THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, DEFENCE AND VETERANS AFFAIRS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Monday, May 15, 2023
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs met with videoconference this day at 4 p.m. [ET] to examine and report on issues relating to national security and defence generally; and, in camera, to study the subject matter of those elements contained in Division 24 of Part 4 of Bill C-47, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 28, 2023.
Senator Tony Dean (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Welcome to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs. I am Tony Dean, a senator from Ontario and chair of the committee. I would invite my colleagues to introduce themselves.
Senator Anderson: I’m Margaret Dawn Anderson from the Northwest Territories.
Senator Yussuff: Hassan Yussuff, Ontario.
Senator Boehm: Peter Boehm, Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Gignac: Senator Gignac from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Oh: Victor Oh, Ontario.
Senator R. Patterson: Rebecca Patterson, Ontario.
Senator Ravalia: Welcome. Mohamed Ravalia, Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Chair: Thank you, colleagues.
Today, we focus our attention on issues related to recruitment and retention in the Canadian Armed Forces and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and how those issues might impact on long-term deployments.
In our first panel, we are pleased to welcome, from the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces, Lieutenant-General Lise Bourgon, Acting Commander, Military Personnel Command; Lieutenant-General Jennie Carignan, Chief, Professional Conduct and Culture; and Brigadier-General Krista Brodie, Commander, Military Personnel Generation Group.
Thank you for joining us. I will invite you to present your opening remarks, which will be followed by questions from senators. I understand that LGen. Bourgon will be delivering today’s remarks. You may begin whenever you are ready.
Lieutenant-General Lise Bourgon, Acting Commander, Military Personnel Command, Department of National Defence: Thank you very much, chair. I would like to start by acknowledging that we are gathered on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg people.
Within the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces, I am responsible for people: recruitment, training, education, pay, benefits, health services, career management, transition services and a host of other personnel supports.
I am joined today by Brigadier-General Krista Brodie, who is the Commander of Military Personnel Generation Group, or MPGG. MPGG is the part of my organization that is responsible for new military personnel intake management, recruiting and entry-level training of all new CAF members.
[Translation]
With me also today is Lieutenant-General Jennie Carignan, Chief of Professional Conduct and Culture, CPCC, who works to unify and integrate all culture change activities across the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces, or CAF.
I want to start by thanking the committee for undertaking this study that touches on my mandate, including training and retaining people for the CAF.
[English]
People are my focus. They are the military’s most important capability, and they are essential to our overall readiness. But when I talk about people being our capability, I’m not just talking about how quickly we can respond to threats and emergencies. To me, readiness equals the right number of healthy and well-supported individuals who, in turn, can give their best to the service of their country, as each of us is sworn to do.
It also follows that, without the right number of people in uniform, we cannot deliver the strategic effects Canada and Canadians want and need. That is where I want to focus my remarks. I want Canadians and permanent residents to see Canada’s military as a place where they can build their future.
[Translation]
I also want to reassure the committee that Canada’s military continues to evolve its workplace culture. We are taking these issues seriously and have accomplished a lot in a relatively short time.
[English]
I’m pleased to report that in April this year, the Canadian Armed Forces Recruiting Group has witnessed almost 2.5 times the number of applicants this fiscal year compared to the same month last year. We have extended more than five times the number of enrolment offers in April 2023 than were extended in April 2022.
We’re also seeing an increase in the number of women, Indigenous people and visible minorities who are applying to join.
[Translation]
It is believed that our recent initiatives are assisting this strong start.
[English]
We started by redesigning how we recruit and train our soldiers, sailors and aviators from the ground up. When it comes to attracting new recruits, our new general awareness campaign, “This is For You,” represents important steps in the right direction. Hopefully, all of you have been on Google and have seen the new video. Our campaign helps people in our target demographic, which is diverse Canadians and permanent residents between the ages of 18 and 34, to see themselves as part of our organization.
[Translation]
We have also employed a new team who are actively working on solutions to modernize the recruiting system, so we can process applications faster and stop losing candidates to an overly long process.
[English]
What’s more, basic training has been redesigned, with a focus on professional conduct in action, individual and team resilience, and foundational military skills rather than “breaking down and rebuilding” people the way we used to.
[Translation]
In an effort to boost numbers, last year, we announced that permanent residents can now join. Permanent residents represent an important, skilled and diverse workforce that we need to start hiring.
[English]
As family dynamics have changed with each generation, so too have military families. We continue to find new and timely initiatives to support and retain our families, and in doing so, we retain military members. We know that recruitment is only one piece of the pie and that retention is paramount to our readiness. Much is being done on that front. I can elaborate on that during the questions period.
However, despite our best efforts, the gravity of the situation is outpacing us. We need more people to join if we’re going to meet the challenges of tomorrow.
[Translation]
The world has changed dramatically, not only geopolitically, but also economically. The next generation wants and expects very different things from their careers and their employers.
[English]
While we certainly have our share of internal issues to address, which we have been actively working on with our many culture-change initiatives, Canada’s military has, and will always offer, a very compelling and rewarding career, with opportunities for growth that I would say very few organizations in Canada can match. We are listening to what Canadians want, need and expect from us, and we need to do a better job of demonstrating and communicating this to Canadians.
[Translation]
I want to end by highlighting that all the initiatives we are working on are critical to a healthy and diverse workforce.
