PACP Committee Meeting

     Good morning, everyone.

    This is meeting number 18 of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

    I remind everyone today, as I do every meeting, that we are televised. Please turn your phones to silent mode, so that we aren't interrupted and as a courtesy to our guests as well.

    Today we're conducting a hearing on Report 5, Canadian Army Reserve—National Defence, of the Spring 2016 Reports of the Auditor General of Canada.

    Appearing before us today, we have Michael Ferguson, Auditor General of Canada, and Gordon Stock, principal.

    As well, we have from the Department of National Defence, Bill Jones, senior associate deputy minister; Marquis Hainse, commander, Canadian Army; Derek Joyce, deputy commander, military personnel command; Paul Bury, chief, reserves and cadets; and Rob Roy MacKenzie, chief of staff, army reserve.

    Welcome to all.

    We have an opening statement from the Auditor General.

    Mr. Christopherson, on a point of order.

     Thanks, Chair.

    I want to point out that we are missing the deputy minister. I appreciate that Mr. Jones is here and I have no doubt he has information that we need, but the law was changed in the last while that makes the deputy minister legally an accounting officer and accountable to this committee.

    It's only by exception that we don't let deputies come, because human nature, let's face it, if a deputy can get away with sending somebody else to a meeting that's not going to be a lot of fun, come along. We have a policy that it's only by rare exception, and it's times that people are away, they're travelling, there's an urgency of us getting to this matter, or we do not want to delay.

    It does happen, but I want to emphasize the fact that it is a priority, a mandate, an expectation, and a lawful requirement. Unlike when I started here, it's now the law.

    Again, I understand in this case we weren't that pointed in our invitation. I'm raising it as a matter of a point of order in the hope that we can get back to the fact that it's deputies we're inviting. Deputies are expected to be here, and by exception, we can hold meetings without them, but in the main, it's the deputies who should be here.

    I wanted to point that out, Chair, to ensure that we keep that standard because that's what works best for us.

    Thanks.

    Thank you very much, Mr. Christopherson.

    That is certainly a point of order and it is something that we do take fairly seriously.

    We appreciate, Mr. Jones, that you've appeared before other committees and we know that you are very capable in this, but the buck does stop somewhere.

    As Mr. Christopherson has rightly pointed out, in the department, the deputy minister and the minister are responsible. As Mr. Christopherson also said, there are times—and I don't think this is an example of where this is happening more than once—when deputies will send associates in their place.

    I agree. Because of the lateness in the year, into June, with only a week or two left, we wanted this meeting, but we will be a little more upfront and clear that we expect the deputy to be here. We will try to accommodate them. If he or she was unable to be here today, then it becomes on us to find a date when he or she can be accommodated. We do thank you for being here and we know that we're going to have a good meeting.

    We'll have an opening statement by our Auditor General, a brief statement from Mr. Jones, the senior associate deputy minister of DND, and then Mr. Hainse, commander of the Canadian Army department.

    We'll first go to Mr. Ferguson, please.

    Mr. Chair, thank you for this opportunity to discuss our 2016 spring report on the Canadian army reserve.

    In our audit, we examined whether the army reserve was prepared to deploy on domestic and international missions. We concluded that the army reserve had been shrinking and that gaps in training meant that reserve soldiers were not fully prepared to deploy on all missions.

    The Canadian Army needs the army reserve in order to carry out assigned missions. The army reserve provides almost half of the Canadian Army's 40,000 soldiers. On major international missions, the Canadian Army expects army reserve units to provide up to 20% of the deployed soldiers.

    However, we found that the training of the army reserve was not fully integrated with that of regular army units. Although the army reserve was given clear guidance on preparing for domestic missions, units did not receive the same level of guidance on how to train their soldiers for international missions. We also observed that the army reserve did not always have access to the equipment it needed for training and deployments.

     Many army reserve units did not have the number of soldiers they needed. For example, 12 of the 123 army reserve units were smaller than half of their ideal size. Although the Canadian Army provided funding for 21,000 army reserve soldiers, only about 14,000 were active and trained. In 2015, when army reserve units met for their annual large-scale collective training events across Canada, only about 3,600 army reserve soldiers attended.

    National Defence knows that the current reserve recruiting system does not work and that it needs to take steps to improve retention. It has set a goal to increase the army reserve by 950 soldiers by 2019, but in our opinion, this goal will be difficult to achieve, given that army reserve numbers have been declining by about 1,000 soldiers a year.

    It is critical that National Defence have information on whether soldiers are qualified for deployment. However, the system that records this information indicated that a high percentage of army reserve soldiers did not hold the required qualifications. National Defence told us the information from this system could not be relied upon.

    The National Defence Act has established that reserve force members are to serve primarily on a part-time basis when not deployed. However, National Defence has, in effect, created a class of army reserve soldiers who are employed on a continuing, full-time basis. In fiscal year 2014-15, the Canadian Army spent about 27% of its overall budget for army reserve pay and operating expenses on these full-time contracts, leaving less available for other army reserve activities.

    The Canadian Army allocates funds for army reserve unit activities, including training. But the funding model is not consistent with expected results. In the 2014-2015 fiscal year, National Defence reallocated funds from the army reserve budget to use as other than those of the army reserve.

    We also found that although individual skills training was designed to train the army reserve and regular army soldiers to the same standard for a particular individual skill, army reserve courses were designed to teach significantly fewer skills than were taught in regular army courses.

    We found that this skill gap was not always addressed during the pre-deployment training of army reserve soldiers. For example, when Canadian Army soldiers began to deploy as part of NATO's collective defence in eastern Europe, a gap remained in weapons training between army reserve and regular army soldiers.

    We made 13 recommendations in our audit report, and National Defence has responded that it will address each recommendation.

    Mr. Chair, this concludes my opening remarks.

    We'd be please to answer any questions the committee may have.

    Thank you.

    Thank you very much, sir.

    Now we will move to Mr. Jones.

    Welcome.

     Chair, thank you.

    I will make four brief points in order to leave time for my colleague Lieutenant-General Hainse to make his remarks.

    Point one, Chair, I certainly want to thank you and the members of the standing committee for inviting us to discuss chapter 5 of the Auditor General's spring 2016 report on the Canadian army reserve.

    Point two, I do apologize on behalf of the deputy minister who was unable to make it today. I hear the concern of members, and I will certainly make him aware of it. Again, I do apologize on his behalf.

    Point three, I'd like to stress that the Department of National Defence respects, appreciates, and thanks the Auditor General, the Office of the Auditor General, and Mr. Stock, for the good and important work they do on a number of issues, including this particular audit.

    Point four, I want to assure members of the committee that we have taken the recommendations of the Auditor General very seriously, and work is under way to address these issues.

    With that, Chair, I will just remind members that I think we passed out an action plan to all members as to how we're working on dealing with the recommendations.

    I will turn it over to Lieutenant-General Hainse, who will provide more detail on what we're doing and how we're doing it.

    Thank you very much.

    Lieutenant-General Hainse.

     Thank you, Mr. Jones.

     Mr. Chair, and all of the committee members, good morning.

    First of all, I would also like to thank you for inviting us to participate in today's session to speak about the results of the Auditor General's report and about what we are doing in the army and in the Canadian Forces to address some of the concerns raised in the report.

    The army welcomes the opportunity to have an audit conducted by the Auditor General. By all accounts, our support to the team was significant, with over 1,600 documents passed from my office to the audit team in a 10-month period, demonstrating the complexity of the subject. Like Mr. Jones, I also want to thank and compliment the audit team for their hard work.

    The audit spans a period of three fiscal years, which was inclusive of the former and the present chief of the defence staff. General Vance, the current chief of the defence staff, reinforced his predecessor's vision in October 2015 when he issued a directive to strengthen the primary reserve as a predominantly part-time professional force, located in communities across Canada, ready with reasonable notice to contribute to operations at home and abroad.

     The army has embraced that vision and sees the reserve forces as an integral part of the army team. Beyond its operational role, the army reserve acts as the familiar local face of the Canadian Army in communities across Canada.

    Based on current infrastructure, 97% of the Canadian population lives within a 45-minute drive of an army reserve armoury. Our local units provide an excellent opportunity for Canadians to experience the Canadian Armed Forces first-hand.

    The role of the army reserve is a professional part-time force that provides local engagement and a responsive integrated capability at home or abroad in support of the army mission.

