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]

Tuesday, November 25, 1997

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[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Robert Bertrand (Pontiac—Gatineau—Labelle, Lib.)): Good afternoon, everyone.

I'd like to welcome this afternoon Lieutenant-General Kinsman. He will be addressing us on the review of the social and economic challenges facing members of the Canadian Armed Forces.

We are very happy to see you here this afternoon.

Usually the way we work it is you have a presentation of between 10 and 20 minutes and then we go to questions from the members. We would also like you to introduce whoever is accompanying you this afternoon. Okay? Whenever you're ready, just go ahead.

[Translation]

Lieutenant General D. Kinsman (Assistant Deputy Minister (Personnel), Department of National Defence): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

First of all, I'll introduce a face that I think is familiar to the members of this committee, that of Colonel Jan Arp, who has accompanied the minister and General Baril in their previous appearances and who is the officer of principal interest in co-ordinating the SCONDVA review of the socioeconomic conditions in the Canadian forces.

I will not attempt to introduce the remainder of the people who are in uniform behind us.

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, it is indeed a pleasure to appear in front of you today. I know the men and women of the Canadian forces and their families appreciate the challenge you have accepted in conducting this important and timely review of their social and economic circumstances.

[Translation]

I will begin by reinforcing the Minister of National Defence and Chief of Defence Staff comments regarding the relationship of quality of life to high morale and operational effectiveness.

As prominent leaders from the past have realized, and our own evaluations have confirmed, this relationship cannot be overstated and is, I believe, the primary reason why your study is so important to the Canadian Forces.

Both the Minister of National Defence and the Chief of Defence Staff stated that service in the Canadian Forces is unique and differs from activities in all other segments of Canadian society.

Our challenge is to ensure a good quality of life for members and their families by acknowledging these differences, in the form of appropriate social and economic programs, which focus on the needs of the military family as a whole.

When the family is stable and is being looked after fairly, the peace of mind of our serving members is enhanced. This, in turn, will contribute to the overall standard of operational effectiveness of the Canadian Forces both today and as we move into the 21st century.

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[English]

The demands and pressures associated with membership in the Canadian forces will be detailed in future presentations by subject matter experts and will undoubtedly be the basis for the majority of concerns expressed by our members and their families during your visits.

I should like to assure you the department has not been standing still in addressing a broad range of human resources-related challenges. We continue to take steps to improve the daily lives of our members within the framework of the budgetary pressures facing the department.

I will point out some of those initiatives in my text. However, time precludes a comprehensive discussion of all of the issues. Therefore I have provided the committee with background material, not only for my briefing but also for the technical briefings by subject matter experts, scheduled in the new year.

The minister has invited you to examine the social and economic challenges facing Canadian forces members, with one of the main objectives being the development of some form of social contract between the Government of Canada and members of the Canadian forces. This will be the most challenging facet of your deliberations, because it deals not with details and specific issues, but rather with a less tangible, more philosophical dimension.

The key question is how do we define the mutual obligations between the service member and this country? The relationship of the soldier, sailor, airman, and airwoman and their responsibilities to Canada are well understood and are clearly defined in the National Defence Act and the Queen's Regulations and Orders. However, there is no such formal articulation of the responsibilities of the Government of Canada to its men and women in uniform.

Canadian forces members, as Canadian citizens, should anticipate a socioeconomic context similar to that of their fellow countrymen and women. On the other hand, the very nature of their service to country creates a lifestyle that in several significant ways creates stresses, both socially and financially, that many other Canadians rarely, if ever, encounter. It is in determining the magnitude of this difference and expressing the manner and degree to which these differences should be recognized and compensated for that the challenge exists. Canadian forces members do not seek disproportionate consideration of this factor, but they do wish to see these differences acknowledged and broadly supported when issues of compensation and support in general are being considered.

The notion of a social contract is not new within the Canadian forces. We have attempted to articulate such an obligation to our members over the past decade, but have not been entirely successful in formulating a framework from which detailed personnel policies can be derived. Our efforts in this respect continue, aided by your forthcoming deliberations. We have undertaken a study within the department, utilizing civilian academics, to suggest both the content and the implementation process this form of commitment might take. This study will culminate in mid-January and the results will be made available to you during the technical briefings on the subject of the social contract, scheduled for the March timeframe.

We welcome your investigation and assistance in the development of a strategically oriented, broadly worded social contract that will recognize the contribution, dedication, and sacrifices made by our men and women in uniform and their families, and that in turn will assist us in ensuring that these dimensions of military service are recognized in a tangible, fair, and equitable manner.

[Translation]

I will now highlight what I consider five of the most important human resource subject areas facing our personnel. The most visible, tangible, and emotional of these is—compensation and benefits.

During your visits, you will no doubt hear a number of concerns from our members regarding both pay and benefits.

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The two principal areas of dissatisfaction will likely focus on the actual pay members receive and the fact that they often have to make significant financial adjustments when moving from one cost-of-living area to another.

All members of the Canadian Forces welcome the recently announced pay adjustments to bring their pay into alignment with the public servants and the prospect for an economic adjustment.

[English]

Rates of pay are very important. However, the current mechanism for calculating this pay, based on comparability with the public service, may need some fine tuning. Of even greater importance is to ensure the methodology used to ensure such important criteria as what we call the “X factor”, which is the difference between military service as a component of pay...correctly reflects the unique aspects of military service.

When one is considering compensation, there is a natural tendency to compare our lot with that of other countries. Too frequently such comparisons are based entirely on gross salary, without consideration of other components of compensation. To assist in comparing the CF to allied systems, we have undertaken a study that will compare our pay, allowances, and benefits against those of four other nations. The results of this study will establish a benchmark for future comparisons and will be made available to this committee by the end of April of next year.

On the issue of benefits, our goal must be to reimburse all out-of-pocket expenses a member incurs because of the exigencies of the service. In particular, we must ensure families who have been living within their means in one posting location and are then moved to a higher cost of living area do not suffer financial disadvantage in the process.

Our current accommodation assistance allowance has been in place for some time now as an attempt to minimize the effects of posting movement. However, its taxable nature and calculation mechanisms remain a dissatisfier for our members.

Your deliberations could offer innovative solutions that would alleviate the potential financial penalties associated with such movement. Partially to assist you with this challenge, I have contracted another study to examine cost of living variances across the country, potentially to develop a post index concept that could be applied within Canada. It's similar to the mechanism used for foreign postings.

On a more general level, our benefits must also contribute to family stability and address issues such as dual income, including spousal careers, the loss of home equity as a result of relocation, and the overall stresses compulsory movement places on all family members.

[Translation]

The second issue is operational support. I will basically talk about the support members get while deployed in a theatre of operations.

However, it is important that I emphasize our members are also frequently separated from their families on training deployments and courses for periods up to many months each year. The support needs of these families are similar to those whose spouses are in Bosnia, fighting floods in Manitoba, on exercise with the Standing Naval Forces Atlantic, or providing air support from Aviano to the NATO Coalition in Bosnia.

You will hear later in my presentation how the Family Support Centres are addressing many of these pressures and how local base amenities provide support to both families whose spouses are on operations or away due to training commitments.

[English]

In human resources terms, the provision of support to our members and their families before, during, and following operational taskings falls into two general categories: personnel and family support, and amenity services. First I will address the personnel and family support programs.

Our participation in hot spots throughout the world has heightened members', and by extension their families', exposure to the significant pressures associated with these types of operations. This is particularly true of families whose loved ones are in the reserves, often geographically isolated from regular force bases. To address this need we have developed the employment management program. This program includes a number of initiatives, including customized briefing packages for members and their families at critical periods throughout the operational deployment; a 1-800 info line for individual inquiries by family members; and interviewing and screening of members as they return from UN missions.

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We have come a long way in the last four years and now consider ourselves to be leaders in the field of caring for our members and their families while on operations. However, we would welcome any additional feedback or recommendations you may have that stem from your discussion with our members and their families.

[Translation]

The second general category is amenity support. This relates to the provision of amenity services to members while deployed in a theatre of operations. These services include such things as radio broadcasts, live entertainment, rest and relaxation activities, and support for special events like the observation of national holidays.

At home, members' families have access to unit rear parties, base support groups, and recreational facilities to ease the pressures of separation.

To ensure we have the right type and mix of amenity support, we are reexamining the overall aim of the program and the specific types of support that might be provided to achieve this aim.

I personally believe that our program must focus on the reduction of stress in our members and their families, and that there is much more we can do to achieve even better results.