[English]
We need to generate and retain the necessary people and modernize across the enterprise if we want to have a strong and ready military in the future. We are committed, and we hope this next hour and a half will show you that.
However, we need your voices, your support and your continuing to challenge us to do better.
[Translation]
I look forward to your questions, and to a frank discussion. Thank you very much.
[English]
The Chair: Thanks, lieutenant-general. That was a good, balanced presentation to start us off this afternoon.
Before we proceed to questions, I would like to ask participants in the room to please refrain from leaning in too close to your microphones or to remove your earpiece when doing so. That will avoid any sound feedback that could negatively impact any committee staff in the room.
Lieutenant-General Bourgon, Lieutenant-General Carignan and Brigadier-General Brodie will be with us this afternoon until 5:15 p.m. In order to ensure that each member has time to participate, I would like to limit each question, including the answer, to five minutes, which seems to be plenty of time. Please keep your questions succinct, and please identify the person or persons you are addressing your question to.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: Welcome, ladies. I’m very happy to hear that you’re aware of the recruitment problem and that you’re making huge efforts to get back to the 2015 military personnel numbers. I remind you that we had 66,400 military personnel in the Armed Forces back then and now we’re almost below 40,000; that’s a huge difference.
You know that you’re competing with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, RCMP, the Sûreté du Québec and the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal. Are you considering raising wages to be competitive on the job market?
LGen. Bourgon: Thank you very much for the question. I think our headcount is much higher than that. We’re about 62,500 people, so the situation isn’t quite as dramatic. When you look at pay and benefits, the Canadian Armed Forces have a special offer. People tend to focus on the salary deposited at the middle and end of the month from a compensation perspective, but the Canadian Armed Forces offer is much bigger than that.
We try to make sure our people understand the whole picture of what they get when they put on their uniform. It’s more than just pay; it’s also health and dental care for them and their families, a pension fund, leave, education, opportunities —
Senator Boisvenu: I understand all that. The RCMP provides the same benefits. Employees have the same benefits; you’re no better. Last year, you lost 10% of your military personnel. The exact figure is 5,943. Taking into account the pandemic period, you lost a lot of women in the Canadian Armed Forces following the report — which took a long time to be tabled — on sexual assault. Can you tell me what the status of women in the Canadian Armed Forces is and how many women you have lost over the past three years?
LGen. Bourgon: I don’t have the exact figures, but I can tell you that the attrition rate for women is slightly below the attrition rate for men. I think the men’s rate is 9% and the women’s is about 8.5%. It’s not a question of loss; it’s rather that, every year, we have a deficit between the people we’re able to recruit and the people who leave the forces for one reason or another related to attrition. As far as statistics concerning women go, the rate of people leaving the forces is a little bit lower than that for men.
Senator Boisvenu: Could you table with the committee a report on the state of Canadian Armed Forces personnel by corps: navy, air force, and land forces? According to the data I have, which comes from military personnel on the ground, there is a major recruitment problem. As you said earlier, it takes a lot of time and paperwork. It’s a huge bureaucracy.
We know that, in the last 10 years or so, the number of senior commanders, leaders in the Armed Forces, has almost doubled. A lot of people have been promoted in Ottawa, but elsewhere in Canada, you’re short-staffed. That’s what people on the ground are telling me. I’d like you to table a fairly up-to-date troop status report for the three sectors.
Here is my other question. I don’t know if the Armed Forces are not being promoted in Quebec or if more promotion is done in English Canada. Other private companies are more aggressive in recruiting. I don’t see any strategy in the media or in schools to recruit young people. In Quebec, 50% of boys don’t finish high school. Do you have a strategy for recruiting these young people, who are likely to have a relatively poor working life because they have no profession? Do you have a specific strategy to attract young men who, as we know, are in the majority when it comes to dropping out?
LGen. Bourgon: That’s a very good question. As for our recruitment strategy, I can yield the floor to Krista, who can talk about that. Ultimately, we do a lot of targeting of equity groups — women, visible minorities and Indigenous people. I’ll yield the floor to Krista who will talk about what we’re doing in high schools and in advertising.
[English]
Brigadier-General Krista Brodie, Commander, Military Personnel Generation Group, Department of National Defence: Thank you, Mr. Chair and senators.
I will start by saying that we have a robust campaign design by which we are dividing our efforts between immediate interventions, modernization efforts and long-term transformation efforts to really drive forward and build an awareness across the Canadian landscape.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: About two months ago, I heard a 20-year-old on Quebec City radio. He had just finished his recruit course and was talking about how it had changed him. I thought he was the best salesman to attract young people to the Canadian Armed Forces. I hope you’re going to make use of newly trained recruits. I have a son-in-law who was recruited into the Canadian Armed Forces. He’s in Borden now, working as a mechanic on large aircraft. These young people will be your best salespeople.
The young man, who is a dropout, did his recruit course and all of a sudden the light came on and the Canadian Armed Forces offered him an opportunity for the future. People like that will be your best salespeople. Instead of going to marketing firms that are going to cost us an arm and a leg, use the young people who have come to the Canadian Armed Forces and discovered a positive place, and who are going to embark on an worthwhile career. They’ll be your best salespeople.