    Being part-time, the reserve force will be trained to the same standard, but not to the same breadth as the regular force. Additional preparative training just prior to deployment will always be required.

    The tasks assigned to a reserve unit must be commensurate with the level of employment that is nominally based on one night a week and one weekend a month.

    For the last 25 years, the army reserve has provided upwards of 20% of the deployed forces in such places as Afghanistan, the Balkans, Haiti, Sierra Leone and in several other missions.

     The army reserve is also called upon to augment and support domestic operations including the Vancouver Olympics and the G8 and G20 summits.

     As well, over the past few years, our reserve troops have assisted civil authorities during a number of natural disasters such as recent flooding in Manitoba and Calgary, as well as in last year's fires in northern Saskatchewan.

     The army reserve force is currently funded for, on average, 37.5 days per year per member. General funding is also planned for a seven-day group event for half of the reserve force.

    Furthermore, the army reserve, according to the army strength report dated May 15, 2016, has 18,550 serving members. However, approximately 1,287 of that number have not attended training in the past 30 to 180 days. Currently, 4,082 of that number are undergoing basic training to reach the initial employment standard. This leaves around 13,181 reserve soldiers trained and available for operation.

    The army reserve has proven a deployable domestic capability with the development of 10 territorial battalion groups and four Arctic response company groups.

    They are also tasked to generate components of the influence activities task force and the persistent surveillance system, and to provide static and mobile force protection.

    It's very important to know that the army reserve is designed to be integrated with the regular army component in order to meet domestic and international operational requirements, and to work as one army team. The concept of integration for international operations is in constant evolution and will continue to be built over the next several years to adapt to the operational requirements and the changing demographic. This integration is not solely envisioned as individual augmentation to help fill structure in the regular force. The army reserve will continue to generate task-specific formed elements to support operations at home and abroad.

    Let me now address a few points from the Auditor General's report and some of the other initiatives we are taking to ensure that the army reserve remains efficient and responsive to the needs of the Government of Canada in the years to come.

    On recruiting, we are working closely with Major-General Joyce and his team to develop a more streamlined recruiting process that sees new soldiers on the armoury floor within 60 to 90 days of beginning the recruitment process.

    On the financial side, the army is reviewing the army reserve funding model to create a more transparent process to allocate resources to ensure training objectives are met. Therefore, we have established a corporate-level financial account as of April 1, 2016, that ensures the transparent allocation of funding for the reserve program. Money cannot be repurposed out of that account unless doing so is sanctioned by the deputy minister or the chief of the defence staff.

    On medical care, Canadian Forces health services group, which is part of military personnel command, continues to develop a solution for reserves medical care. Communiqués have been issued throughout the health services chain of command so that all medical facilities understand their responsibility to provide health care services to reservists.

    On training, we are consistently reviewing the training system to ensure we integrate training and to ensure that all soldiers are ready for domestic and international operations in due time. We are also developing a formalized tracking mechanism to formally record when all 10 territorial battalion groups and the four Arctic response company groups are confirmed ready on an annual basis.

    On equipment, the army manages equipment and support available to provide the resources the army reserves need at any given time for training and operations. We prioritize the equipment we have to meet all of our training and operational requirements. We are also investing in minor equipment purchases, like the delivery of civilian vehicles to the territorial battalion groups scheduled for this summer.

    In conclusion, Mr. Chair, I would like to emphasize that the army reserves are undergoing a transformation as a result of the CDS directive to strengthen the reserve forces. The Office of the Auditor General's report tabled on May 3, 2016, only adds to the areas that need change.

     This is our way of ensuring that the army reserve remains efficient in responding to the needs of the Government of Canada in the years to come.

    Mr. Chair, I would like to again thank you and the members of the committee for hearing us today.

    We would be happy to take any questions you may have at this time.

    Thank you very much.

    Thank you very much, sir.

    We will move directly into that first round of questioning. The first round is a seven-minute round and we will go first to Mr. Lefebvre.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    I thank all of the witnesses for being here with us today.

    Of course, I read the Auditor General's report, and this morning I received your detailed action plan. I have to tell you that I was very concerned when I saw the replies to the recommendations made by the Auditor General, because they are very vague and dubious.

    This leads me to conclude straightaway that there really was no plan. It seems clear that when the audit was done, you took things more seriously and prepared a detailed plan. I am going to come back to it because I have just read it. I'm also wondering about the deadlines you included.

     I would like to turn to paragraph 5.61 in the Auditor General's report. Here is a bit of the basis of why I am so very worried about this.

    It says:

    My first question is, and it should be a very quick answer, has this review been concluded since the audit?

    I would like to ask Major-General Bury, whose area this is, to answer your question.

     Mr. Chair, thank you for the question.

    The PRECS review and the rationalization of the primary reserve studies we were completing over the last few years have been rolled into the strengthening of the primary reserve ID. Those initiatives carry on, and they continue apace as the CDS ID initiative evolves, so this work is continuing.

    It is continuing. Therefore, it has not been concluded since the audit.

    It has not been concluded. It has been rolled into....

    Okay. I am looking at some of the plans. I went through each recommendation and looked at your responses. Again, as a committee, there is no doubt that we will.... My conclusion is that we will be asking for more information on a go-forward basis because, to me, there is a pattern of saying, “We are going to do this later. It is something we are taking seriously.” However, there is no end date. I see in your action plan that there are some end dates.

    Now, of course, people are accountable. Some people will be accountable for putting this action plan through.

    I just got this this morning. I am looking at recommendation 5.70 here. Basically, the date you have given yourselves is January 31, 2022. That is one of the dates you have given yourselves to conclude this review, another six years. Some of that is 2018, so two years. Some of it at least is next year, in 2017.

    I understand there is a lot of information gathering. There is a lot of data that you guys need to collect. My concern is that the reserves have been around for a long time, and we are just getting around now to seeing what we have.

    As a taxpayer, and maybe the grandson of a former person in the military, it is very concerning.

    I am going to ask you, very bluntly, why is this time different?

     Thank you.

     Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair.

    On the specific question regarding 5.70, Mr. Chair, I want to point out the fact that this is not necessarily a review that we are talking about. It is a major upgrade to our human resource software.

    The project is called military personnel management capability transformation. Essentially, it is an upgrade from PeopleSoft 7.5, which is what we currently use, to PeopleSoft 9.1 or 9.2. That is why the project length reaches out to 2022.

    There are a number of interim releases that are going to be let out to the Canadian Armed Forces during that period, the first release coming up in the spring of 2017, in May 2017, which will see a technological upgrade of the HR system to include 9.1.

    Perfect. With the rest of the recommendations and the dates you give, who is actually responsible for this? A year from now, if we want to ask somebody else to come and say.... Who is making sure that this action plan is being respected throughout the department?

    Mr. Chair, we all have different responsibilities. As the army commander, I am responsible for most of it, but when you talk about recruiting and transformation of enterprise systems that target the Canadian Forces, it goes to the Canadian Forces. That is why today you have representation from all of us who will be responsible for implementing this action plan.

    Okay. Maybe we will go back to it a bit later.

    With respect to army reserve funding, unit training, and other activities, the Auditor General stated, “In 2009, the Canadian Army took steps to integrate the collective training of Army Reserve and Regular Army units in the same Division.”

    According to the Auditor General, with the exception of artillery units, this has not happened.

    What steps have been taken to improve collective training and integration between the reserve and the army?

    There are a lot of steps that have been taken to improve training for the army reserve.

    The first thing we have done, Mr. Chair, is look at the affiliation, and we are looking at more integration with the various units.

    It is true that from an artillery point of view, it has always been a lot easier, because there are fewer of those units around, and they have a complement gun system to do it.

    When you talk about the infantry, which I can use as an example, it is a bit more complicated because there are a lot of those units. There are more units on the reserve side than there are on the regular forces, so they have to make choices, and they have to be proactive in terms of doing some combined training.

    What we have done, and the directions that have been given for the next couple of years, is to ensure first and foremost that there exists a link between the reserve units and their regular forces counterparts, and that they create a training plan to work together in order to do some combined training.

     Is this in your action plan?

    This is not in the action plan. This is as part of the strengthening of the army reserve plan, for which I gave the direction in the ID, the initiative directive, in February of last year. I will have a formal plan signed in the coming weeks, when the order is being—

    When do you think this will be put into place, then? Once you've signed the plan, you want to execute the plan. How much time are you giving yourself to execute the plan?