The third point I would like to discuss is family support. The Canadian Forces Personnel Support Agency manages a wide range of personnel programs across the Canadian Forces and the focal point for family support programs are the military family resource centres. These centres are located at all major Canadian Forces bases and wings as well as at a few locations overseas where the number of personnel warrants.

During your upcoming visits, I encourage you to familiarize yourselves with the personnel that run these centres and the programs they offer and note the impact they have on the quality of life in our military communities.

[English]

Spousal employment, single parents, and child care concerns are the three issues most frequently raised by Canadian forces families. At some family support centres, we have dedicated one staff member to assist spouses to pursue employment and to provide various forms of 24-hour emergency day care service. However, their efforts, and those of unit rear parties, are still incomplete in meeting the needs of military families. We look forward to your views regarding the extent to which the public could assist in these areas and any mechanism that you might suggest to improve and expand the capability of our family resource centres to support our military families separated due either to operational or training requirements.

Allow me to turn now to housing, a frequently debated topic. We have created the Canadian Forces Housing Agency to manage the day-to-day operation of married quarters—and I stress married quarters—for Canadian forces members. I won't repeat the key questions relating to housing, since the minister has stated them succinctly in his letter to the chair of this committee. However, in considering those questions, I would like the committee to be cognizant of the complexity of the military housing issue.

Given the demographic and economic differences across our country, the requirements and solutions must be site specific. For example, requirements are drastically different between locations such as Cold Lake and Esquimalt. In Cold Lake, commercial or private housing is relatively inexpensive, but insufficient to support large numbers of military families. In Esquimalt, local housing is more plentiful but decidedly more expensive; in reality, it's not affordable for many military families posted to that location.

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There are also different environmental or operational requirements in the army, navy, and air force. The army sees a requirement for some form of distinct military communities for operational bases, while the navy and the air force do not.

Finally, the individual needs of our members are as diverse as the rest of Canadian society and include the requirement to consider accommodation for single members, for family members, and for single parents.

The Canadian Forces Housing Authority has been in existence as a provisional special operating agency since 1995. Both the department and Treasury board are continuing to examine its current and future mandate. Once its final status and role are confirmed, I anticipate an even more businesslike organization will emerge, with the capability to meet the housing needs of the department and its members.

The fifth and final area of interest is care of injured and retired members. The care we provide for our casualties, veterans, and retirees is a critical issue that has assumed increased importance as a result of our broadened operational activity since 1991. In response to public concerns that we in the military had somehow failed in the treatment of our injured personnel, the then acting chief of defence staff directed in March of this year that a study called “Care of Injured Personnel Families Review” be conducted. The aim of this review was to identify how all injured personnel and their families were treated, both medically and administratively, for injuries that have occurred since January 1992.

The review team has examined all relevant cases and is just now completing its report. This review has discovered areas where, in retrospect, we should have been of more assistance to our members. Initiatives are under way to address these shortcomings. These include the publication of an information document regarding the types of compensation available, as well as improved co-operation between the Departments of National Defence and Veterans Affairs and the Royal Canadian Legion.

The Canadian forces leadership has a moral responsibility to help these individuals and eliminate the gaps between these agencies and the provision of services given to those released from the Canadian forces. Our veterans, injured personnel, and retirees must be provided with a simple, uninterrupted, and consistent system of support.

[Translation]

During your upcoming visits you will hear a great number of views on how we look after our troops, their families, and former members of the Canadian Forces. I sincerely hope that all of you are able to partake in the full visit schedule and that you will find your contact with the men and women of the Canadian Forces and their families informative.

Let me assure you that all levels of the senior leadership of the Canadian Forces have stressed that it is absolutely essential that everyone who wishes to do so have the opportunity to speak to you in a open and candid manner.

A message from the Chief of Defense Staff to all Canadian Forces members strongly encourages them and their family members to participate in the hearing and to speak frankly about their concerns.

[English]

My presentation to you today, Mr. Chairman, has focused on what I believe are the five main areas of concern. However, during your visits you will undoubtedly find members and their families who will focus on other details that may not coincide with the five I've mentioned.

Let me close by saying that your willingness to undertake this much anticipated review sends a positive message to Canadian forces members and their families. Your report will be the cornerstone for the statement of support they seek for the future. I thank you for your attention and I wish you success in the upcoming visits. I remain available to reappear before this committee should you wish to address me further on these issues.

Those remarks complete my prepared text. I'm now prepared to answer your questions.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Thank you very much, General.

We will now move on to questions. For the members who are here, we will start with the Reform Party, who will have ten minutes. Mr. Hanger.

[English]

Mr. Art Hanger (Calgary Northeast, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for your outline, General. It's interesting to see the kind of shape our visits are going to take as we go across the country talking to the service personnel.

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I have a couple of questions that sort of focus around morale and issues that maybe generate positive morale or even a downslide in the morale. I'm curious about your viewpoints in this area because you really haven't addressed some of that in your outline here, although you do talk about morale, high morale, and operational effectiveness. I guess this may deal with operational effectiveness, and I think the two probably go hand in hand in a way, too—not to say that one necessarily is a total contributor to the other. If the operational effectiveness doesn't necessarily work, it doesn't mean all the time that there's going to be low morale. I'm just kind of curious about what you think.

There was a situation, for instance, at National Defence Headquarters some time back. A drill was taken to secure National Defence Headquarters. It was just a practice run, if you will. The troops were signalled: this is what's going to happen; we're going to demonstrate that we can in fact protect the Defence Headquarters. There was a lot of resistance along the way. There was resistance in the leadership. There was resistance in the chain of command to actually get out and do what was supposed to be done, including protecting the most vital or significant areas of National Defence. Of course because it sort of fell apart, the drill was called off. There was even a process to examine exactly what had happened. It became obvious that those officers and those members out there trying to perform their duties couldn't, because there was resistance all the way around.

If National Defence Headquarters can't even be protected in a drill run, doesn't that shake down into the lower ranks too, all the way down, if there isn't co-operation all the way the up?

LGen David Kinsman: Mr. Hanger, I think I would have to defer on any of the specifics of that particular exercise, if you don't mind. I'd like to address the question of morale and operational capability and how exercises can contribute to that. I'm not trying to evade your question. I don't have a lot of details in my own mind about the specifics of that particular question.

I think it's important for the members of the committee to understand that people in the Canadian Forces, whether it's at NDHQ, whether it's at CFB Petawawa or Esquimalt, or wherever it may be—part of their ongoing training is types of exercises similar to the one you're discussing. They're obviously oriented towards their specialty.

It's an ongoing activity. It is a way of proving, other than the peacetime operations, that you actually have the type of teamwork you need to put an operation together, whether it's defence of a building or whether it's to fly aircraft over to Italy to fly top cover for Bosnia.

In that process the stages that you describe are very typical. You have the lead-up to an exercise; you have the actual exercise itself; and at the end you have what we euphemistically refer to as hot wash-ups, where you try to evaluate very quickly what the general success was, and then you try to learn the lessons from the longer term.

It has been my experience that people know and understand very well when they've had a good exercise and when they haven't had such a good exercise. I've had both, and I think everybody who's wearing uniform today would be able to tell you that's exactly the case.

The morale, I would suggest, is associated with whether you are able to take the lessons from that particular exercise and to plow them under—not plow them under to hide them but plow them under so that they regenerate to something that's useful for the future. If you were to go consistently and be unable to achieve a goal, then I suppose it would be reasonable to assume that would have a negative effect on morale. But I think it would be a stretch, to be perfectly honest, to say that based upon one exercise you have undermined morale in any particular sense.

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Mr. Art Hanger: No, and I wasn't implying that stretch so much as the failure in one particular exercise. It seemed strange that this particular exercise, though, at least when it came to the public review of it afterwards, never seemed to reap any benefit. I thought maybe you might have some idea of whether in fact it did or if it continues to remain undone.

LGen David Kinsman: No, I can't comment because, to be perfectly honest, I wasn't involved with that particular exercise, although I must admit that through open sources.... There were elements of success there. I think, once again, it's typical that you say in this exercise here are the things that worked, now how do we apply those lessons in the future? People in quadrant A did well, but people in quadrant B did not do well. How can people from quadrant B learn from quadrant A the next time around?

I'm sorry, I can't offer you any detail or opinion on that particular exercise.

Mr. Art Hanger: Fair enough.

I have another question regarding the support program. I understand the support program was cut from $13 million down to approximately one half of what it was before. I understand too that was for the families of personnel; it assisted them during moving or when the soldiers were overseas. I'm curious about why that program would be cut so significantly when the effort now is on these types of programs where there are military personnel.

