happen every time, or are some people satisfied with the results?

Ms. Norma Willows: Some people I've talked to are very satisfied, but they have newer homes, houses that are one or two or five years old. Mine was 18 years old, but it had all been redone: it had ceramic floors and hardwood floors and so on. We were quite upset.

Actually, the real estate agent who came through said she was very surprised. She said our house was listed just perfectly for the area and the time and everything and we would have no trouble selling it.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Corporal Hardy.

Master Corporal Goulet.

Yvonne Godin.

Ms. Yvonne Godin: My husband is in Alert for six months right now, and I was wondering.... I mentioned this to the Minister of National Defence when he was here. I'm trying to find out why that's the only posting that military members go on for six months and they don't get to come home halfway.

Also, the extra money they receive up there is nothing compared to what they receive anywhere else. I think there should be some kind of compensation at the end for this, because it's just unfair.

The Chairman: Are there any questions or comments?

Ms. Yvonne Godin: My point is that if he had gone to Haiti or to Yugoslavia or anywhere else, they would have flown him halfway to come and see us, plus he'd be getting the big bucks, tax-free. When they go to Alert they receive nothing, and they have nothing up there. I think you should take a trip up there and see what it's like, because it's bad.

Mrs. Judi Longfield: It's bad.

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Mr. David Pratt: I believe we did have a discussion this morning on this from the chief warrant officer. I think there was some general agreement on the committee that this was one aspect of the deployment that should be changed.

Ms. Yvonne Godin: Over Christmas we were left here alone. My family is in Ontario. We have no family here, so we spent Christmas by ourselves. The military could have taken that money and sent us to Ontario to be with my family and my husband wouldn't have had the worries that he had. He would have felt a little bit better.

We realize he can't come home. They don't have the staff up there to replace them; they've only got about 80 people. And of course the conditions are so bad, you can't count on the flights or anything. It's just unfair that we have to go through this alone. We have good support from the MCRC and everything, but the kids want their dad home. They haven't seen him in four months. They don't understand why everybody else's dad gets to come home halfway and their dad doesn't. It's hard to explain.

The Chairman: I believe it was also brought up in Cold Lake—a guy was being posted.

Mr. Proctor.

Mr. Dick Proctor: Yvonne, you indicated that there is some compensation, but not nearly as much—

Ms. Yvonne Godin: Very minimal. The amount of compensation he receives up there is what he spends up there. We get nothing, basically.

Mr. Dick Proctor: Right. You're saying that if it were Haiti or Bosnia or some other place, it would be considerably more?

Ms. Yvonne Godin: Considerably more, plus he'd have that trip in between. I think the least the military could do is take that money they would spend anyway and send us on a trip when he gets back—a week, I don't care. I'd pay it out of my pocket to take him out when he gets back. I think it's only right, because six months is a long time. My husband said that he'd be better off in prison, at least there he'd get conjugal visits. It's true.

There was one more issue I wanted to bring up. I mentioned earlier about my living in Quebec for seven years. This is not a posting we asked for, by any means, even though my husband's from there.

I lost all my job experience. I think the forces should be able to put me through some kind of training to get me back on the right track as far as jobs go. I can't even work at CANEX, yet I've worked the CANEX system. I've worked in BF, I've worked accounts receivable in Germany, which was a big organization, and now I can't even work at CANEX. I think that's really bad. If I had some kind of training that they would pay me to take, that would help a lot as far as putting me back in the job force goes.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, this will bring us to the end of our session this evening. I wanted to thank everyone for coming out and voicing their opinion. This will terminate our west swing through the bases. In closing, I would like to, on behalf of the committee, thank you for your kindness and your hospitality. Thank you very much. Good night.

Oh, we have one more.

Corporal Bernard Sarazin (Individual Presentation): Good day, sir. My name's Corporal Sarazin. I passed you up a folder earlier. It has some numbers in it. Basically, that folder says....

I've been in Moose Jaw now since 1990, so my pay level and everything has not changed; my tax bracket has not changed in the sense that I haven't moved out of this province.

In 1993 I made more money than I do now, take-home pay. In 1997, after you take off the four major things I have to pay—UIC, Canada Pension, superannuation, and federal tax—my take-home pay is less now than it was in 1993. Since that time my job title has changed, because they've amalgamated trades together; they've restructured the armed forces. I'm a 500-series technician. They are asking me, as a 500-series technician, to do more, to know more, to perform more, with fewer people and less pay.

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That whole bracket in pay is there; the numbers are there. I didn't take into consideration cable bill, power bill, car insurance, everything else that has gone up since 1993. I just took the four things everybody has to pay and I subtracted them. You have a copy of my pay guides from 1993 and 1997. It shows you $15 less pay; $30 a month, $360 a year, less now; and you are asking us in the armed forces to do more.

It's not just the 500-series trades. It's the main clerks, it's the finance clerks, who have now amalgamated together. All the trades that are now amalgamating into a.... We are supposed to be super-techs. We are supposed to know everything about an area, an aircraft or an area of expertise, and we are not being paid for the extra knowledge we have to have and the extra responsibilities being placed upon us. They are actually being put upon us if we want to stay in the armed forces.

This dollar value is right there, showing we are getting less. Every time we get a little 2% increase, or a 4% increase, Canada Pension goes up, unemployment insurance goes up, federal tax goes up, and it takes away that little 2% or 4% raise and makes us pay more out of our pockets. That's my own personal opinion, but I have the proof. It's right there.

The Chairman: Thank you very much. Nobody has any questions for you.

I won't go through my little speech, but again, thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.