    If you look at the action plan, at the timing, you see that I don't have the exact timing right now. I can get back to you with it, but the plan is coming in the upcoming years as per the directive of the CDS, the chief of the defence staff.

    I don't think we have that directive. Can you undertake to provide us with that directive, please?

    Yes, we will certainly do that.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you, Mr. Lefebvre.

    We'll now move to Mr. Poilievre, for seven minutes.

    In his opening remarks, the Auditor General said, “The Canadian Army needs the army reserve in order to carry out assigned missions. The army reserve provides almost half of the Canadian Army's 40,000 soldiers. On major international missions, the Canadian Army expects army reserve units to provide up to 20% of the deployed soldiers.” In paragraph 5 he said, “12 of the 123 army reserve units were smaller than half of their ideal size. Although the Canadian Army provided funding for 21,000 army reserve soldiers, only about 14,000 were active and trained.”

    Given that we are 7,000 reservists below the funded amount, would Canadian army reservists be able to constitute 20% of the number of deployed soldiers in the event of a major international mission?

    Mr. Chair, thank you for the question.

    The answer is yes. Why do I say that? It's because we have done it in the past. What we need to realize is that the army reserve units are not deploying necessarily as a unit. They are deployed as a subunit or a sub-subunit, which means it's a smaller group.

    In most cases when they deploy for international operations, the way we have done it in the past is by regrouping reservists from many units with their regular forces counterparts, up to 20% of the strength of the particular organization being deployed, and they have undergone very robust training to meet all of the requirements needed for the mission. That's the PAT that we have been using in many years past and will continue to use in the future.

    If we're able to achieve the 20% number of reservists for major international missions with only 14,000 active and trained, why is it that 21,000 army reserve soldiers is considered to be the goal of DND and the Canadian Army?

    Mr. Chair, 21,000 is based on the number of units we currently have, and the number of units we currently have is based on historical data, legacy data. Those units happen to be where they are, not based on our history. We feel that there are a lot of positive sides to having those units, even if some of the units are not totally filled.

    We added up the number of persons we have in all of the units and made an average of the personnel showing up in the historical data and came up with 21,000. If you were to add the complements of the numbers, that is, of units that were filled totally, you would come up with the number 29,000, but this is not what we're funded for, and it is not what the reality has been in the last decade or so. The figure of 21,000, then, is based on historical data.

    The army provided sufficient funds to recruit 21,000 reservists. There are actually 14,000 now, which means a difference of 7,000. Where did the money allocated to the training of the 7,000 other reservists go?

     Mr. Chair, the latest data that we have is 18,000. Out of those 18,550, there are about 1,200 who are not ready, so they're not showing up, and about 4,000 are still training. They are doing their basic training, so they still need to be funded. The number of 13,000—actually it's more than that—it is 13,000 plus another 4,000 who are being trained.

    The money that does not exactly cover all the people who are training is put back into operations and maintenance, not only toward the reserve but toward the operation of the army. Except for this particular fiscal year that we have just been through, all of the money that was committed to the reserve went back to the reserve, and why is that? It is due to the refinement of our funding model that we have been working on over the last year and a half.

    Forgive me, but I'm having trouble understanding the mathematical calculation that explains the difference between 14,000 and 21,000. I know you have just explained it, but I would appreciate hearing the explanation again.

    Let me do this again.

    So ,18,850, that's what we have now, around that number. Out of that number—

    I don't mean to interrupt, but could you just please explain the difference between the 14,000 that the Auditor General stated and the 18,000 that you're referring to now?

     I'm getting there.

    That 14,000 is the number of people who are ready to be deployed, employed on operation, but you need to add the 4,000 to that who are being employed. They are being trained right now. They're not being deployed, but they need to do basic training. That doesn't bring you necessarily to that—

     The 21,000.

    You still have 1,200 personnel that have not shown up for training over the last 30 to 180 days. They are the ones that have not been paid. They have not received any money. The extra money has been reinvested in operations and maintenance.

    Thank you very much. We'll come back to more questions in that area.

    We'll go back to Mr. Christopherson, for seven minutes.

     Again, thank you, Chair.

    Thank you, Mr. Ferguson, and our guests. We appreciate your being here.

    For the wise deputies and other entity leaders, I hope they were paying attention when we said that we're picking up on the issue that the Auditor General had raised early in this Parliament, and that is the issue of data and the fact there's still not the priority that there should be on the quality of data, the timeliness of data, and the analysis of it.

    We're spending an enormous amount of money in government very effectively putting together the processes for collecting this information. In the real world we're not doing much with it, certainly not as well as we can, and it would seem that this report is no different.

    I looked at the Auditor General's opening remarks, “It is critical that National Defence has information on whether soldiers are qualified for deployment.” There are a number of aspects of this we're examining today. He went on to say, “However, the system that records this information indicated that a high percentage of army reserve soldiers did not hold the required qualifications.” Well, that's disappointing, and we can talk about why this is and what you're going to do about it, but to me, the key thing is the next sentence which says, “National Defence told us that the information from this system could not be relied upon.” Again, if we're going to use these analyses as assumptions and then move on those assumptions, but the analysis is inadequate, basically we're building a house of cards that's going to fall.

    I ask the Auditor General to jump in if I'm getting this wrong in some way.

    The Auditor General said on page 9 of his report:

    That's in the main report. He's emphasizing his remarks today because the answer that he got from you folks was, “Oh well, don't worry about that information, it's not accurate.”

     Talk to me about that, please.

    Mr. Chair, I can start and maybe General Joyce would like to add some comments.

    First of all, you are right to point this out. There are two aspects to your question. There's the data and there's actually the requirement to train reservists. I'll deal with the requirement.

     First of all, I provide clear guidance, generic guidance to all of the units as to what is expected in terms of the training level of the reservists, and what is expected has been clearly enunciated. They have to go up to a certain level, from level 2 to level 3. We focus on basic foundation training up to level 3, and I have to entrust the commanders at all levels to provide this.

    Having said this, it is absolutely true, and we totally agree with the report and we totally agree with your comments, that once the training is done, capturing the data that they have been trained has not been done properly. It has been very asymmetric due to various reasons, due to lack of some personnel in some units to record this, due to computers or various applications that we are using. We are addressing this right now with the new system, Guardian. I would invite General Joyce to talk about that system.

    I don't need too much detail, but go ahead.

    Okay, fair enough.

    It's a very valid question. The current system is cumbersome and it really is not sufficient to our needs, as the Auditor General pointed out, and we certainly agree with that. We need a modern HR tool and, as I mentioned earlier, that is being shepherded by the military personnel management transformation HR software, the Guardian project. Over the next six years we're going to see four different releases that will incrementally improve our ability to pull in and report on regular data.

    Six years? Does that mean you're gathering new information, or is that six years with the data that you should have been gathering properly all along?

    It's digitizing our ability to pull in readiness information for all the members.

    Six years.

     It's a major project, Mr. Chair.

    How has this been viewed in the past? When this wasn't done and someone responsible was looking at it, and these things weren't filled out, what was the attitude: not important, don't worry about? Is that how we got here?

    I'm not in a position to answer that question, Mr. Chair.

    Somebody should be, because it's not just about going forward, it's also about figuring out how we got here.

    Again, I want to emphasize that we're doing this publicly. Through you and to the other deputies, we're going to be pounding on it this entire Parliament. So everybody get attuned to the fact that we're going to be talking an awful lot about data and about its accuracy, its timeliness, and its effective analysis. It's going to come down like a sledgehammer time and time again. We're not backing off this.

     The Auditor General has asked us for special attention on this. We've accepted that. It's a priority for this Parliament.

    Do I have any time left, Mr. Chair?

    Yes. You have a minute and a half.

    That's beautiful.

    Moving along, I wanted to address the issue quickly in the brief time I have.

    The Auditor General's report, in the last line on page 8, reads, “Furthermore, we found that the Army Reserve units did not have the funding they needed to fully support all required unit activities”. That in itself is not unusual. Not enough funding; that happens, and we identify that.

    Then the Auditor General's opening remarks today point out that 27% of your overall budget went to more full-time reservists and not the part-time, and that you further reallocated funds from the reserve to other parts of defence. Explain, please.

    Mr. Chair, can I ask General Rob Roy MacKenzie to answer that question?

    Mr. MacKenzie.

     Mr. Chair, thank you for the question.