LGen David Kinsman: I think that's a fair question. I think I have some information to offer you that would help in this regard.

When we're talking about support to families through the military family support centres in particular, from which emanate a tremendous amount of the family support.... In my presentation I made allusion to the fact that a great number of the military family support centres around the country are very instrumental in the support to families while spouses are away; whether on deployment or exercise or operations, whatever it may be.

The budget for the military family support centres is somewhere in the order of, if my memory serves me correctly, about $11 million per year. That budget was approved for the forthcoming year at a recent meeting within the Department of National Defence. I have to assure you that from the standpoint of the people who sit around the table, who recognize the importance of that one facet of support to families, there wasn't any question with regard to the maintenance of that budget the way it was. As to whether the people who are responsible for those programs spend more money, of course—just as people across almost all facets of the Canadian forces could spend more money if it was available. But what that does give us is a basic capability, in virtually all of the places where we have families, to give support to the families.

Without revealing ages here, as somebody who has 34 years now in this organization I can assure you that when I started in the mid-1960s things like military family support centres and day care centres on base and so on were not part of the psyche at that time. It's something that has really happened in the last 15 years, I would say. That might not be exactly it, but when I became a base commander in Cold Lake about ten years ago there was already a military family support centre there that had been put together by the people of the base of Cold Lake to support themselves. That has been built upon now into a national program, the budget of which is the one I suggest.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Mr. Art Hanger: You're saying I'm finished?

The Chairman: You're finished for now.

[Translation]

Mr. Ménard.

Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, BQ): I have four questions. How do you define leadership for the various armed forces training activities and in other instances? What do you offer as training? What do you tell them about leadership during those training sessions? And, how do you define leadership? I will ask you my four questions, so that I don't need a second turn.

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The committee has been told you may have some problems recruiting certain professionals, especially pilots, and one of the reasons for this is the attractiveness of the private sector. Could you tell us about that as well?

Thirdly, you alluded to the fact that involving an officer in peacekeeping operations could be a challenge, which is an important issue, because the configuration and makeup of the Canadian Armed Forces may change radically in the 21st century, in that they will do more peacekeeping—what might be the positive and negative implications of sending officers to different parts of the world for peacekeeping operations?

My fourth question is more sensitive. It pertains to living conditions and officer involvement in the army. Do you think someone who is overtly homosexual can have a career, climb up the ladder and have all the support he requires within the Armed Forces?

Those are my four questions. They may not be original ones, but I mean well in asking them.

LGen David Kinsman: Of course. With regard to training leaders, it is an education, continuous learning. It starts right at the beginning, as soon as an individual starts his training. It is mostly for officer training, but even from the outset, someone in the ranks starting a career knows that one day they could become leaders. So right from the start, we try to instill in them the Canadian Forces values, our country's values.

What does it mean to wear a uniform on behalf of Canada? What will it mean in the future when they are leaders, what is expected of us as leaders? 2 would like to emphasize that we do that with everyone, not just officers, because when people mention leaders, it tends to mean only officers. But we have some non-commissioned officers who hold very important leadership roles, regardless of their rank in the Canadian Forces.

As for the officers themselves, well, of course training them to be leaders is very important right from the start. Even when selecting officers, we try to assess their leadership capabilities by giving them little exercises, but that is part of the selection process. To pass the basic officer's course, a person has to have at least basic leadership knowledge.

During their training, be it at the Royal Military College in Kingston, or during their summer training, there is always an emphasis put on leadership.

I don't want to be long-winded—because I think you already have a good idea of what I mean—but as I said, the leadership training is continuous. There are four stages to an officer's career, four stages of professional development that start the first day at the recruitment centre right up until the last day of work when the officer retires.

Of course senior managers, Lieutenant Colonels, Colonels and Generals approach leadership somewhat differently from enlisted men, but leadership is nonetheless stressed throughout everyone's career.

Mr. Réal Ménard: It's a constant concern.

LGen David Kinsman: Yes, absolutely. No one who becomes a leader ever says he or she has nothing left to learn.

Mr. Réal Ménard: You know, even in politics, no one ever says they have arrived and that leadership is established, there is always something new to build.

LGen David Kinsman: That's right. Agreed.

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Your second question was on recruitment and associated problems. I would say we do not have any problems per se in that regard. People are always coming to our recruitment centres to at least get information, and often to enrol in the Armed Forces, for obvious reasons, such as thirst for adventure, a way to make money, a way to learn a skill, or something like that.

The challenge for us is to retain people after a certain period of time. You mentioned pilots. Right now, the Armed Forces are having trouble retaining pilots, because they can sell their piloting skills to civilian airlines, and of course outside companies, private firms, pay much more than the Armed Forces. We could never compete with Air Canada, Cathay Pacific or similar organizations who pay their 747 pilots over $200,000 a year.

So we are dealing with that issue. If the problem were specifically one of recruitment, I would say no, we don't really have any problems in that regard.

As for your third question, it is a matter of opinion. Does it hinder people, an individual or an officer's professionalism...?

Mr. Réal Ménard: No, my question was the following: if you look at the department's plan, in the 21st century, the Armed Forces will be sending more peacekeeping troops to various parts of the world, sending officers into some very tense situations. What impact might that have on your staff? For instance, when someone returns from such a mission, he or she is not deployed the next year because there are all sorts of consequences, both positive and negative, in being involved in a peacekeeping operation.

Lgen David Kinsman: Now I have a better grasp of your question. I think you answered the question in part yourself, because there can be very positive effects, in terms of working as a team to really use your skills, learning how things work, the opportunity to see another country, another part of the world, which is very important. I can assure you that being deployed to the other side of the world is very important for our young Canadians, because that is when they start to appreciate what they have when they return.

There are also potential negative effects. I could have someone beside me who spent a year in Rwanda. He has seen things which I hope I never have to see. What has that individual learned from it? I have a lot of friends who spent time in Bosnia or Rwanda, and it definitely had a lasting effect on them. So you have to be careful. That is one of my responsibilities, because—I didn't mention it in my brief—I am responsible for the medical aspect, for health services.

In the good old days, like during the Second World War, if someone collapsed because of the stress, he was generally sent back saying that he was not sick, but that he had just cracked. For a number of years now, it is a recognized fact that those individuals were affected in the same way that you or I could be if we experienced the same things, if we worked in the same conditions. So of course there can be problems and we are very careful about that.

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Is it possible—

The Chairman: Very quickly, please.

Lgen David Kinsman: Yes.

Mr. Réal Ménard: You are usually more talkative. Don't be shy, everything I say here stays between us.

Lgen David Kinsman: The answer is really quite simple: yes. Since 1992, the Armed Forces have held no bias toward homosexuals when it comes to careers or career advancement. I am personally convinced that that policy is applied and I am sure that if a homosexual did what was asked of him or her, there would be no problem.

Mr. Réal Ménard: That is a good answer.

[English]

The Chairman: Thank you very much. We now go to the government side, and I understand the time will be split with...Mr. O'Brien?

Mr. John O'Reilly (Victoria—Haliburton, Lib.): No, O'Reilly. O'Brien's the rich one and I'm the handsome one.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

Mr. John O'Reilly: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Lieutenant-General Kinsman. Maybe you could take this opportunity in front of the committee to tell of how, last time, I identified Jan Arp as having a significantly higher rank than he did at the time and that he actually achieved that rank before this meeting. I just want you to know that I deny any inside information, but I understand congratulations are in order for Colonel Arp.

LGen David Kinsman: They are indeed. I could ascribe it to a certain pre-essence. I could ascribe it to us trying to please SCONDVA before it heads out on its mission. But what I would actually ascribe it to is that Colonel Arp, as some of you would be aware, has been in contact with this committee, both in this iteration and the previous one, and I think his performance in front of you has been characteristic of the excellent work he has done. So you and I cannot take a whole lot of credit for it. We have to leave it to Colonel Arp. But thank you for mentioning it, because we're pleased about his promotion.

Mr. John O'Reilly: Congratulations.

On the release and recruitment program of the forces, I'm dealing right now with a nine-year pilot who wants out. If he was not a pilot, he would be released in thirty days. Because this person's a pilot, though, he is being held for six months. To me, that's discriminatory. I realize it takes a while to attain the rank and to become a pilot in the forces, but I would think that if you have a disgruntled employee in the private sector, thirty days would be too long to have them and six months would be impossible. I wanted to have some comment on that.