LGen. Bourgon: You’re absolutely right, senator. We have to use our people. Every time I talk to people, I tell them that it’s their role, it’s the role of the Canadian Armed Forces to get involved in the recruitment aspect. We mustn’t forget that, during the two years of COVID, we didn’t leave our bases. We had no engagements in society. We weren’t allowed to go into high schools, CEGEPs or universities. We lost that relationship with Canadians. We’re in the process of rebuilding it, and we’ve encouraged everyone — the army, the air force and the navy — to make more and more community engagements.
Cadets are another great group to look at to engage Canadians. Our uniformed employees, who have had positive experiences, are the best recruiters. We can send them back to their communities and high schools to say, “If I was successful in the Canadian Armed Forces, you can do the same.” You’re absolutely right.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you very much. I think we’re just beginning this conversation.
Senator Oh: Thank you, witnesses, for being here. It’s nice to have a conversation with three generals.
My question for you is this: You mentioned earlier about how recruiting has now shifted into also looking for permanent residents to join. That’s what you say. Can you tell me about the progress on this promotion? How many do you have? What is the percentage of permanent residents — diversity — that you intend to attract?
LGen. Bourgon: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ll get Krista to answer this question. She’s got all the numbers.
BGen. Brodie: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We currently have approximately 4,500 active permanent residents files. Those are files that have entered the recruiting process since the beginning of November. What we’re finding with the permanent residents files is that they are motivated to join. They are actively engaged in the recruiting process.
We screen their files for three things: suitability, medical and security. With the permanent residents, we find that the security portion of their screenings gets delayed due to the foreign implications with their files. As we build out capacity in the system and across our government partners to accelerate the processing of those files, we hope to be able to onboard more and more of those permanent residents.
What we have seen since the November time frame with the opening of the aperture of applicants to permanent residents is an increase in the number of Canadian citizens who are commencing the application process as well. Consistently, since November, with both Canadian citizen applicants and permanent resident applicants, we are seeing rebounding applicant numbers month over month consistently above threshold and historical norms.
Senator Oh: Is there any particular group of visible minorities that the Armed Forces are looking for? Asian, African, or any particular region?
BGen. Brodie: We have opened the aperture wide, and as we conduct increasing targeted attractions activities, we are looking across all underrepresented communities within the Canadian Armed Forces to really ensure that we become a reflection of the society we serve. While I don’t have the demographic breakdowns within the permanent resident cadre, we are seeing interest from many underrepresented communities.
As we build out our relationships with these communities, with leaders, with influencers, with families and using ambassadors from within the Canadian Armed Forces who are already serving to connect back with their communities, we are finding there is a grassroots interest that is beginning to percolate and swell. We can now use individual members of the Canadian Armed Forces to act almost as ambassadors to help individual applicants through the process and to navigate all of the questions they have with respect to the nature of the work and how to navigate the process itself. We are finding there is a much higher rate of people sticking with the process when they receive those supports. We’re seeing a higher conversion rate with our permanent residents when we compare people with communities that can help them navigate the process.
Senator Oh: Very good. If you need an ambassador, I’m here.
BGen. Brodie: Thank you.
I will offer that we do need a whole-of-nation approach. We need there to be a conversation in every community and at every table that really incites curiosity and confidence around the Canadian Armed Forces and elevates that level of awareness so that we can be having conversations over 100 occupations, the many different education programs, entry programs and options for full-time and part-time employment. There is tremendous opportunity for there to be that whole-of-nation partnership that elevates awareness and reinvigorates the CAF as that vital and necessary national institution, particularly when we face the security climate that we are looking for in the future.
Senator Oh: That is important, because the country is looking for the diversity that fits into Canada’s multiculturalism. Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Gignac: I welcome our witnesses. I’d like to begin by thanking you and commending you for your commitment and the work you do for the protection and safety of Canadians and your colleagues.
I’m interested in statistics and international comparisons. With my colleague Senator Boisvenu and others, we had the opportunity to work for two days in February in Brussels, where we heard that recruitment problems weren’t occurring only in Canada.
I’m just curious, do you have any international comparative statistics? I’m asking because attrition rates of 8% or 9% are still high, in my opinion. I’m curious to hear you talk about that, please.
LGen. Bourgon: That’s an excellent question, Mr. Chair.
It’s interesting because I had a meeting last week with the five Five Eyes countries. We talked specifically about recruitment and retention challenges; so we’re not alone in experiencing these difficulties.
Last year, in the United States, whose military is a huge machine with an incredible recruitment system, the recruitment rate was 25% below the expected figures. The air force, meanwhile, was able to recruit, but probably more because of the movie Top Gun than anything else.
When you look at this year, all three U.S. services — the air force, the navy and the army — don’t believe they’re going to meet their recruiting metrics. Only the marines are going to be able to do it, with their attrition being around 15%.
The United Kingdom achieved in the last year 75% of its target for all three services. The country experienced its highest attrition rate in 20 years. When we look at Australia, 75% of its recruitment target has been achieved, and its attrition rate is 11.4%.
So, when we look at our attrition rate in Canada, normally we’re between 7% and 8%. We saw a small rise after the COVID-19 pandemic, because people didn’t come out for two and a half years, and then some caught up. Our attrition rate is around 9%, but it’s the lowest among Five Eyes countries.
Finally, the problem is the same everywhere.
Senator Gignac: Thank you.