    There are the two components: the part-time reserve, and those in full-time service that support the unit activity very heavily. Each unit, one of our 123 units, has a cadre of full-time staff, regular army and full-time reservists as support. There are a few numbers in each. Those people are absolutely critical to designing and supporting all the logistics in preparation for the training on a day-to-day basis when the part-time folks come in. That's why it is a fairly substantial chunk of the funding.

    But it's not rightfully part of the original allotment, according to the Auditor General. That's not what the money was there for.

    Talk to me about the money that was redirected out of the reserve fund to other aspects.

    Very quickly.

    This past year all the funding was spent by the army reserve program. In previous years we were unable to spend it with our reserve units, so it was reallocated with proper prioritization within the rest of the army. Some of that was O and M.

    Thank you very much.

    We'll move back to the government side, for seven minutes.

    Mrs. Zahid.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you, witnesses, for providing your input.

    My question is with regard to the Auditor General's recommendation, paragraph 5.32, on guidance for domestic missions.

    It was found that in many instances key equipment, such as reconnaissance vehicles, command posts, and communications equipment, was lacking. I see that your department has addressed...in your detailed action plan, where it is implied that inventories must first be taken to identify equipment shortfalls and gaps, and assess which equipment you really lack.

     Does the department have an approximate estimate for how much funding or resources will need to be allocated to close this equipment disparity between the reserves and the active units?

     Mr. Chair, we are working with the budget that has been given to us right now, so I have no indication whether we're going to have an increase or a decrease. The army gets its fair allocation of that budget, and I have to work within that budget, but there are different allotments of money for different programs.

    Procurement is certainly a program that provides a lot of money, not just to the army but also to the Canadian Forces, which we have to prioritize. In the short term, we are committed to using what we refer to as the minor capital program to address some of the pressing issues for the reserve unit.

    I'd like to make a point here with regard to the reserve unit. Priority will always be given to those units that have a responsive role, and I refer here to those territorial battalion groups.

    Reserve units, as you know, as a rule do not operate as units. They will operate as part of an amalgamation of units or subunits to create one of these as a territorial battalion group, and we have to make sure that this territorial battalion group will have the necessary equipment to be able to perform its task. When we feel they don't have the necessary equipment, equipment will be pooled from the various brigades to give those units priority. That's what has been done in the past and that's what will continue to be done in the future.

    But as was pointed out by the Auditor General, we have to do better in making sure that all of the units have at least the minimum requirement for vehicles and minimum requirement for communications, and this is part of our action plan to take account of what all of the units have at this point. That will need to be dealt with according to priority along with the other competing resources.

    Don't you have any assessment, even for the minimum amount of equipment that you have mentioned, as to how much funding you would require to close the gap?

    I certainly don't have a number for you today on this.

    Some of my colleagues can help you.

    That can be provided.

    Could those figures be provided to the committee?

    I think we can do that. The projects, the vehicles that were spoken about for our territorial battalion groups, are one example, and we could certainly provide those numbers, and as we move forward with other projects we can certainly provide that information.

    Thank you.

    My next question is with regard to paragraph 5.80, which called to “ensure that budgeted annual funding for Army Reserve units is consistent with the expected results”.

     The Department of National Defence responded that it assigns resources to ensure that all mandated tasks are funded and will continue to monitor these tasks and see whether they are consistent with expected results. However, the Auditor General found that the reserves are funded based on each soldier participating in unit activities for 37.5 days per year, along with another seven days of collective training. This would entail such activities as training, administration, civic and ceremonial duties. Also training regarding National Defence policies is expected to be covered in this short period of time.

    Does the department believe this rather short amount of time is sufficient for all of the above, and if not, how many days would you recommend?

    Mr. Chair, may I ask General MacKenzie to answer?

    Mr. Chair, thank you very much for the question. It's a very good one.

    As was mentioned, we're undertaking a complete funding model review to address this. We started various working groups this past year, with consultation through our divisions and right down to the Canadian brigade group level, so the 10 Canadian brigades that command the reserve units across the country, with their comptroller staff, as well as their deputies, to figure out exactly the best balance based on activities that we've done historically, to look at this model and improve it for the future. We also want to include a better breakdown between our reserve pay and the operation and maintenance, so we want to move soldiers and equipment around the country to get the right balance, since organizations are different and asymmetric across the country, and those costs are different. We do want to revise the model and make it better.

     Do you have any idea of how many days you would recommend?

    I wouldn't want to situate the estimate. We are looking at somewhere in the 40 to 50 range. Those are the estimates we're looking at now. The facts will tell us the precise numbers.

    We are going to include it in this year's budget. We're in the process right now of finalizing it for the August-September time frame, so that it actually is included in our next year's fiscal planning as a working and applicable model.

    You only have a few seconds. Are you good?

    Okay, we'll move back to Monsieur Godin.

    Welcome. You have the floor and you have five minutes.

    Only five minutes, Mr. Chair? Thank you. I'm going to try to be brief.

    Gentlemen, thank you for being with us this morning.

    I think that this exercise is very important. Our role is to see to it that there be methods and processes that optimize the use of taxpayers' money.

    Are there any self-assessment mechanisms in your organization or at the Department of National Defence?

    I would like to come back again to the fact that when the representatives of organizations come before the Committee on Public Accounts and get slapped on the wrist, they come back 10 years later and present an action plan and recommendations. However, today, in your structures, I don't see any mechanisms that would optimize the use of public funds.

    I will give you two examples. We have met with people responsible for military housing who did not even know how many units there were. Is that normal? I'll tell you: the answer is no, that is not normal.

    Moreover, the report on the reserve that was tabled today is not reassuring, and the budgets do not match up. You had trouble explaining to my colleague what these figures of 14,000, 18,000 and 21,000 represent. Those people are either there or they are not there. It's confusing. This doesn't generate a feeling of security. And I think that the term is well chosen in this case.

    Do you have some sort of internal self-assessment process? In order for us to feel confident, perhaps you should not wait to appear before the committee, and not wait for the Auditor General to come visit you to do an audit.

    Mr. Chair, thanks for the question.

    There certainly is a self-assessment group. Audits are done internally on a very regular basis. The process has existed for several years and will continue to exist. I apologize if I did not provide sufficient clarification as to the numbers. I can certainly go back to that.

    No, we are talking about the process.

    That's important. In any case, the process exists, Mr. Godin.

    It exists, but is it effective?

    Do you assess your systems in order to verify whether they are effective?

    Absolutely. No recommendation goes without a response. We have to continue to improve them and show that we are continuing to do so in visible ways.

    Providing answers is application, but I'm wondering about your administrative rigour. I am not questioning your good will, nor that of the administrative people. I think you do extraordinary things for the members of the military. The men and women who defend Canadians do good work. Without wanting to overstate things, we'd simply like you to maximize your efforts.

    I'm going to raise another topic. You said earlier that on April 1, 2016, you created a financial account in the organization to ensure that the funds would be allocated to the reserve. I have a question for you on that.

    Are there funds from National Defence that are routed to the reserve to increase budgets without our knowing it? In other words, aside from the sums set aside for the reserve, is money from the National Defence budget transferred and used for reserve equipment?

    That has certainly happened and it could happen again in future. In fact, the yearly financial process is based on quarterly review periods. At that time, we reallocate resources if that is necessary. In the case you have just referred to, if funding is lacking for the reserve, a request is made and duly approved.

    That measure is in fact an additional step that makes the process more cumbersome. I'll give you an example to illustrate the theory of interconnected vessels.

    The Canadian Forces base in Valcartier is in my riding. National Defence invested there to renovate the barracks to house Syrian refugees. As of today, no Syrian refugee has been housed on that Canadian Forces base.

    Consequently, the money that was used to update the barracks will be used for the Canadian Army Reserve. Is that money coming from the reserve budget or was it transferred by accident from the Department of Defence budget?

    As citizens and parliamentarians, we are mired in confusion. The impression we get is that you don't control the internal administration. However, I am not impugning anyone's intentions.

     Thank you very much, Monsieur Godin.

    I don't know, Lieutenant-General—

    I really have no comments to add. You would have to put this question to our chief financial officer, who has the expertise to explain the funds transfer and could explain what accounts they came from.

    What about Mr. Jones? That's perhaps where the deputy, as Mr. Christopherson has pointed out, has been a chief accounting officer of the department. Do you have any comment on that?

    Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it's a good question.

    In respect to the specific item of preparing for the Syrian refugees, that was an initiative that was undertaken. We put in place preparations as part of that program, and we expended funds to get ready for the potential arrival of the Syrian refugees.