The individual himself hasn't been talking to me, but certainly his family has—they're friends of our family from way back—and they feel he has an opportunity in civilian life and would like to leave. So is nine years too short a time? As I said, if he was something else in the military, or in almost any part of the military, he'd be released very quickly. That's my first question.

The next one, of course, deals with the housing project. Is it still a pilot project? If so, is it something the military is looking at modifying to fit the military? You can mirror the civil service and you can run on parallel lines as long as you realize that parallel lines never meet, but there has to be some way to modify the plan that exists right now in order to have it fit the military. I think this could be an easy transition.

Also, you mentioned the report on compensation that this committee is going to receive in April. Do you feel we're going to take until April to conduct our hearings? That was my other question.

I'd like some more explanation of how you justify the site specific housing requirement between Cold Lake and Esquimalt. I also want to know why you wouldn't consider the financial counselling program as something that would very easily be jobbed out to the professionals in the marketplace—the banks and various institutions that specialize in that type of counselling. To me, they deal with the markets on a daily basis and they deal with investors in all the large trade houses on a daily basis and are more up to scratch on financial planning for military personnel than someone in Personnel would be. Those are my questions.

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Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

LGen. David Kinsman: I'll try to keep these answers short to stay within the time constraints.

The terms of service of all individuals within the Canadian forces provide that if you want to seek release you need to give six months' advance notice to do that. What we do quite frequently, when our trades our rounded out and they are filled up, is allow somebody to give shorter notice than that, i.e. 30 days.

We vary that policy back and forth depending upon.... Let's use the pilot MOC, the classification or the pilot trade. If we have all of the pilots that we need in both flying and in staff positions, wherever they may be, and if the unexpected attrition levels are not unnecessarily high, we can normally accommodate a request for an individual to leave relatively quickly.

The situation we're in now is that we have far more voluntary attrition than we have seen in the past number of years. We are already in a situation where we are short of pilots in both staff positions and in flying positions, so we revert to the regulation we have that says we need six months' notice. It's an employment tool that is available to us.

I should also mention that there are, for pilots as for everybody else, obligatory periods of service after having received a qualification, and part of that might enter into the conversation you're having with the parents of this individual.

I'm not sure I understood. When you were talking about housing projects, were you talking about the Canadian Forces Housing Agency, the organization we have to manage the married quarters of—

Mr. John O'Reilly: No, I was talking about the movement of personnel outside of that, where the guaranteed house plan, I think—

LGen David Kinsman: Okay, the GHSP, the guaranteed home sale plan. Yes, that's something that Canadian forces members have been looking for, for a number of years. It acts as a bit of a safety net for them. We were pleased when the federal government, nearly two years ago, announced it was going to run a two-year project or a pilot on the GHSP, the guaranteed home sale plan. The feedback I have is that it has been largely positive and largely well received. Many people have benefited from it. There are some people who have not availed themselves of it. There are, as always, some people who have some criticism of it. But it has largely been seen as very much a positive thing in the Canadian forces.

You actually pose an interesting question, because if the government, for whatever reason, were to decide as of the end of March of 1998 that it didn't want to continue with that plan government-wide, then our department would have to decide whether or not it wanted to continue on its own, because the Department of National Defence represents a fairly significant percentage of the moves within government.

With respect to the compensation report, my understanding is that the material we would provide to you would be in time for the portion of technical briefings in which you will be considering compensation. It certainly won't be before you've heard of compensation from people as you go out on your visits. That's one of the reasons I bring it up, because in fairness, the type of comment you will get will be, if I may use an example by going back to the pilots and the retention problem, that pilots in the United States earn so much per year and they just got a retention bonus of so much. That has a tendency to influence our people and what they think should be their compensation package.

• 1625

The caution that I was alluding to in my text was that one really has to take all aspects of it into account, because there might be things that don't necessarily show up in the bank account at the end of the month—i.e., salary—but there may be other benefits and other things that are available to members of the Canadian forces that we have to balance out on our own but that may shade the opinions or the impressions that one receives when you do a straight numerical comparison of salaries from one country to the other.

If those deliberations—if that report is not in fact timely enough in April, then I will endeavour to get you that type of information earlier, even if it's partial, even if I have to say to you, I'm part of the way through but here's something for you to consider and I'll give you a final report.

I think that takes us to question 4.

Cold Lake and Esquimalt were just two notional bases. I would really like to keep my question at the level of site specific and why it has to be site specific.

There is a government-wide policy whereby the government would prefer not to be in government-owned, government-operated housing unless it's essential, and there are some policies on that that are governed by the Treasury Board.

We have in some cases married quarters that are surrounded by larger urban areas and we have to consider whether or not it's wise economically, on a business case basis, to continue to operate those married quarters when there is housing around the area, or whether or not there are other arrangements using the accommodation that's available in the local environment in which to house our people. In other cases, clearly, that option is not available because there is not that much excess accommodation.

Why do we not job out financial counselling? We could end up doing that. There's nothing magical. We didn't really provide formal financial counselling for our people until not all that long ago. We decided to set up—I wouldn't be able to guess, although I could get you the answer if you're interested—a relatively small number of people who are available. Here I'm talking about financial counselling in the sense of overall investment and how will I use my retirement and so on. That cadre of people we have are actually very highly skilled at doing that.

We have also a subsystem of financial counselling of financial advisers on the base, which is frequently a secondary duty. This means that it's somebody, quite frequently an officer, who works in the administration or financial dimensions of the conduct of the operation of a base who also takes on as a secondary duty the job of helping people who think they are encountering or who are in fact encountering financial difficulties, just so those people are aware of what accommodations are available to them within the Canadian forces or outside.

The Chairman: Mr. Proctor.

Mr. Dick Proctor (Palliser, NDP): Lieutenant-General Kinsman, I wanted to talk a little bit about or ask a couple of questions related to point 5 in your paper, around the care of the injured and retired. I appreciate that you're acknowledging that some improvements need to go on there. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about the servicemen's income security insurance plan, particularly the dismemberment benefit.

The clerk of the committee has received a letter from someone. It's a very sad and tragic letter. This gentleman feels as if he's been badly let down by the military in what he describes as his greatest time of need. He had a loss of both legs in Yugoslavia a couple of years ago, yet according to him he's not being allowed to get any qualifying income for the injury because he is a major and his income is too high. He's being denied these benefits that would normally go to someone after such a tragic accident.

• 1630

For my benefit, if not for that of the other members of the committee, could you take us through how this plan works or doesn't work?

LGen David Kinsman: I'm sorry, but from the standpoint of details as they would apply to an individual I will have to defer that. Probably in some of the areas where we get into detailed questions I'll have to do that. I suspect the case we're talking about is an issue that can be looked at on an individual basis.

With respect to the servicemen's insurance plan, I have to confess I don't have the type of detailed knowledge I think you're seeking that says what one would or would not receive in a certain case. If it's satisfactory with you I can either have General Popowych, who will be talking to you at some point and in whose realm this falls, give you an answer, or I can get you an answer on the benefits.

Mr. Dick Proctor: Okay. Thank you.

The Chairman: I believe General Popowych will be coming before the committee.

LGen David Kinsman: He's one of the technical experts who will be briefing you in the new year. This particular program is within his sphere of influence, and I can prepare him for that question if you want to retable it, or I can get an answer before that.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Dick Proctor: You were talking a minute ago, in answer to my colleague's question, about housing and something called Royal LePage relocation services. Has that now gone by the by with this new program you've introduced or is it still out there?

LGen David Kinsman: It's still functioning. It's part of an overall program to help people in their moves from one point to another. It's a relocation service.

Mr. Dick Proctor: Okay, but this new program helps someone who's buying a house or changing locations. Is that correct?

LGen David Kinsman: The guaranteed home sale program is similar to what a number of major industries have in Canada and elsewhere in North America. Through a process I once again won't try to describe to you, if an individual is moving and wants to subscribe to the program, he or she will have a value attributed to his or her property. If that person accepts that value and decides to be part of the plan, that is the guaranteed value he or she will receive for that property.

It means, particularly in downside markets, our members don't have money tied up in equity in one place and are forced into the very unpalatable decision of having to leave their families behind because they can't sell their houses and don't have enough equity to buy new houses. It allows them to actually withdraw their equity from the houses.

It's not guaranteed same value. It does play to market forces to a certain extent, but at least a person can withdraw money from one particular equity to put in another equity.

Mr. Dick Proctor: You've indicated five different areas—social contract, compensational benefits, family support, housing, and the care of injured/retired. Is there one of those areas that you think is most important for this committee to be zeroing in on at this time?