You can see from the nature of my and my colleagues’ questions — and that’s how it is for all the people gathered around the table — that we’re acting in a non-partisan way to support you and brainstorm with you about what could be done to help you. That’s the nature of our questions.
In the private sector, where I come from, we had comparative data with other companies in the same industry and basically, to compare. Do you have any comparative data? I think it was senators Boisvenu and Dagenais who talked about it: When you compare, whether it’s the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal, provincial police forces or other RCMP forces, you said it wasn’t just because of money, but that money still had a role to play.
Young people have a different mentality than my generation, which is that loyalty is associated with an institution or an organization; it’s no longer the same as in our time.
I think money plays a role and you have all this comparative data. Can you tell us tonight that money is not a predominant factor? I would tend to believe that it is a very important factor in the decision to go to the City of Montreal rather than the army.
LGen. Bourgon: Thank you, that’s a very good question. I’ll answer your question a little differently.
We published a retention strategy last year and part of it was to better understand the reasons for attrition — attrition that isn’t healthy — and the reasons why people leave the Canadian Armed Forces.
Now we’re really asking the right questions: “Why are you leaving the Canadian Armed Forces?” So the results are quite similar to those we’ve been compiling over the past five years. The main reason people leave is the quality of their job and opportunities. That’s the number one reason, so it’s not the pay, it’s not the compensation.
Sure, benefits and compensation become a third factor for leaving, and, of course, one of the factors is career and family life balance, relocations, mobility and deployments, and so on.
We’re increasingly trying to understand why people leave the forces to try to take initiatives to help us on the retention front.
When you look specifically at SPVM wages versus military police, you have to look at the full benefits package and the education component, which are a little bit different. However, our wages are similar. We don’t quite have the agility to adapt as quickly on our side, and that’s perhaps one of our weaknesses. However, we’re working on it with the Treasury Board.
Senator Gignac: Thank you.
[English]
Senator Ravalia: Thank you to all of you for your contribution to our country.
I want to focus on the retention issue from the perspective of mental health challenges that you face given the experiences of individuals who have had actual on-the-ground war experiences — post-traumatic stress disorder and dealing with the sequelae of that, as well as long separations from family, creating potential tension within the family unit. I’m asking this from the perspective of having worked as a rural family doctor and having cared for veterans who were suffering from significant mental health challenges. Do you have a process in place that affords easy access to mental health supports, such as counselling, physician and psychiatric care, particularly in terms of the longevity of some of these mental health stresses, for actually getting individuals back into the forces and on the ground?
LGen. Bourgon: Thank you. It is a very good question.
We do have the health care support. However, like Canada as a whole, we are limited. We could have more medical and mental health supports. This is one of the things we need more of, but so does Canada as a society. We’re doing the best we can in terms of trying to afford good health care for our CAF.
We’re working hard to remove the sigma. If you have a mental health issue, go and seek support, and you will not be released from the military. We allow the flexibility needed to get the right care and come back, because it’s important. If you break an arm, you go to the doctor and get it fixed; and the same if there’s a mental health issue. In terms of the chain of command, we’ve done excellent work in removing stigma and providing support to retain our members.
Jennie, would you like to add something from the culture perspective?
Lieutenant-General Jennie Carignan, Chief, Professional Conduct and Culture, Department of National Defence: I would also highlight the Total Health and Wellness Strategy, which has been tabled as well. All our commands are involved in this space, which includes prevention, mental and physical fitness, on top of providing a climate and environment that is psychologically safe. All of these work together towards building better retention for our members.
LGen. Bourgon: Resilience is key in that prevention piece in terms of support for our members.
Senator Ravalia: As part of the resilience process, during your screening, is an assessment of mental health suitability part of that equation, or does that get impacted by privacy laws?
BGen. Brodie: Yes, it is a part of both the medical screening process as well as the suitability screening dimension. From a medical, diagnostic perspective, that is evaluated as part of the medical screening, which is conducted under the principles of confidentiality in the applicant-physician relationship.
Senator Ravalia: The final piece for me is this: Is there a significant divide in terms of the opportunity for care between the urban and rural situations — say, someone on your base in Gander versus someone in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver? Do you see differences and increased vulnerability for Armed Forces members who are spending substantial periods of time in smaller units and who may have less access to a broader scope of care?
LGen. Bourgon: Each of our bases has standard medical support with doctors and access to support. Of course, access to specialists, depending on where they are across Canada, can be limited. We will ensure that our members are given the right support. Whether we have to fly them or provide other transportation, we will provide access to the specialist support that they need. The availability of online support reduces the need to travel because you can go online and get the appropriate support. A lot of our services are available online.
Senator Ravalia: You are taking advantage of the technology.
LGen. Bourgon: Of course, yes.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you very much.
Senator Yussuff: Thank you very much for your service.
I don’t envy the responsibility you have in terms of recruitment and retention. We are seeing the rest of the economy struggle with recruitment right now, and you’re competing in the same market. Using different ways to attract people to join the military is commendable. We’ll see how successful that is.
Living in big cities is a huge challenge. Housing is a fundamental challenge that is faced by people who live in big cities. In the broader context, I know that General Eyre has spoken previously about the shortage of housing and how many units we would need to build. He was talking about possibly 6,000 units. I’d like to know where you are with regard to construction of those units. How much has been done? What is your progress in terms of building additional units?