     As it turns out, none showed up. Nevertheless, we were directed to get ready, and that's what we did.

    Those particular expenditures and improvements to the infrastructure in Valcartier and elsewhere will not just be used for the reserves; they'll be used for the cadets and others, so they're not assigned to the reserve budget.

    Thank you, Mr. Jones.

    We will now move over to Ms. Shanahan, please. You have five minutes.

     Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here this morning.

    I would like to talk about the raison d'être of the reserves. As a civilian, I remember being surprised to learn that reserve soldiers serve on the front line. I guess I had the idea, not knowing any better, that they were in the background. After learning that they're on the front lines and in deployments, particularly internationally, it's even more of a concern to me when I read they are not always trained properly or have the proper equipment. I am concerned about the personal risk to our reserve soldiers when they are serving.

     I'd like you to talk a little about the raison d'être for reserve soldiers. Will it always be the case that we rely on reserve soldiers for our front lines, or is this something that has just historically evolved?

    Mr. Chair, thank you for the question.

    Yes, we will always rely on our reserve soldiers to complement the army effort in operation. Every year, and I'd like to reassure you, generic guidance is given as training for the reserve soldiers. They have to reach a certain level of training, and it's focused on the foundation training.

    This is predicated on the fact that the additional 37.5 days they will give during the year will complement some of their training. It's also predicated on the fact that if they are deployed on an international operation, they will have pre-deployment training.

     We have already established that we might not have kept some of the data up to date in understanding exactly what was done, but I can assure you that every time any organization is deployed on an operation, the commanders have to do an operational declaration directly to me. They put their signature at the bottom that the training indeed has been done, and we have all the details of that generic training that was done by all of the soldiers. When soldiers deploy in an operation, they are as trained as their regular forces counterparts.

     Thank you for confirming that this is confirmed in writing, because I think that was a remark we saw in the Auditor General's report. Given that the reserve forces are here to stay, and I certainly commend reservists on their service to the country, I'm concerned about paragraph 5.51 from the Auditor General's report stating:

     Please talk to us about that. What are the strategies that are used? Are there new strategies being employed? I'm wondering—and I'm just throwing it out there—if there is a question of morale where reserve soldiers feel like second-class citizens and this is why retention is difficult. I'd like to hear about that.

     General Joyce.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    That's an excellent question.

    In fact, we do have two strategies under way right now for the Canadian Armed Forces. One is for retention and one is for recruiting.

    To be quite clear, these are strategies that are aimed at both the regular force and the reserve force because we are in a period of accelerated recruiting towards targets in the 2018-19 period. We have targets right now of 68,000 for the regular force and 28,500 for the reserve force in the 2018-19 time frame.

    You're absolutely right to bring up both retention and recruiting because they are linked. We have a relatively high attrition rate in the reserves. About 50% of our reservists leave within the first five years, so we have to address that. We're doing that from the military personnel command perspective by targeting a couple of different issues.

    First off, we're looking at creating better mobility between the regular force and the reserve force. We find that this is a good retention strategy. The more that our reservists can become regular force, if that's their desire, or our regular force members, for personal or family reasons, want to become reserve forces, if we improve that flow, then we actually improve the retention of both regular and reserve forces. We're working on that process to streamline that.

    We're also looking at the compensation and benefit structure for the reserves and the regular force, with the objective of aligning the two and using it as a strategic enabler to have a compensation/benefits structure that is going to be attractive to Canadians to join either the regular force or the reserve force. We're looking at current management as a key element, because that can be either a satisfier or a dissatisfier, regardless of whether you're in the reserve force or the regular force. We're looking at family support, because that's key to retaining any individual in the Canadian Armed Forces.

    We're looking at mental health and wellness, of course, and we're looking at diversity. Diversity is a key element. We have to reach out to the less represented members of the Canadian population and bring them in. What we've done in that area, skipping over to recruiting now, is we've actually focused a diversity recruiting team on bringing in elements of the population that are under-represented within the Canadian Armed Forces right now. That strategy—

    Very quickly. We're a minute over.

    I'll speed it up.

    That strategy has four phases and we're moving on them.

    From the recruiting perspective, we're looking at developing a model for the reserves that is more representative of what we currently use for the regular force. We have a very good structure to map out attrition and demand for the regular force. We are going to bring that same model in for the reserve forces, so we can better predict what our needs are going to be in the future and have a much better understanding of what our recruiting requirements are therefore going to be.

    Thank you very much, General.

    We'll now go back to Monsieur Godin.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    In the part of the report that discusses guidelines on Canadian missions, the Office of the Auditor General noted that the Canadian Army had not drawn up the list of equipment that the entire reserve unit should have to train its soldiers and teams for a mission. That is another problem and I don't understand why you can't do an inventory of the equipment.

    The Auditor General also noted that between 2013 and 2015, analyses done after missions in Canada revealed that, in a large number of cases, essential military equipment had been missing, such as reconnaissance vehicles, command posts and communication equipment. Are the reservists the poor relatives of the army?

    Absolutely not.

    Your question was whether the reservists are the poor relatives of the Armed Forces?

    Yes.

    Absolutely not.

    I command an army and the reservists are an inherent part of that army. They are not the poor relatives. Every time we carry out an operation, we prepare reports after reviewing the activities. That is when we see what was done and what was not done. If there was a shortage of equipment—and I do not doubt it since it was reported and the Auditor General's office does very rigorous work—it is because some people lacked initiative at a certain point. There is no reason why certain battalions—since you are referring to territorial battalions—when deployed and in the field, would not have the necessary equipment at their disposal, like the vehicles and communications systems every one of our 10 brigades has. A brigade is made up of 10 to 15 units. So we are probably looking at a blatant lack of know-how on the part of certain people. It is a situation I have noted, and we aren't proud of it. There is no reason for that to happen.

    Nevertheless, it is in black and white in the report. I agree with you, there's no reason for this to happen, but it happened.

    Let's take another example. At the end of a mission, you do an analysis after the fact and you note certain things. What measures should be taken, in your opinion? In the wake of the Auditor General's analysis, should there be a transfer of budgets and some management changes so that you have the essential equipment to fit out our reservists properly?

    Let's take another example. There is a process. There is an operation and you deploy people. Afterwards you analyze things and you realize that there is a problem. The next step is to take the means that are needed to correct the situation. You didn't say anything to me about correcting the problem pointed out by the Auditor General.

    Mr. Chair, measures are being taken in that regard. In fact, we are going to make the process much more rigorous as of today. The territorial battalions will be the object of annual verifications to see whether they have the equipment they need. They are going to be given generic training to be able to face any mission. The process is going to be much more rigorous than it was in the past. Not only will it involve a verbal communication process, as it did before, but there will also be a written part, just as there is for people who are deployed in international missions.

    Thank you. Your answer is reassuring.

    In another connection, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada mentions that the soldiers of the Canadian Army Reserve may sign contracts to serve full-time in their units. However, this is in breach of the actual act that governs you. How will you reconcile that?

     Mr. Chair, I invite the chief of reserves and cadets to talk about this.

    General Bury.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    We certainly accept that recommendation. We're looking at the classes of service in terms of service for our reserve soldiers, sailors, aviators with a view to ensure compliance with the National Defence Act and amending QR and Os going forward.

    It is addressed in the management action plan. I believe you have a copy. That will happen, I believe, by the end of 2017. We will address that and ensure that we are in compliance.

    Mr. Chair, I know I don't have much time left.

    The Auditor General brought to the attention of the Canadian Forces the fact that they were straying from the law. Major-General Bury, following the Auditor General's intervention, you say that you are going to adjust things. I note that you wait to react until you are told that what you do does not comply with the act, or that there are deficiencies in the system. Have you not read the act?

    In fact, we have been dealing with this issue for a number of years. I referred to the study, PRECS, earlier. During the Afghan period there were a significant number of full-time reservists working in support of the institution in Canada deployed. We have looked at that in detail and have reduced significantly the number of full-time reservists to ensure that we are in line with a predominantly part-time professional force. We are continuing to work on that to ensure that we are meeting the regulatory remits and requirements.

    Thank you very much, General.

    We'll now move to Mr. Arya, for five minutes.

     Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    My first question is for Mr. Jones.

    This is quite a bad report. The army reserve is not a new entity. It has been around for so many decades, for over a century, I would say. There are negative factors like funding for 21,000 army reserve soldiers but only 14,000 people were trained; the skill gap is always there, and things like that. The recruitment and retention strategy is not working.