LGen David Kinsman: No, I really don't. Depending upon which individuals you're talking to and what their context is you'll find that any one of those things can be the most important to people.

At the risk of excluding things that will be important to other people, my goal today is to just highlight those five areas that, based upon my past two years of experience in this position and previously in my military career, seem to come to the top the most quickly.

Mr. Dick Proctor: Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Mr. Price.

• 1635

Mr. David Price (Compton—Stanstead, PC): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have something a little bit different to work on. It's the high school systems.

I'll start with a little bit of background. I had an uncle who was in the air force—and I go back to the 1960s. Of course, he was on the move all the time.

They had five children. The first two kids weren't doing very well as they started into high school. They were having problems and ended up dropping out. So for the next two kids, he decided that because they were on the move all the time, the only way was to get them into a solid, fixed school so they could stay right through for their education. They both came to live with us. They went through high school. One of them became a nurse and the other one went to university. The last one went through the system in the bases and also ended up dropping out of school. That goes back, as I say, into the 1960s.

At that time, they were complaining about the problem. From what I hear today, we still have the same situation because of the constant moves.

Also, the other thing that I found seems like a huge loss to the armed forces in general. A lot of these kids never ended up going into the armed forces, when they already had a built-in background and it would have been interesting to see them follow on as careers after their parents. Has this been addressed at all?

LGen David Kinsman: The schooling of offspring is one of the most problematic things that one can deal with, and I speak as a parent who saw the highs and lows of having two daughters go through whatever it was, probably 13 different school systems in their 16 years.

It would be very difficult to treat it in isolation. I think what you're referring to is one dimension of the mobility of the military family, and to a certain extent there will always be mobility in the military life.

What we have tried to do, and we have done it not just for the schooling facet but because of other dimensions of stability, not the least of which is spousal employment and a variety of other factors...and there's another one that is perhaps a little bit more mercenary from our standpoint. Every time you move somebody around it costs you money, so if you can reduce the number of moves you make, you can actually take those dollars and deflect them to somewhere else in the defence services program.

So for those and many other reasons, we have been working deliberately to reduce the amount of mobility of people to no more than what's required. We are enabled to a certain extent—always look for a silver lining in every cloud—as we've consolidated bases around the country. That's actually made our job a little bit easier from the standpoint of taking an individual and moving them to a large base, a large garrison; for example, let's pick Edmonton.

Whereas before you might have for career progression purposes and to fill out the professional development or the trades development that an individual needed...we now work very much to fulfil that within the same geographical location. So an individual may move from one unit to the other to fulfil leadership roles or developmental roles, but their family is stable. That addresses a number of the issues.

We have gone, since 1991-92, from somewhere in the order of 21,000 cost moves per year to somewhere in the order of 11,000. Obviously some of that is due to the fact that we have reduced the number of people in that period of time, but actually in the reducing of people and reapportioning them across the country, we also induced other moves. What I'm saying is, I think you see by those numbers that our efforts to keep people as stable as we can, in one area, are paying a certain amount of benefit.

• 1640

That said, I mentioned at some point in my text that what's good for one person is not necessarily good for the other. If you happen to be at the place you always wanted to be at, you hope that's when they'll freeze the whole thing, and then nobody else moves around. We clearly have to keep rotating people.

Mr. David Price: Is there anything built into it for a private school, let's say?

LGen David Kinsman: From a subsidized standpoint, you mean?

Mr. David Price: Yes.

LGen David Kinsman: I haven't seen one of those on the horizon. You gave an example, and other people have chosen to do the same thing. Some people have chosen to send their children to private institutions, but it's a lot more difficult to—

Mr. David Price: At an officer's level, that's okay, but—

LGen David Kinsman: Even at an officer's level, in many cases it's tough—

Mr. David Price: It's basically impossible.

LGen David Kinsman: Yes. It's a difficult nut to crack. We don't have the full solution. Hopefully we have a partial solution.

Mr. David Price: But you are looking at a slowdown of moves and giving people a little more stability.

LGen David Kinsman: Absolutely; for that and other reasons.

Mr. David Price: There's another little problem in the militia with the pay system. I've had a lot of complaints about pays being totally irregular. It's always blamed on computer problems. Again, I can go back to 30 years ago when I was in the militia, when there were no computers and there were still problems, particularly in the pay system. It's always late, always wrong, and always behind.

The same thing has happened—I got one just this week. Recently people in a pay system were told that in October there wouldn't be any pay, but a pay came in on October 5, and then the next pay didn't show up until November 3. They were all wrong. This particular person says that for the past three years they still haven't caught up. There's been a mistake in every single pay. They've gone all the way to National Defence Headquarters and still can't get any straight answers. The other thing about this is that they come back to me and tell me not to use their names. They say if I mention their names they'll get blackballed.

LGen David Kinsman: I don't think you have to mention any names in this.

Mr. David Price: No.

LGen David Kinsman: It is problematic. I would be less than candid if I were to say that we haven't had problems in the process—and we have been in it for more than a couple of years now—of trying to institute a more automated pay system for the reserve forces.

Mr. David Price: When we look at large industries today most of them don't even handle their own pay systems. They farm that out to the banks.

LGen David Kinsman: Indeed. In fact, the Department of National Defence is looking at that option as well. There really have been problems. They continue to bother us. We know that it's not only irksome. In some cases, if you have individuals who need payment for university or whatever, it's bothersome. We're working really hard to address it. I was disheartened to hear that the manual system didn't work, because if all else fails, we could go back to that.

The Chairman: Mr. Benoit, five minutes.

Mr. Leon Benoit (Lakeland, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good afternoon.

I'd like to start by saying, Lieutenant General, that your presentation shows that you understand some of the problems that I've heard expressed over the past four years since I have had a base in my constituency. Your presentation really does show that you understand that and I want to congratulate you.

I want to quote from the first page of your statement:

When the family is stable and is being looked after fairly, the peace of mind of our serving members is enhanced. This in turn will contribute to the overall standard of operational effectiveness of the Canadian Forces, both today and as we move into the 21st century.

I believe that having that statement in your presentation is very important. Really, this statement could be extrapolated to people in any other type of work in the country.

LGen David Kinsman: Sure.

Mr. Leon Benoit: So I do truly appreciate that. You did a good job. It was a good presentation. You understand the problems.

LGen David Kinsman: Thank you.

Mr. Leon Benoit: My first question is a very short question. I just want to ask if the funds that are targeted for family support and for support of members returning from operations, whether those were in Canada or outside of the country, are actually spent on them? Can you assure me that's happening?

• 1645

LGen David Kinsman: Yes, and I'm not being cute with that answer.

The answer is yes. Notwithstanding the move within the Department of National Defence to delegate spending authorities and decision-making authorities and so on and so forth, that is one area my organization actually puts a tag on. In other words, a military family support centre indicates what it needs for the next year. Once it has justified that and has been apportioned the money for it, it will get the money for it. It doesn't get milked off to do other things.

Mr. Leon Benoit: The next question I have is about reservists. I understand they receive no medical benefits whatsoever, even if they have been in an overseas operation like the former Yugoslavia. Is that the case?

LGen David Kinsman: Yes and no. They obviously receive medical support while they are on operations and as they are preparing for operations. If there have been problems—and problems may be physical or the problems may potentially be psychological as well, and we've become more attuned to that in the last, let's say, four years than we were before—we have recognized that to take an individual from, if I may use just any example, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, who goes over to Bosnia for six months as a reservist...will go over there in conjunction with a formed unit. When they come back, in the past there has been a tendency for that individual basically to do their out-administration with that formed unit and then go back to Moose Jaw, and once they went back there they were back getting medical services from there. One of the things we have found is that we need to follow up with individuals, because, with all respect, the people in Moose Jaw are probably not attuned to what that individual has gone through, potentially, whereas all the rest of his or her comrades at the base, Petawawa, for example, are under much closer supervision.

Mr. Leon Benoit: So really there isn't any tracking of people who had a problem while they were involved in an operation once they get outside. There's no real tracking on the part of—

LGen David Kinsman: Once again, I'll qualify. Once an individual has been hurt or disabled in operations, my organization records that from the time a significant incident report is actually tabled. That individual's file is then followed much more closely than the individual who apparently went through the operation and didn't have a problem.

Mr. Leon Benoit: I have heard personally from people in the reserves that they haven't received the proper care they need, in spite of the fact that they have asked for it.