LGen. Bourgon: Thank you very much.
This is a bit outside of my environment and responsibilities. However, I took some notes because I knew this question would arise. We understand that, for our soldiers, sailors and aviators, having a roof over their head is very important. There’s not one solution.
In the 1980s and 1990, we had a whole bunch of residential housing units that were empty because, of course, the market wouldn’t allow people to buy their houses — it made sense for people — so we got rid of a lot of our military quarters. Now, 30 years later, we’re back to a situation where housing is difficult. A lot of people want to come back into military housing, but it’s not there anymore.
We are looking at helping our members to afford housing. We just announced our Canadian Forces Housing Differential. This policy is for our more vulnerable members across Canada — the lower ranks, but also looking at our ADM infrastructure.
For the construction of new housing, $55 million per year has been approved. They won’t be single residential; they will be apartments with one or two bedrooms for families of two or three. They have started to build in Borden, and next year they will build in Comox, Shilo and Borden. Every year, they are investing $55 million. They are also looking at renovation. We have a portfolio of 11,500 residential housing units that are under consideration for being upgraded and renovated. We are investing in our housing.
Again, it’s more than just the housing portfolio; it’s also different initiatives to support our members when they move, buy a house, potentially share a house with someone else and or have access to apartments. For example, if I get posted away from Ottawa and I want to rent my house, we’ll connect people so that someone moving to Ottawa can rent my house while I’m away in Halifax.
There’s more than one solution here. We are looking at a housing strategy in the next three years so that we can have all of those initiatives in place in order to start to make a difference. We have started with the housing differential, and our ADM infrastructure is continuing with the building of new housing.
Senator Yussuff: If you want to recruit more people, you have to find a way to house them. I want to commend the housing differential. This will help lower-ranking folks in the services to have the resources to pay for housing, especially in big cities. I’m sure it’s making a huge difference. Could you elaborate on how well that is working and what you’re hearing from differently ranked officers as to how this is helping? If you’re a single person versus a family, it may be very different. We’re seeing that the shortages in big cities are incredible. You have a lot of personnel in the big cities. There must be some challenges in terms of helping families. Has the feedback been positive? Are there things you need to adjust in the differential to help families versus single individuals in big cities?
LGen. Bourgon: Thank you. It is an excellent question.
We’ve just introduced our housing differential, and it will start in July. It has received mixed reviews. There are a lot of people, and 28,000 members will get this housing differential allowance. There are also a few who will lose their current post living differential. Of course, when you lose something, it’s emotional and bad news.
This new program is looking at the idea that a portion of your salary should be allocated toward housing. Depending upon your salary, that portion will change. The delta is what we provide for our members. We’ll see where it goes in the future, but I think it’s a really good program that will help our lower ranks afford shelter in the city where we’ve asked them to move, because we’ve asked them to do that.
We also announced before Christmas something called rations and quarters. As you’re going through your training, until you reach your occupational functional point — until you’re qualified in your employment — we provide free rations and quarters for our soldiers, aviators and sailors to help them get into a position where they can afford shelter for themselves and their families.
Senator Boehm: Thank you, generals, for being with us today.
I have a number of questions, but I wanted to pick up on something that Lieutenant-General Brodie mentioned in passing, which is regarding security vetting for new recruits and perhaps for permanent residents. Generally speaking, security vetting takes a long time if you’re coming into the public service, especially if you’ve been abroad. Of course, security vetting is being done for our newcomers, foreign service officers and members of the Canadian Armed Forces. Are you seeing any backlogs in that, given that you often have to go to an offshore authority to get even a basic police check?
BGen. Brodie: Yes, we are seeing backlogs.
Of the Canadian citizen applicants, fully 85% of them will screen through the security process within our established service standard timeline of approximately 21 days. The other 15% of those Canadian citizen files and almost all of our permanent resident files will have foreign implications and then begin the much longer pre-security vetting process that involves our security partners across the Government of Canada and with other countries, depending upon the country of origin and where those security or foreign implications come into play. Those backlogs can take weeks, months or many months to resolve, depending upon the nature of the implications and the countries implicated. At that point, every single file becomes a case-by-case management file.
We have established formal working groups across our government departments that are part of that screening process, and we’re working on building out capacity across the enterprise and within other government departments to be able to accelerate the processing of those files to ensure that we’re maintaining the quality line but doing so in a way that services, from a throughput capacity perspective, a higher volume of files.
Senator Boehm: Thank you very much.
My next question is for Lieutenant-General Bourgon. You mentioned under your discussion of retention issues that as people go through their careers, they are mobile. They receive their postings and deployments, and often they are then told that it’s time for them to leave Latvia and come back here, or be deployed somewhere else. Some people also go through life with families, which means moving your children out of school and all of that.
Are you looking at possible flexible measures for those questions where, in the past, an assignment was given and the soldier basically had to say, “Yes, I will go there” and it’s all done? If you refuse, you would be given a choice to do that or go into the reserves or whatever. Today, people are more choosy, because the labour market is a bit more flexible and they want the best for themselves, their families or their partners. Would you care to comment on that?
LGen. Bourgon: Thank you. It’s a very complex question. We’re working on many initiatives.