     Was it not flagged internally? Why did you wait until the Auditor General pointed it out to start this review process and develop a new strategy?

    The short answer is, yes. We continually monitor and evaluate programs throughout the department, but I do want to caution you to be careful when you talk about funding for a certain level of employment, if I could put it that way. If the army reserve does not employ the full amount, then the funding is not provided in that magnitude, which is only appropriate.

    I'm not sure if I've helped you.

     I'll come back to that.

    Mr. Joyce, you explained in detail the recruitment and retention strategy. The Auditor General is of the opinion that you will not be able to reach your goal of increasing the size by 950 by 2019. What do you say to that?

    Mr. Chair, it's a good point. It's going to be difficult. I'm not going to sugar-coat it. The type of recruiting we're talking about is going to be a challenge for the current system. The recruiting system has just undergone a major renovation, if you will, and meeting those targets is going to be a challenge. However, we're committed to working towards them. We've put in a number of initiatives about recruiting, as I've mentioned, and a few more that I could go into, if you like, with which we feel we are going to be on track to meet those targets. It's going to be a challenge.

    Thank you, Mr. Joyce.

    Mr. Hainse, you mentioned that, being part-time, the reserve force will be trained to the same standard but not to the same level as the regular force. Additional preliminary training just prior to deployment will always be required.

    The Auditor General says the same thing, but he says that the skills gap was not always addressed during pre-deployment training. It appears that this has always been a well-known fact. Why is it still happening?

    Mr. Chair, I don't doubt what was mentioned in the report. I think this issue deals a lot more with the reporting of data than of the actual training that took place. I have the assurance that in the case of the recent NATO mission, in which we had reservists deployed, they did indeed do the training, and we have in writing that operational declaration.

    Now, was this well captured in all the personnel data for the reservists? I suspect it was not and I suspect this is really what the heart of the issue is here.

    In response to recommendation 5.84, National Defence said that commencing February 9, 2016, expenditures related to the reserve program will be incorporated in the financial reports briefed to senior management.

    Do you agree with the Auditor General's opinion that National Defence may have provided incorrect information to Parliament?

    Mr. Chair, to the member, thank you for the question. The short answer is no. I believe that National Defence has always provided correct information to the best of our ability. I'm not sure I can add much more than that.

    I guess I have about 20 seconds.

    Thank you, Mr. Arya.

    We'll move to Mr. Christopherson.

    Thank you, Chair.

    I need a clarification on something. In the action plan, referencing paragraph 5.34 the issue is:

    That's the OAG's recommendation. Then you responded by saying:

    Help me understand. The whole problem was that it wasn't a formal confirmation. Anyway, help me understand why the verbal confirmation is okay, when a written one is what we were looking for, or am I misunderstanding?

    Mr. Chair, I totally agree that this is confusing and, as I said before, we made a decision that we will, from now on, require not a verbal confirmation, but a written confirmation for all territorial battalion groups, and that is not well reflected in this action plan, as you just pointed out.

    Well, not only is it not well reflected, I think it goes in a different direction. Do I sense that you will want to amend that, that you'll maybe give us an amended paragraph to consider?

    I look at this, and it's confirming that you're going to stay with the verbal confirmation. What I'm getting verbally from you now is that you're going to move to a written confirmation, so I'm asking whether you're going to update that to reflect your answer.

     Mr. Chair, we will update it.

    Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.

    Moving back to your action plan again, the first one, regarding paragraph 5.22, is all about providing guidance so that the reserve unit can prepare their soldiers for key tasks assigned to the army for major international missions, given that we found out that there are some inadequacies there. I'm looking at the key interim milestones, and I'm trying to figure out why it takes a year to go from where we are to December 2016, to December 2017, and to March 2018. I'm having some trouble understanding why it takes that long.

    Mr. Chair, may I ask Mr. Rob Roy MacKenzie to answer that.

    Mr. Chair, thank you very much for the question. I'll address this in two parts.

    First, the Auditor General's recommendation here really assists in work that we've already been doing in publishing some of our doctrine. “Advancing With Purpose” is in its third edition, and now we have “Waypoint 2018”. That's where those expeditionary missions are spelled out in a doctrinal context. We're linking all of this together with the strengthening of reserves initiatives to mission task units across the country, and we'll be in the development of the final stages through this next year. The first phase is where we would see that initial growth. The next phase is more complicated. We want to consult down to the brigade level and the unit levels as to where we would best task units based on their core and branch affiliations, and get that feedback right from the local and regional levels as to where to best mission task those units, where the population and demographics can best support that as well.

    Certainly, this next year, with that first phase of consultation, we embark on the five phases, to get us the growth not only in number but also in capability.

    Okay. Just before I move to my next question, and my time must be very brief, I want to underscore what Monsieur Godin said when he reflected on the issue of reservists being treated as poor cousins or second-class soldiers. I have to tell you that in the almost one year that I was defence critic for my party, everywhere I went in the reservist world, that was the belief, from the commanders right straight down. They thought they were always considered to be second best, to be not as important. Whenever there were cuts, they were terrified, because they thought they were going to bear the brunt of them. I think history shows that's true. There certainly is that, at least, awareness out there, and that's not good. That's something that really needs to change.

    On page 6 of your action plan, regarding paragraph 5.70, I want to come back to the time frames. It says, “National Defence should ensure that it has up-to-date information on whether Army Reserve soldiers are prepared for deployment. This information should include civilian qualifications held by Army Reserve soldiers.” Then I go over to the time frames, and we go from 2017 to 2022, and there are no milestones in between. There's nothing. I have to tell you, for the amount of time I've been on this committee, to project something in 2022 from 2016 suggests to me there's not a lot of detailed thought going on there. I'm just struck by the fact that you have five years laid out and there are no milestones along the way to make sure that things are going the way they should be. In other words, if you go with this, it won't be looked at holistically until the end of five years, at which point we could find out we've lost half a decade because it's not working.

    Would you mind helping me with that?

    Thank you, Mr. Christopherson.

    General Joyce, go ahead, please.

    Mr. Chair, as I mentioned earlier, the Guardian project is a very detailed and fairly large project that consists of four releases of software. The first release is coming up in May, and in fact what you're talking about, the readiness reporting, very specifically the civilian qualifications for our reservist members, are in fact going to be captured in there. That is one step of four, leading to our final operational capability in 2022.

    Each one of those releases actually has an incremental improvement in our ability to pull reports out on readiness for reservists. We're not going to have the full capability of what we want and what we need until the 2022 time frame, but each one of those releases is in fact an incremental improvement.

     Mr. Chair, I want to ask the Auditor General if he is satisfied with that answer.

    Sir.

    I think there are a number of aspects of the answer that raised some questions. I'm satisfied overall with the answer. I think there are a couple of things to be aware of.

    First of all, the problem we were raising in the report was that the data from the existing system couldn't be relied upon. I understand that a new system is going to be put in place, but it's not just a system. There's already been a system. There need to be the appropriate controls, the appropriate quality assurance, and that type of thing to make sure the information is properly captured, or we end up just putting another system in place that ends up having the same problems.

    There's been a lot of emphasis on the system. That's good, and that's important, and it will be a more modern and up-to-date system, but it's very much also a matter of making sure the data is captured and somebody's making sure the quality of the data exists.

    The other thing I'm a bit confused about—and I understand these systems are complex, and it can take many years to put them in place—is that earlier on it was mentioned that underlying this is a move from PeopleSoft 7.5 to PeopleSoft 9.2, which I assume means that PeopleSoft version 9.2 already exists. When you have that type of a system, to have to go from a 7.5 to a 9.2 means there have been other releases of that software in the meantime that have not been put in place. Usually a strategy with IT systems is to make sure those upgrades are put in place on a regular basis, so you don't end up with a big project of going from a release that is older and maybe even not supported to the most recent release. That can be a big project when you are skipping over a number of other releases rather than having updated it along the way.

    Maybe I am reading too much into that, but I think some explanation of that move from 7.5 to 9.2 would also be warranted.

    All right. Thank you.

    Thank you, Mr. Christopherson.

    Before we go back to Ms. Mendès, I do want to make clear on this, Mr. Jones, that it's going to have to be through the department, but this data issue is an issue that is not just with National Defence. It is every department that is having these types of issues. It's not like we're singling out National Defence.

    There are three specific questions for which we would like answers back in writing from the department. Those three questions we can get to you, but I will read them right now.