Mr. Hanger just reminded me that he has heard from people who have had hearing problems from the explosion of mines, different explosions, while they were on an operation in Bosnia, and their hearing damage hasn't been acknowledged by the military. That's another concern I've heard, that the damage that has been done just hasn't been acknowledged, and of course it won't be dealt with if it hasn't been acknowledged.

Have you personally heard from people who have had hearing damage, or who claim they have had hearing damage—not just you personally, but have you heard of them personally? Have they been dealt with?

LGen David Kinsman: I have not heard of specific examples.

The question of follow-up—was an individual hurt in operations, whether it's to the point of being disabled, to some extent, or whatever it may be—is one of ongoing concern for us. Where we have found in the last two years that we had a better job to be done, I think we're doing better. Arguably not everybody makes it through the filter here, but the awareness of the fact that an individual who is in the reserves in particular...I'm not sure if the individual you're referring to was a reservist—

Mr. Leon Benoit: Yes.

LGen David Kinsman: The requirement in some manner to follow up to make sure that person's health is stable in the longer term is one that did not receive a whole lot of attention a decade ago and one on which we're spending a lot more time.

• 1650

It's problematic. How do you do the follow-up, particularly if the individual gets out of the reserves? However, it is one that we are working on. It is in conjunction with the point I made with respect to care of the people part of the way through my presentation.

Mr. Leon Benoit: My last questions will be dealing with specific cases of people who have returned from operations and have been treated very badly. They are probably all cases you would recognize.

The first is the one that was already mentioned, Major Bruce Henwood. Here is a senior officer who expressed a lot of concern about the way he was treated, and he was left wondering how rank and file members are treated if he is treated so badly as an officer.

Another is warrant officer Tom Martineau, a very well-documented case and one that the media have talked about. When you look at what he had to go through, it is unimaginable that anyone who had served and had the type of injury he had would have to keep pushing and pushing and pushing, to a point where it took three years from the time of his injury to the time when he finally got a wheelchair.

Here is a quote from Mr. Martineau when he went back to DND in 1996 asking for a wheelchair:

They wanted to know who I was and why I needed a wheelchair. I didn't want the royal treatment, but, my God, I couldn't believe this was happening. Even a day to wait for a wheelchair is too long.

He never got the wheelchair until January 1997.

Then we have corporal Tom Anderson, who lost both feet from a land mine in Croatia in 1994. He wanted help to get prosthetic legs. Upon release from the hospital, it was first recommended by the seniors in the military that he visit his family in Newfoundland. In this case it was the Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry. They agreed to pay only after Anderson's father complained to his MP.

I have to acknowledge that even MPs from other parties do their jobs from time to time. So I do appreciate that.

After five months of recovering in hospital, Mr. Anderson still had to go through a process. His comment was this—“The worst thing about the military is they don't give a goddamn about you once you're injured”. That is a pretty damning statement from someone who is probably very loyal to the forces.

The fourth, Master Corporal John Ternapolski, was killed. His wife Colleen said they never had anyone come to her to talk about her husband's death. Someone came to help her fill out the pension forms. No comment was ever made to her about her husband's death. A quote from her:

There's room for more compassion. They could have people come and visit you and see how you're doing. It would make you feel like they care.

I understand that from the 115 Canadian troops that were wounded while on duty in the former Yugoslavia maybe you are going to have some cases that aren't dealt with as they should be. No doubt others are. But out of 115, some of which were much less severe injuries, I think these cases demonstrate that there is a problem.

I'd just like you to comment on whether these very severe cases could happen again.

LGen David Kinsman: I addressed in my comments when I was talking about the review of all those who have been injured since 1992...and some of the names you mentioned were people who were approached. That review acknowledged.... In fact, it was the second name you mentioned that incited the acting chief of the defence staff of the day to undertake this study. I believe I acknowledged in the comments that we had instances, some of which you mentioned, but there were other cases where we could certainly have left people with a much stronger impression that we cared. All I can say is that I assure you it's a focal point for us right now.

• 1655

The term, if I may be permitted, that I've used with my people is that we cannot allow people to have the impression that there's some form of Bic instrument that you use and then discard when they're no longer physically or mentally capable of operating for you.

I frankly think that our focus has been very much oriented toward that in the last two years, based on some of the people I have working in my organization. Also, there's the recognition that, in some cases, we did not do particularly well by some folks.

Mr. Leon Benoit: But are you saying that it's only an impression?

The Chairman: We'll go to Mr. Pratt, but before that, I just have one quick question: if a request for help comes in to DND, is it automatically sent to Veterans Affairs for help?

LGen David Kinsman: We have a much better rapprochement with Veterans Affairs than we had even two years ago.

The answer is yes. I think the process now is much better. It isn't necessarily sent automatically, Mr. Chairman. If an individual is injured in a theatre of operations, we record it. We send a notification of the possibility for a disability pension immediately to Veterans Affairs so that it's a matter of record. That doesn't take very long. We do that even without an individual making an application.

Then we handle the individual's case within the department. In many cases, an individual may be hurt or disabled, but can be rehabilitated. But that application stays on record in case, at some point further on down the line, there's a recurrence of problems.

The Chairman: Thank you. You said “rapprochement” between DND and Veterans Affairs.

LGen David Kinsman: Yes, as well as with the Royal Canadian Legion, which also has a role to play in applications for disability and pension.

The Chairman: Mr. Pratt.

Mr. David Pratt (Nepean—Carleton, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My questions really fall out of the questions that were asked by Mr. Benoit with respect to the report that was requested by the acting CDS back in March. I'm just wondering if you can tell me if all of those cases that are studied in the report relate to personnel who served in the former Yugoslavia.

LGen David Kinsman: I haven't seen the report. It actually hasn't been tabled to my level, but we did not limit ourselves only to one theatre of operation.

Mr. David Pratt: Just for the sake of argument here, could it potentially relate to perhaps the Gulf War syndrome?

LGen David Kinsman: Potentially, or somebody who served in Rwanda or Haiti over the last number of months.

Mr. David Pratt: Right, or it's stress-related.

LGen David Kinsman: It's comprehensive.

Mr. David Pratt: Can you tell us whether or not the committee is going to have an opportunity to look at that particular report once it's completed?

LGen David Kinsman: Yes, indeed. The actual individual, Lieutenant Colonel Rick McLellan, who did the research and authored the report, will be one of your technical briefers here.

Mr. David Pratt: I see. You mentioned in your comments earlier that they're just now completing the report. What are we looking at in terms of a timeframe that way?

LGen David Kinsman: The report, from the standpoint of how it goes through review processes—

Mr. David Pratt: How long will it take to find its way down to this committee?

LGen David Kinsman: My understanding is that within probably a week or so I should have that report on my desk. Then assuming that I don't take too long to turn that around—as much as anything else, it's for information of the CDS—I and the CDS then determine whether or not there's follow-on activity. We ask the author to undertake whether or not there are some activities we can undertake right off the bat based on the findings of that report. I won't presuppose what our decision would be, but there should be no problem with the committee having a copy of that report, even for your own perusal before Colonel McLellan appears here, because I suspect that many of you would prefer to have a chance to at least scan it before he shows up.

• 1700

Mr. David Pratt: I have another very brief question that again relates to something that was released earlier. Along with Mr. Clouthier and Mr. Richardson, I was out to Uplands to greet the CF-18s when they came back from Aviano. The talk amongst some of the people there was that one of the officers was going to be heading off to a very high-profile company, which I won't mention, in search of—

The Chairman: Bombardier?

Mr. David Pratt: Well, I didn't mention it.

The pilots flying the planes were typically captains, and I presume that is the common rank amongst CF-18 pilots.

LGen David Kinsman: Yes.

Mr. David Pratt: I realize as well that other factors go into their compensation package, but can you give us an idea of what a CF-18 pilot in the Canadian Armed Forces would make as a base rate of pay? I know there's a scale involved.

LGen David Kinsman: I'll give you my best shot. We should be able to give you some—

Mr. David Pratt: This is just to give us the flavour of the type of technical expertise that's required and what that compensation package is.

LGen David Kinsman: Well, certainly the expertise speaks largely for itself.

For each rank we have a salary range. You enter the captain rank at a certain annual salary, and I will get that for you in just a second. You can then progress over the course of years. Particularly for captains we have a number of annual incentives, assuming that incentives are permitted by the government; you will recall they were frozen for two years. The person works then through their pay range until they make it to the top of the pay range, and I'll define that for you. And that's where they stay, largely, barring an actual pay increase—an economic adjustment—which moves the whole range forward, or until such time as they're promoted.