First, the mobility of our people is super important, because for readiness and operational focus, we need to have people deployed in Shiloh, Cold Lake, Gander, et cetera. Sometimes, people don’t want to go there, but we need people because that’s our job and that’s the operational readiness of the CAF.
We try as much as we can to give the member a voice, because we are hearing from our people that them not having control over their lives is a reason they’re leaving. That communication piece is super important, and it is a piece of that retention. If someone wants to stay on a base or in a location, there is that discussion. It limits their potential for advancement if they don’t get the experience elsewhere, and that’s okay. For a pilot in Bagotville who wants to stay there as a captain forever, that is cool. There is that flexibility, but we also have to look at the readiness and the operational availability of the CAF. There’s the “people first” mission always that we have to balance.
We are also working on trying to support our families as they’re moving. One of the great successes of the last few years has been Seamless Canada, where all the provinces and territories are coming together with the CAF to look at the needs of our members and their families to try to mitigate or limit the impacts that we have to go through when we move. Spousal employment is difficult when you move from place to move, as is children’s education, access to health and access to daycare. It is how the provinces and territories can work with us to mitigate the impacts of moving across Canada.
It’s a work in progress, and I’m sure that doesn’t answer your question, but I can probably talk on this subject for two hours.
Senator Boehm: It is good to hear you mention it and respond.
I have not seen the “This is For You” campaign on Google, but I’m going to do that. When I was a teenager, I remember “There is No Life Like It.” It was a very catchy song. It was sung in pubs when we were drinking underage — that’s what happened. That was on regular rotation on television. It reached a very large audience. There wasn’t much TV in those days — I’m not that old.
In any event, you looking at other platforms? Are you looking at making this attractive for young people who are deciding what they want to do? In those old films, parachutists and peacekeepers helping children in Africa was all in there, and it was a very attractive package. Do you have any comments on the actual strategy?
LGen. Bourgon: Thank you very much.
I will give the floor to Krista, but I would hope that if I were to go into a high school today and ask the students if they have seen this video on YouTube, in the movie theatre or on social media, I would say the majority have seen this video. The fact that you have not is probably due to the fact that we are not trying to attract all of you here.
I’ll give the floor to Krista, who can talk about which media we’re using and how we’re advertising.
BGen. Brodie: Our Associate Deputy Minister of Public Affairs, ADMPA, has the lead on the advertising campaign around the CAF, but we really did develop “This is For You,” the new general awareness campaign, as a joint effort to attract our core demographic, which is diverse Canadians and permanent residents between the ages of 18 and 34.
It speaks not to the classic “these weapons are cool,” “this equipment is cool” or “this operating environment is neat,” but meeting people where they are right now, not knowing about the CAF and not considering the CAF but who might have a real curiosity and with an understanding of what motivates them as people and the qualities of character that are important to them. Then it’s helping them see themselves in the organization. It’s a fundamentally different approach. When it was soft-launched in Q4 of the last fiscal year — 2022-23 — it really was focused on a digital launch with a cinema presence for the first time in many, many years. We did see an initial cinema presence.
Recognizing that we have a general awareness campaign and special campaigns for women, Indigenous people and visible minorities as well as our special paid education programs and many others across all of our occupations, I would like to see our campaign become ubiquitous in the Canadian consciousness. Wherever you go, whether in a large sporting venue, shopping mall, airport or train station, wherever there’s a digital billboard, there’s a presence that feels more ubiquitous.
We’re not there yet, but I would say we do very well based on the limited advertising authorities the CAF are granted. As part of that broader whole-of-government advertising envelope, we receive a share, and the ADMPA does a very good job within that finite set of authorities to put that message and those campaigns out where the audience that we’re seeking is most likely to find them and boost them with their own social media. We know there’s a direct correlation between advertising and the number of applications, and we know that correlation increases exponentially when we boost our advertising with social media. There really is a role for all of us in this space.
Senator Boehm: Thank you very much.
The Chair: We’ll all be Googling this evening, I can assure you.
We will now go to somebody who arguably has a bit of an inside track — Senator Patterson, representing Ontario.
Senator R. Patterson: I’m going to dig a little deeper on the shadier side of what we’re talking about. It relates to communication and ties very nicely to Senator Boehm’s comments.
Lieutenant-General Carignan, this is for you. You’ve made it very clear that the demographic we’re trying to recruit is not the same demographic who creates policy, critiques us and criticizes the Canadian Armed Forces, which we can assume has a blunting impact on recruiting but also on retaining those who are already here. As you’re going through your processes, it’s certainly acknowledged that there’s an essential requirement to target those who aren’t currently represented in the Canadian Armed Forces, but we also know your largest recruiting base still tends to come from those traditional groups. Therefore, in order to close this gap, the one thing I can now see is that the delta exists between actually saying why we want Canadians to be represented in the Canadian Armed Forces and why we need to look at how we behave and treat each other. Basically, what is the operational value statement of going through this? Ultimately, we all want good Canadians, but why do we need members of the Canadian Armed Forces to adopt and embody this new vision in the culture?
LGen. Carignan: Thank you.
It is clear and it is true that when we deploy expeditions to advise other armed forces, what we are asking these armed forces to do is actually be a representation of the citizens of their own country. This is the bottom line. In order for the security or defence institutions to have credibility and the trust of their own population, they need to be representations of their own citizens. That’s a basic principle.