    First, what concrete action will your organization take to ensure it collects relevant information or data on qualifications needed for deployment?

    Second, what quality assurance framework will your organization implement to ensure the quality of its data?

    Third, what does National Defence need to investigate and analyze to determine whether data on civilian qualifications should be collected?

    We can add a fourth one, and the fourth one would be exactly the question our Auditor General just posed to you. What type of difficulties do you see going from one system to the other system? Is this going to be a reason to beg for another extension, or a reason to lengthen the amount of time before you move into that system?

    Could you get those answers back to us fairly soon, as we'll be writing a report fairly soon, and we need those.

    Ms. Mendès.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    I thank all of the witnesses for being here with us today.

    You have just raised several questions we all had here. In fact, I have more comments than questions.

    I read the reports and I heard everything that was said today. I am struck by something. The Canadian Army is recognized for its excellence, both military and operational. This is something we acknowledge and we know it. However, I am really pained to note that you seem singularly incompetent in the management of your human resources. I am saying this in the context of our study on the reserve, but also in light of everything we hear about discrimination and perhaps harassment. Your human resource management is problematical.

    As we have just seen, you also seem to have trouble managing information technology. I think it's remarkable that you can be as effective as you are in combat or mission situations, and at the same time, have so many problems managing human resources. I don't think any piece of software is going to solve that problem. The issues seem rather to be a matter for your human resources managers.

     I've also been quite surprised by this class of soldiers that was created by the Canadian Forces and that doesn't even exist in the National Defence Act, which is the reserve. How do you find this acceptable, particularly as you seem to find this a way of paying them less than you would pay a regular soldier?

    These are my questions and my doubts. Again, I am always extremely impressed by the phenomenal excellence of the Canadian Forces in terms of operational capacity, but I find it very distressing that in the management of human resources, there is such a big issue. That I leave as a statement more than anything else.

    Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

    Ms. Mendès, I don't know if there is a question there.

    Mr. Jones.

    The member raised a very good point. I'll try to clarify.

    The Guardian project certainly involves an underlying IT system and so forth, but it's much more than that. It's to change the business processes for the way we do our HR management in the military. I think the member raises the question. We are just at the beginning of changing some of the processing, defining them and so forth. The system, the IT work, will come later, as General Joyce talked about.

    The precise point of Guardian is to change the way we manage human resources. That's what it's all about. It's not about the system, as the member points out.

    I think that goes with your retention issues to. If you want to retain your personnel, you'd have to actually offer them the conditions to find themselves appreciated and valued within the Canadian Forces.

    The current HR system we have for managing the military, not just for the reserve, is very complicated. There are many different layers that, over the years, have been put onto the system. We're doing a fundamental rethink of how we manage the Canadian Armed Forces from an HR point of view, which will provide a benefit to not only General Hainse but the chief of the defence staff, a better way to manage those resources. It will also enable us to do a better job of managing HR for CAF members from when they're recruited to when they release and become private citizens. The issue of closing the seam is also relevant to this discussion as well.

    Thank you, Ms. Mendès.

    We'll now move back to Mr. Poilievre.

    The Auditor General raised the concern of preparing our reservists for the circumstances that they will encounter if and when deployed. It seems to me this is an extremely difficult thing to do because you don't know where, when, or how they'll be deployed. It could be a massive forest fire in northern Alberta, flooding in Calgary, or it could be deployment overseas to respond and retaliate to a terrorist attack at home.

    How do our forces prepare reservists given the variability of deployment possibilities?

     Certainly, Mr. Chair. Thanks for the question.

    That's why directions are given for the reservists to train in what I refer to as foundation training, force protection, so they know they need to master how to be a soldier, first and foremost, to be able to protect themselves and then to protect their counterparts or the population, the people they have to protect. They also need to train to a level of training where you start to bring the team together, which we refer to as level 3 platoon level, to participate in a company level. Those two terms mean between level 30% to 40% to participate within a company level of about 100 to 120 people.

    My belief is that if they do this training properly, they will be able to meet the generic threat. Once we know a bit more about where they are going to deploy, to be employed, this is where we will add a portion of training that is specific to the mission.

    Now your question will probably be, what do you do if they have to react to floods or fires or things like that. This is where we are doing specific training for them, the territorial battalion group, which has a specific role to focus on domestic operations. This is how we train them, but not every reserve unit has that particular training.

    In paragraph 5.46 of the Auditor General's report, it says, “We found that National Defence has determined that about 29,000 positions in the Army Reserve would be its ideal size. This number of positions allows the Army Reserve to expand when increases to funding are authorized”.

    We discussed earlier that in reality, the number of fully trained and active reservists is 14,000, which is roughly half the ideal size. You're funded for 21,000. You've explained there's a gap, based on the fact that some of your reservists are not trained and some are not active, and therefore, not included in the Auditor General's count.

    All that being said, we are a long way from the ideal size. What is the cause of the disparity between the ideal and the reality?

    General MacKenzie, your response, please.

    Mr. Chair, thank you for the question.

    The 29,000 number is the establishment, as we call it, of filling out every single one of our units. The exhibit diagram in the Auditor General's report lays out the 21,000 number. That is the number we're funded to, and it is the reality of where we were in recent history in size of units and based on the demographics of Canada.

    We're looking very hard at this additional growth, which will be a challenge for us, but we will always have to train a specific number of soldiers in basic training and that is where the fairly substantial gap is, close to 4,000.

    That's the break between the 18,000 and this 14,000 number. The reality of what we need to meet the needs of Canada in the future, we still want to keep the establishments where they are. I don't think funding that would even be close to realistic today. That's not where we are today. That's what we're here talking about. That additional 8,000 on our establishment is if the need is there to grow in a very rapid fashion, based on the world situation, that we have that flexibility. That's the way to put it.

    That's all.

    Thank you very much.

    We'll now move to Mr. Christopherson again, please.

    I heard that “again”.

    I shouldn't say how the chair has failed today, but on your three-minute round, you did have 10 minutes.

     I was very appreciative. I didn't want to say thanks, because I would have circled it, but I appreciate it. You know it was either then or later; it was going to find its way out, but I appreciate it. Thank you.

    This is more of a comment, an observation, if you will, in closing my remarks, because I think we've done a pretty thorough job of going through the issues that have been raised. I hope I can say this without being out of line, because I mean it as a positive thing. I'm very pleased to see that my friend John McKay is here as the parliamentary secretary. It not only underscores, I hope, the importance they place on the great work that our fellow Canadians do in DND, but also it emphasizes and underscores his personal commitment. I worked with him when he was in opposition. I know he cares about these issues.

    What I want to say to the government members and to the representatives here is, if nothing else over the next couple of years, find a way to reflect the respect that I know you have for our reservists and the respect that our communities have. Most of the public would more likely be interacting with a reservist than anyone else, and when they're pumping out negative stories—not that they're not proud, but in the context of wishing they were treated the same as the full-time—all of it is sending that negative message.

    I would urge the government members and the leadership of our military here to go out of their way in the next while to give them the respect they deserve. Let them know that they matter, and that the era of their getting less training, less equipment—less, less, less—is over and that there's an over-emphasis, if anything, in the next couple of years on underscoring the value of reservists and how important they are, and again on recognizing that without them we don't have a Canadian Armed Forces, that they are a key integral part of it.

    I know that's the way everyone feels. I think it's a matter of getting it reflected out there and perhaps giving the reservists a feeling that there's a corner turned, a change of attitude, that maybe their day of finally getting the full respect they deserve and support is here. That can only be a good thing.

    Other than that, Chair, I just want to thank.... We hit hard at this committee, because it's for accountability. We know about accountability, because we get it on the doorstep. We know what it's like. But it always needs to be said that we're incredibly proud of all of our fellow citizens who serve in uniform, from all of you here at the top of the house, all the way down to every single soldier and support civilian involved. We're very proud of our military history and our contemporary military, and we only look to work with you to strengthen it.

    Thank you, Chair.

    Thank you very much, Mr. Christopherson.

    We'll move to Mr. DeCourcey. Welcome here.

    Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

    I thank all of the witnesses for being here with us this morning.

    I'm pleased to be a part of this committee since I have the honour of representing a riding that contains the largest military training base in Canada, in Gagetown.

    I've certainly heard on the doorstep, in a community with a rich military tradition, about the concern around the health of the military reserves.