Pilots are also, in acknowledgement of their skills, paid a specialist pay, which is part of their base salary, in addition to their colleague officers from engineering and other trades and classifications.

I don't have the pilot's. I will get that for you.

The base rate for a captain entering rank—and understand that for the pilots there would be an addition to this of a certain amount—is $42,000 a year, and that goes up in range to just under $56,000 a year. For the pilots, it would be in addition to that by, I would hazard to guess—though I don't know if I should—probably around $4,000, plus or minus $1,000 per year.

Mr. David Pratt: Well, I can tell you, just in terms of what you're telling me, that for the level of responsibility, flying, what, a $35 million aircraft, roughly—?

LGen David Kinsman: Yes.

Mr. David Pratt: —that doesn't seem like a lot.

LGen David Kinsman: You're absolutely right, and to many of them it doesn't seem like a lot either, when they have some of the temptations on the other side of the fence. And frankly, it's not just CF-18 pilots; if you see some of our transport crews or our Sea King crews working out in the Atlantic or the Pacific on an ongoing basis, they're all a great group of people who are very professional at what they do. When they compare $60,000, let's say for round numbers, to somewhere out there—not at the start, because they take a pay cut when they go to Air Canada or a regional airline or whatever it is, but their lifelong earning potential as they see it right now....

When somebody tells them that ultimately they may be the captain of an Airbus A-320 or something else and those people earn $150,000 or $160,000 a year, and when they take a look at the pay ranges of other people up the line from the captains, that starts to look attractive.

• 1705

Mr. David Pratt: I can tell you I've flown on Airbuses that seemed as if they were piloted by former CF-18 pilots.

The Chairman: General, just another quick question. I was led to believe the salary is $42,000 a year plus the other $4,000, but there is also what is called “flight pay”. Whenever they fly they get extra money.

LGen David Kinsman: That's true; when they are on flying duties.

The Chairman: When they are on flying duty. How much would that increase a captain's salary, for instance?

LGen David Kinsman: Once again, I really owe it to you to give you the specifics, and we can do that, but I believe the flight pay is somewhere in the order of $300 to $400 a month. So you would be talking about an additional $4,000 a year or something like that.

The Chairman: I heard it was more.

LGen David Kinsman: You may be right. What I would like to do is go on the record as saying we'll provide some of these specifics to the committee—not just to yourself but to the committee—so you know.

If you don't mind, I may be out of line here, but I think it's really important for you, when you go out on the road, because pay will be one of the very first things people will want to talk about, to understand what people are getting and what some of the dynamics of the system are, what some of the intricacies of the system are. If we furnish you for your consideration, in addition to that, with how that compares with people from other countries, that's very important to have in context. Otherwise it's very difficult to react to somebody who says, do you know I'm only making $54,000 and the guy in the States is making $75,000 or whatever it is. It's apples and oranges. To the extent that we can we'll try to make sure you know what are the apples and what are the oranges.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Clouthier.

Mr. Hec Clouthier (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Lib.): Mr. Chair, since some of my questions have been answered, I'll defer to Mr. O'Reilly, because he's champing at the bit over here. I can just see he wants to ask a question.

Mr. John O'Reilly: Canada's top-gun pilot, Captain Steve Nierlich, is from my riding, the village of Sunderland, Ontario. I just wanted you to know that I don't think it's right that he makes less than I do. That was my comment. But I would like to confirm that, because I think he does a much harder job.

LGen David Kinsman: Based on your record, I'll let him know. He might be anticipating a pay raise.

Mr. John O'Reilly: I didn't have a question, Hec. I just wanted to tag on.

Mr. Hec Clouthier: I was going to ask an ancillary question about the pilots, but I won't. I'm going to go back to the housing, Lieutenant-General, because my riding is included in the Petawawa base and one of the problems there is with the housing, as you well know, because of the mutability. A lot of troops transfer. It's the civilians I'm getting the flack from, even more than the military. Correct me if I'm wrong. There are two compensation packages, the home equity assistance and then the guaranteed home sale plan. I believe they feed off one another.

Here's the difficulty. I believe you know something about it. Some of the civilians have indicated to me that the market has been somewhat depressed in my particular area. I've checked it out with some of the real estate agents and they agree, especially in Petawawa, because there's a lot of troop movement. What will happen with this program is that some of them.... The houses are on the market and they are not on that long, because they will sell them because they know they are going to get 90%, I believe it is, in the sale if you can prove—and there's where the tricky part comes in—the market has been depreciated 10% within the last three or four years.

That's one. The second one is maybe you can fill me in on this. Some of the other real estate companies are concerned because they say Royal LePage has the market corralled and as a result of that they can undercut the other real estate agents in the area. I realize there is a bit of a problem, especially if a lot of houses are on the market, as there currently are. Some of the civilians are saying theirs are being depressed. I believe Royal LePage is the agent of record for the government.

LGen David Kinsman: That's right. They are the contractor for the guaranteed home sale program. I'm sorry—

Mr. Hec Clouthier: And no other real estate company can compete with them?

LGen David Kinsman: No, I don't believe that. An individual can list their house with whomever they wish. But the plan is being run by one company.

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Mr. Hec Clouthier: That's right.

LGen David Kinsman: There's no real answer to your question other than to say that in response to an earlier question, I reiterated that the guaranteed home sale plan is something that's largely been popular with individuals. I therefore think it's something we would want to try to retain within the Canadian forces, because it is a bit of a safety net.

Through sources outside of the military completely, and occasionally discussions with people within the military, I have heard concerns about the potential of low-balling markets—individuals there are going to move, so they take whatever the guaranteed home sale is going to be. Potentially, if you did that enough in a market the size of the Petawawa market—practically speaking, I'm not saying it's happening or not happening—you could in fact drive down the value of properties throughout a smaller community. That's one of the things we have to look at.

I have to tell you I don't have any particular proof of that, but when you indicate that you would like to, or when you're convinced that you would like to, continue with a program like that because it actually serves a very good purpose for your members, you do want to make sure it's on the up and up in all respects.

Mr. Hec Clouthier: I haven't heard any complaints from the military, no. They're coming from the civilians.

LGen David Kinsman: No, we wouldn't. You could potentially have it from military over the course of years, though, if this was a progressive sort of thing.

I wouldn't categorize it as a concern that I have per se, but it is something of which I have to be cognizant. When we do our review of the guaranteed home sale plan, that's one of the areas we have to look at.

Mr. Hec Clouthier: General, who determines whether the housing market has depressed 10%?

LGen David Kinsman: We work with CMHC and the local real estate boards. We actually have to do that in the delivery of the home equity program you referred to earlier. We have to do it in the establishment of rents in married quarters.

Mr. Hec Clouthier: Now, the home—

The Chairman: Mr. Proctor.

Mr. Dick Proctor: You indicated in your paper this afternoon, sir, that you were comparing salaries, allowances, and benefits with four other countries. Which countries are they?

LGen David Kinsman: I'm going to get Colonel Arp to help me here. I believe we're looking at the U.K., the United States, Australia, and New Zealand.

Mr. Dick Proctor: There's no way that this study will be completed before April, or before we go out to—

LGen David Kinsman: We've actually contracted out some of that activity, and I believe the contract has a deliverable in the March timeframe. It was a matter of receiving that information and making sure it was collated and we had a chance to internalize it to a certain extent before we passed it on to the committee.

Mr. Dick Proctor: I have another question. You make reference to the fact that you have contracted another study to examine the cost of living variances. Is there more than one previous study?

LGen David Kinsman: There are a number of activities, yes. In fact, when this committee deactivated in the May timeframe, we undertook to refine some of the material that we had through these types of studies. Arguably, that was in May, so why are we talking about April as opposed to January, February, or even now?

It's been a process of finding the right people, going through the contracting process, and so forth. But I think I've made allusion to three or four individual activities that we have right now, which will be beneficial to ourselves by way of information but which are aimed as much at providing information for SCONDVA.

Mr. Dick Proctor: Do you have a date when you expect to have that study in hand or when this committee might see this?

LGen David Kinsman: About the same timeframe.

Mr. Dick Proctor: That's all I have.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Hanger, five minutes.

Mr. Art Hanger: Thank you.

I'm curious about this directive that came out of the Human Rights Commission, General. It has kind of implied that they've given the defence department until February 1999 to make some more significant inroads into the hiring of women.