The other piece as well is, overall, when we look at the recruiting pool of persons available in Canada, currently 70% of Canadian Armed Forces members are White males, and they only represent 38% of the workforce available to work. Just do the math. There’s a huge potential of folks who we are not actually reaching out to. This is clearly why we need to go out and recruit diversity.
Thirdly, it has a huge operational impact internally as to how we operate and how effective we are at tackling complex problems. The global environment is getting more and more complex, and we need more people from diverse backgrounds around the table. We need to be able to harness that extremely huge potential from our own population within Canada, and more people from diverse backgrounds around the table does create better solutions and operational effectiveness. From our perspective, it is clear that the future likes a more diverse Canadian Armed Forces.
Senator R. Patterson: There are a lot of amazing initiatives ongoing here. What we’re hearing on other sides is that there is not enough money to go around to do the business of defence, especially when we’re looking at where it’s going with NATO. There are some wonderful initiatives here. Is it new money, or is it funded from within? Because to fund from within, whether it be for housing, recruiting strategies or purchasing equipment that fits all people, there is a cost. It’s costly to have an increased diversity. I will not ask you to go into policy, but does your housing strategy come from new money, or is it from funds from within? The question goes for some of your other initiatives.
LGen. Bourgon: It’s a mix of both. At the end of the day, it’s a mix of both. Could we get more money to do more? Of course. However, it’s also a question of resources and the people we have to make those changes. Right now, when I look at my organization, it’s not money that I’m short of. I’m short of the people to work on those initiatives and policies and to do the analysis and the work. That’s where we’re a bit short right now in the organization.
Senator R. Patterson: From your perspective, is there any recommendation we can make to look after those pieces that do not necessarily require a uniform to perform the duty? Is there a recommendation we can make so we can free up uniforms to do what only members of the Canadian Armed Forces can do?
LGen. Bourgon: That’s a very good question.
Again, we will not get out of this whole-of-government. It’s actually going to be a whole-of-Canada effort. There are the members in uniform — the regular forces and the reserve forces — but there are also the public employees and contractors. There’s the industry, academia and the members of the Government of Canada. It’s going to be a whole-of-team approach to be successful.
Senator Dasko: Thank you so much for being here. I regret being late, and I hope you haven’t answered this question already.
I just wanted to follow up on questions asked by Senators Boehm and Patterson. You have as a broad target 18- to 34-year-olds who are Canadians and permanent residents. Then you also have as target groups underrepresented groups in the military: women, Indigenous and people of visible minorities. When it comes to the campaign, can you tell me whether you have a common thematic or tagline that you’re using in your campaign literature, or do you actually target those thematics to the particular target groups you’re looking for? In terms of the actual campaigns you’re running, what is the pitch or what are the pitches?
LGen. Bourgon: Thank you for the question.
At the end of the day, every year we need 6,300 to 6,800 new people to join the CAF. We are looking at Canadians and permanent residents who want to join the CAF for that value proposition and the difference they can make.
I’ll give the floor to Krista to talk about the targeting because, of course, as you said, there’s employment equity, women, Indigenous and visible minorities, but we also need the White men to join the military. Krista?
BGen. Brodie: We refresh our general awareness campaign every three years, and we have just accelerated production on the general awareness campaign to address some of our challenges within the military personnel generation space. The tagline for the new general awareness campaign is “This is For You.” That will be the pinnacle of the cascading campaign plan.
Over the course of the next year, we will see the roll-out of many of the specialist campaigns: women, Indigenous, visible minorities and special paid education programs. They will take on, over the course of the next several years, a common look and feel around that central tagline “This is For You,” helping people who wouldn’t typically imagine themselves in the Canadian Armed Forces, as part of the organization.
The campaign was designed with the target audience not only in mind but in direct consultation. There was an extensive series of focus groups that occurred over the span of over a year of the development process that really informed the content and the representation, right down to the selection of whom was represented in each of the scenarios, so eight scenarios representing eight different personas. Each one of those resonated highly with the target audiences that were made up of those diverse demographics that we’re seeking to attract.
LGen. Bourgon: When you watch that video tonight — there are quite a few; that’s your homework for all of you — you will realize there are no planes, no tanks, no weapons, no ships, because we wanted to attract based on values, engagement and people who want to make a difference. “This is For You,” it is in you. Intrinsically, you want to make a difference, and the CAF is the place for you. It gives me goosebumps just to talk about it. It’s a different approach that we have done, and it is paying dividends because it is really connecting with the youth of today.
Senator Dasko: Among the groups that you’re targeting, which particular groups was this more salient for? Did it grab the attention of particular segments over others? Normally, that would be the case. One segment wouldn’t be quite as excited by this as others.
BGen. Brodie: Certainly, we can take that question on record for the specific data from the different focus groups. ADMPA would be able to provide that.
What I can offer is that with the eight different personas, it allowed for each one of our target areas to be represented in a way they felt resonated with them. They were involved with the design of how they were depicted on screen, in the situations and circumstances in which they found themselves and in that transformational journey. What we have found is there was significant interest. After people participated in the working groups, their likelihood of applying to the CAF was significantly higher than before when assessed on the exit surveys from the working groups.
It is, fundamentally, a different approach. It has incited a conversation among the cohort that we were hoping to attract in many different ways but that allows us to have detailed conversations about the life.