    I want to get back to the question of recruitment and retention, because I'm really interested in understanding more what they look like in a community such as the one I represent.

    General Joyce, you talked about integration in the plan going on between reservists and regular forces. You talked about mental health, about diversity. You mentioned four phases. I'm interested in hearing a little bit more about that and about whether the financial and human resources exist and how you evaluate the work being done as you implement those four phases of recruitment and retention.

     Thank you very much for the question.

    The four phases were specifically for the retention strategy, and we're looking at reaching final operational capability for that by the summer of 2018. That's looking at those specific elements.

    One of the areas that I think you would be very interested in is the approach we're taking specifically for recruiting reserves. One of the initiatives that we have under way is a partnership between the recruiting group, the army, and the Royal Canadian Navy. In fact, right now we have a primary reservist from the Canadian Army in each one of our recruiting groups and most of our detachments. It's very important to have the face of the reservist out there meeting with the potential recruits. That's one of the initiatives we're looking at specifically for attraction. We have the same thing with the Royal Canadian Navy.

    To speed up the recruiting of reservists is a real focus of ours. We're looking at reducing the time frame for bringing reservists in, to 60 to 90 days for processing. We need to capture their attention and keep them in the armouries, specifically. We're going to do that by transferring some of our workforce, about 12 individuals within the recruiting group, to specifically work on reserve force files. That is under way right now.

    One of the other initiatives we have under way is something called a conditional enrolment. This is where an individual comes into an armoury and is interested in joining that armoury or that regiment, and then, because we have an intake process we have to follow that includes, for example, medical and security clearances, what we do is move those elements to later. We're bringing them in and welcoming them into the armouries with the condition that they meet the medical and security requirements later on. That process will definitely occur, but this will speed up the intake.

    From the medical perspective, one of our bottlenecks is getting those medicals done for our new reservists. We're looking at doing a trial whereby we would have family doctors, for example, do these medical assessments.

    These are a couple of areas we're looking at that will actually speed up the intake and processing, and therefore start to build on that recruiting bow wave to start reaching our targets.

    In the ongoing evaluation of that, are you confident that you have the resources and tools available to ensure that it helps increase the recruitment levels?

    Yes, I'm confident that we have the initiatives moving forward. We are certainly going to work towards those targets that I mentioned earlier. They are challenging targets, as I've said.

    Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you for the good questions.

    I will tell you this. I'm done with reading these briefings in the evening before I try to go to bed, because I had a tough night's sleep last night going through this briefing. Some of the reasons have already been brought up. Let me just read one. It's in your responses. Last night when I was going through this, I read where the Auditor General recommended:

    Then the Department of National Defence responded. The Auditor General has asked to make sure that they have clear guidance so they can prepare the soldiers. The response was that it will work towards improving its policy, improving its guidance for anticipated key tasks.

    In one case where the Auditor General asks for clear guidance, clear directives, you will say, “Well, we'll do the best we can. We'll work toward it.”

    Mr. Christopherson brought forward the other one which I read last night to formally confirm that they're ready for whatever mission they have. It came back that you will give a verbal confirmation through the chain of command that they're ready to go.

    It was just frustrating going through the briefing last night.

    Going back to the first one here, the clear guidance for key tasks assigned to them, what's the timeline for that commitment? What timeline can you give this committee that you will move towards that clear guidance, not just to work toward it, but to see that they get it?

     Mr. Chair, thank you for the questions. I will get the first crack at the answer and then maybe General Rob Roy MacKenzie can speak as well.

    First, I believe that we are now providing clear guidance to the reservists on what is expected of them. As I said a couple of times during this meeting, this guidance is being given in more generic terms for doing foundation training. This is predicated on the fact that during the 37.5 days of training they do during the year, they will do a continuum of training, do other types of training. If we have an operation, they will carry on and do some pre-deployment training. We will know at that time what guidance we need to give them.

    Having said this, I side certainly with the Auditor General's remarks concerning some of the mission tasks that could be given right now to the reservists, which we could certainly improve.

     Among the types of mission tasks we are looking at right now is one that is currently ongoing in the area of influence activities. Civil and military co-operation is one of the tasks they have, and they receive clear guidance on this, because reservists are expected to do that task at any point at any time.

    Other tasks that could be given to the reservists, convoy escort security and force protection, for example, are the types of tasks that they could carry on during an international operation, and we certainly could improve in giving clearer guidance.

    There are also other tasks we are looking at. Our action plan should be completed by March 2018, once we have totally implemented the strengthening the reserve force plan that we have set in motion.

    It seems like a long period of time, but certainly, if it's accomplished, that's good.

    General Joyce, thank you for what you said in regard to recruitment. That was one of the other concerns I had. I spoke to one who was a reservist, and he said that 20 years ago they could go in and sign up and really, within a matter of just a few short weeks, he said two or three weeks, they would be given an indication as to where they would have their basic training; that in two or three weeks they would know they were in the system.

    He told me that currently it takes more than six months. I don't know whether that timeline is correct or not. You said today that you're going to be focused on 30 to 90 days.

    Again, is that the correct timeline? Does it take approximately six months from someone's wanting to sign up? How are you going to speed it up?

    Mr. Chair, that's a great question.

    I can say that some people probably do take six months. It depends upon their personal circumstance, on their medical situation, on whether they're from out of country. We have to take all of those factors into consideration as we look towards the processing of their file.

    What we're looking at right now, and I covered a couple of these points already, is streamlining the process down to 60 to 90 days. To us, that is a fine balance between accepting risk and being risk averse. What this will do is ensure that we will bring the interested people into the armouries, number one, but it will ensure that we have a way to know that we have the medically fit people, because we need folks who are medically fit, able to be employed and deployed, and able to get security clearances.

    To repeat, a couple of the things we're doing include the conditional enrolment and moving the medical exams out into the provincial sector through personal doctors. These are going to speed up the process, without a doubt. We're also reviewing the entire process for intake, for recruiting. We're looking at streamlining it as much as possible. We feel that our objective of 60 to 90 days is the target we want to achieve, and we're confident we're going to achieve it.

     Thank you.

    I'll tell you, I think some of the ads you have for recruitment are some of the best. Even for old guys like me, it looks like the life to live. I think that's a big part of the recruitment as well.

    Just in closing, to our Auditor General, sir, is there anything else you think we should be requesting from the department, or from those that have given us testimony today, and is there any summary that you would have?

    I'll mention a couple of things. We do have an audit under way on recruitment and retention, and the plan is that we will report on that in the fall. You'll have another opportunity to get into that subject in further detail then.

    One thing I did want to touch on was there was a lot of conversation about the numbers, and 14,000 soldiers versus 18,000, and 21,000. I'm afraid the main point in that has been lost a bit. I would refer people to exhibit 5.4, which is on page 11 of our report just above paragraph 5.49. In that exhibit, that's where we identified the 29,000 soldiers with 21,000 funded positions. The next thing we said was that 19,500 was the average number of soldiers, but not all of those soldiers are trained, and that's why it got down to 13,944 or essentially 14,000.

    When we did the audit, we were saying there were about 19,500 soldiers, but 14,000 of them were trained. What we are hearing today is that there are now 18,500 soldiers, with about 13,200 trained, if I understand from the lieutenant-general.

    The issue, or the most important point, is that from these numbers we reported there has been another decline of about 1,000 soldiers in the army reserve. In all of the conversations about the numbers, that message has gotten lost a bit. What is important is we both agree that you can look at a number of soldiers, and we had 19,500, but then we said only 14,000 of them were trained. Now we're hearing it's 18,500 with 13,200 trained. The issue is that there has been another decline of 1,000 soldiers in that time period.

    Thank you very much for summarizing parts of the problem of retention and the importance of recruiting and training. We can't just say it's retention or recruiting, it's the training part as well. You will be hearing from us again, or we'll be hearing from you again, with the deputy minister in the fall in regard to that.

    I want to make sure we finish on a good note, because I think you've heard it by all members of this committee. Camp Wainwright is in my constituency. I can tell you how important the work you do is to our communities, to our country, and to all those. We're proud of the job you do. It's a tough job and a most difficult job. The government's top priority is to protect its citizens at home and abroad, in some cases fighting for democracy, and in other cases helping in times of national emergency. You guys respond every time. We thank you for your work.

    Our work is to take an Auditor General's report, make sure there's follow up to it, and make sure there's accountability to it. We try to do our job. We know you're doing your job, and we thank you for being here today.

    The meeting is adjourned.