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There was a program adopted. I believe it's called Operation Minerva. I gather the thrust of it is an advertising campaign to make the military, especially combat roles, more attractive to women. How will the recruiting side end up? There's obviously a reluctance on the part of women to join and focus in or target the combat area. Will there be a lowering of the physical requirements to make that more attractive to women? How will that be accomplished?

LGen David Kinsman: The Canadian Human Rights Commission in all of its deliberations from the outset has acknowledged that we must not and will not lower standards in order to have a larger representation, whether it's gender, visible minorities, or aboriginal—whatever it may be in the employment equity.

We have a set of standards we apply for women and men in the Canadian forces that are general physical fitness standards. A number of the trades also have physical requirements for people to be successful in their trade qualification. In that we will be consistent. We're not going to lower standards in order to make numbers look better one way or the other.

Mr. Art Hanger: What form will the recruitment process take? I'm curious. There is over $1 million being spent in that area and obviously for the amount of time left to fulfil that particular directive—I don't know if it is a directive.

LGen David Kinsman: It's a tribunal finding, which directed that the Canadian forces by 1999 would have worked to have greater representation of women in the Canadian forces. To be perfectly honest, the Canadian Human Rights Commission has focused on combat training. They monitor those trades specifically.

We found that the clock started to tick in 1989. Not too long thereafter the Canadian forces made it a policy that all trades were open for women, including combat trades, with the exception of submarines. We then went for two or three years when there was a certain preoccupation, I would suggest, with reduction exercises that were going on, but as we came into the 1995 timeframe—therefore beyond halfway to 1999—we found the good news was that the overall representation of women in the Canadian forces was about the same as it had been before we went in, good inasmuch as women were not affected any more, nor any less, than men in the reduction process we'd gone through.

But the numbers were not increasing and specifically in the combat trades—and particularly in the combat arms, and when I talk about the combat arms I'm talking army-specific infantry, artillery, armoured military engineer—it was a very small percentage of women in there and it was not going up.

What we did know was that the interest expressed by women in the Canadian forces as a place to at least join, if not necessarily make a career, was certainly higher than the representation we had in the combat arms. So we have undertaken, as you suggest, a more focused recruiting undertaking to attempt to recruit more women for the combat arms.

Mr. Art Hanger: There seems to have been some indication that there was a resistance on the part of the military to provide those opportunities, if you will, for women in the combat role.

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I had some officers tell me that to have a combat-ready unit that's going to go into a high-intensity war, fighting, you want cohesion, and it has to be total cohesion. Some have said that women within those units create more...not so much cohesion but disunity, in part because they have a tendency...there's an automatic tendency to develop relationships with the men, and if that relationship becomes broken there become certain animosities and the unit isn't as cohesive as it should be. Is that actually true?

LGen David Kinsman: I wouldn't share that opinion, to be perfectly honest. I've seen women working in not all of the MOCs—once again, trades; I'm sorry for the use of the acronym—and I personally believe some of what you've said were the popularist things.

Mr. Art Hanger: There are other forces like Israel, and I think even the U.S., that have backed off on some of those particular programs.

LGen David Kinsman: For a variety of reasons that I don't think you can necessarily relate to our own experience.

The bottom line is, are there still people out there who have reservations? Yes, I think that would be fair to say. I find that they have a tendency to be people like myself who have spent a long time in the organization and got used to it that way, and so they may ask some questions. But I would not share the opinion that was voiced to you by whoever it was, not nearly in the same fashion as you do.

I think the cohesion of a military organization is based upon mutual confidence that the person who's beside you can do the job. It doesn't matter once you get into the heat of battle whether that person is a woman, is black, is aboriginal, is white, is male, as long as that person can do the job, and I have the confidence that the person beside me met the same standards I did, and in some cases did better than I did. That's all that's important.

Mr. Art Hanger: Thank you.

The Chairman: Mr. Hanger, it's a good thing we didn't have the former chair Ms. Clancy sitting here when you asked that question.

Mr. Clouthier.

Mr. Hec Clouthier: It was an ancillary question to the pilots, but before I ask, Lieutenant-General, I want to say that I'm not in complete agreement with my colleague about this top gun. I can just see the Lindsay Daily Post tomorrow morning, where it says “Local MP shoots down top gun's pay”. I can just see it—political expediency.

Mr. John O'Reilly: I'm trying to boost it up; he doesn't make enough.

Mr. Hec Clouthier: Well, you're shooting down his pay; you wanted to give him more.

Talking about the military, can those CF-18 pilots, those pilots I was speaking with, move directly into a position at, let's say, Air Canada or American Airlines, or whatever? Can they be a commercial pilot immediately? How does that work?

LGen David Kinsman: Almost immediately.

Mr. Hec Clouthier: The transition is—

LGen David Kinsman: Let me say, if I can take 30 seconds extra, that for a period of time in my early career it was felt that you'd never want these wild people who were fighter jocks to be flying a civilian airline, because they might create an unpleasant experience. In fact, the technology they're dealing with, the rules of the air, the air sense, their presence, their ability to think in the air, which makes them good in a single-seat aircraft, are exactly the qualities that a potential employer elsewhere would like to have.

From the standpoint of technology, it is not all that difficult for the individual to get the written certifications and the flying certifications that are necessary, particularly a current pilot. Now with the technology of simulators, the individual can go to a simulator at whatever place, whether it's Montreal, let's say, in Air Canada's case, spend a number of weeks—by weeks I'm talking about a month or two; I'm not talking about six months or a year—on the simulator and then be qualified to sit in the right-hand seat of an aircraft. So the transition is relatively easy to make.

Mr. Hec Clouthier: You do not compile a record of the number of pilots who would leave the Canadian military and go to commercial airlines, do you?

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LGen David Kinsman: We're tracking them all the time. In many cases they state an interest. Right now, we have pilots who say frankly, I'm interested. If I don't see some movement with regard to compensation or things that suit myself and my family, then I'll seriously have to consider going to the alternative. Now, do we track that 100%? We certainly don't. But we have enough to establish a trend in whether or not we're in good shape or not such good shape with respect to how many we've retained.

Mr. Hec Clouthier: I would think, coming from the business arena, that I would be after them, head hunting them, because they're the best.

LGen David Kinsman: Well, it's great. I mean, if you were the president of Air Canada and it takes two months of training at the outside, maybe 10 simulator rides and so on and so forth, as opposed to putting somebody through—

An hon. member: Did you bargain for this?

LGen David Kinsman: Oh yes. I don't have to go through the details.

The Chairman: One last question. Mr. Benoit.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Lieutenant-General, I want to ask a follow-up question to a question I asked before. I referred to the four particular cases of people who I thought had been treated very unfairly by the forces after they were injured.

In your answer you said something like there's a perception or an illusion that they weren't treated fairly. You seemed unwilling to acknowledge that these particular people had been treated unfairly by the military. I would like you to tell me whether that's the case, whether you think these particular people I mentioned were treated unfairly, or whether you just think it's an illusion or perception that they've been treated unfairly.

LGen David Kinsman: By my very nature I don't like to pronounce an opinion until I know what the facts of the case are. To be perfectly honest, on those particular individuals—I'm not trying to evade your question here—I'm not familiar with them. On the face of it, if.... Frankly, there's no reason to believe that Major Henwood, for example, who encountered difficulty, would tell us other than what had happened to him.

It was exactly those types of concerns that led Vice-Admiral Murray and others of us to say that this is serious enough that we want to take a look at what has actually happened to those individuals, to know exactly what the context is, to know our systems—I don't like to use the word processes—to know what we have available to account for individuals who are maimed, disabled in whatever fashion when they're on operations.

Mr. Leon Benoit: So you do know there have been people who have been treated unfairly by the system.

LGen David Kinsman: I know there are people whose stories would indicate they had been treated unfairly. If their stories are consistent all the way through with the facts, then I would have to say that's not exactly the treatment we would want to provide for people in the future.

Mr. Leon Benoit: But there are no cases that you are quite familiar with yourself, that you have judged and that the military have judged maybe, and know to have been treated unfairly.

LGen David Kinsman: No, none that I have had personal contact with. That's why I say I would not wish to say that I, Dave Kinsman, personally believe an unfairness or an injustice was done to an individual until I saw what had happened to that individual and knew exactly what the facts were.

As I say, I'm not trying to be evasive here because there are those cases that you mentioned where individuals and.... Once again, Major Henwood, who had the problems that you discuss, has actually helped us in recording his concerns, what happened to him, to contribute to the activity that we have going with what went wrong and how to fix it.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Benoit. General, Colonel, thank you very much for your session this afternoon.

The meeting is adjourned.