Senator Dasko: Thank you.
LGen. Carignan: From a culture perspective, we are up against hundreds of years of bad habits and biases as to who is traditionally part of defence forces. Often for men, if we talk to many of our colleagues, it’s a normal decision. They have dreamt of serving in the military since they were young, but many underrepresented groups never even considered this as a possibility. This is why we have a significant amount of focus on underrepresented groups, because, first of all, they can’t see themselves in the military, let alone considering joining. This is why we need to definitely have a more deliberate approach toward them.
Senator Dasko: That is why you have fewer planes and tanks as part of the appeal to non-traditional groups.
LGen. Bourgon: It is about the individual, your true self in the CAF.
Senator Anderson: Quyanainni to the witnesses.
During our study, this committee travelled to Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. We heard from the communities, specifically Iqaluit and Inuvik, about the vital and integral role that the military played in the past, both strengthening and engaging with and being active members of the communities. In the last few decades, that military presence is minimal. It is no longer there. They are no longer engaged as they were in those two specific communities, but also in other areas of the Arctic. It is reminiscent of the more historical, colonial practices where it’s them and us, and there is no connection between the communities and the military when they come in, and the bases are set aside from the communities and separate from the communities. The mix that used to be present is not there anymore, and it is not visible by the communities. Has there been any thought given to greater engagement and strategic placement of the military in the North to re-establish relationships with communities, which creates a visible presence and is a strategic tool for engagement in the three Northern territories?
LGen. Bourgon: Again, this is a bit outside of our areas of responsibility.
We know we need to do better. Honestly, there is great work being done with the Rangers and the community in the North. I was at CJOC for a few years. I didn’t know the Rangers, but after being in an operation, I realized all the great work that they do. We have to do better. As we’re looking at NORAD modernization, I believe this is something that will be looked into, where the capabilities are in Canada and in the North, but that’s pretty much all I can answer on this point.
BGen. Brodie: On the military personnel generation side, I can offer that we’re investing heavily in rebuilding and reclaiming some of those relationships with our Indigenous advisers, reaching out to the various community leaderships through our relationship with the various committees, with the Assembly of First Nations, Inuit and Métis councils and federations, and using our relationships with members of the communities themselves, whether those relationships were forged in collaborative efforts during the pandemic or more recently with participants in Indigenous summer programs and to be able to use contacts in the communities as ambassadors for our programs.
We recently finished a tour of the North with one of our recruiting teams that has allowed us to already have, in the processing for this coming summer’s Indigenous summer programs, more than the total number of candidates that we were able to have in our Indigenous summer programs in the full measure of last year.
With those relationships, we’ve also been able to increase the number of applicants we have qualified and interested in our Indigenous Leadership Opportunity Year program at the Royal Military College. For the first year, we’re looking at being on the cusp of being able to be close to max load for that program leading into the next year.
It is early days, but we are very engaged in rebuilding those relationships and hoping to build on that network to support the programs and a better understanding of how we can adapt our own practices and our own way of living in accordance with our better valours to really reflect the value of our Indigenous representation.
Last year, 5% of the applicants to the Canadian Armed Forces identified as Indigenous, and 4% of those were enrolled. We do have a high conversion rate. It stands to reason that if we’re able to do a better job with attraction, and as we continue to do better as an organization to live and lead those values, then we can improve in that space.
Senator Anderson: In terms of not only just attracting Indigenous people into the military, retention is specifically key for Indigenous peoples, because when our Indigenous youth leave their homes, that’s often the first time, and they very much struggle with a different culture. I say that because my son actually spent a year at the Royal Military College. The ability for them to remain in that military lifestyle is quite often the biggest hurdle.
Thank you for that information. It’s appreciated.
The Chair: We have five minutes remaining and four senators on the list. I’m inclined to ask all four to very briefly put their questions to the witnesses so that at least we can get the questions on the record. To the extent they can’t be answered here briefly, then those who want follow-ups may approach our guests afterward. Please ask 20-second questions, senators.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: First, I want to apologize if I seemed aggressive earlier in my questions. I really care about the Canadian Armed Forces. I was an air cadet and I have family in the Armed Forces. People get discouraged sometimes.
We know that, currently, 23% of sailors are unfit to go to sea to work. We know that there is a fleet of ships coming to Canada for the next 10 years, at least. We’ll have to double the number of vessels, and that will have a major impact on recruitment. Do you have a strategy, particularly for Canadian naval forces?
[English]
Senator Yussuff: Very briefly, I commend you for the change in strategy on recruitment. Recruiting different people means you have to change the culture in the military. With the experiences of women being in the news recently, how is that culture adapting and changing, given the statistics you give of mostly White men? The most important part is what people are going to experience from the first day they’re in the military and every day afterward, how they’re treated and respected, and how they are accommodated in the context of recognition and what have you. Has the recruitment campaign also dealt internally as to how we’re going to treat these new recruits we are trying to bring into the military to ensure they don’t have a bad experience, leave and damage the tremendous efforts you’re putting into trying to bring diverse recruitment into the military?
Senator R. Patterson: You talked a lot about permanent residents. I would like to know where we are with the rapid progress to citizenship. It can be a draw. Where are you with that process? I think I will stop there.
[Translation]
Senator Gignac: Just out of curiosity, have you ever done a pilot project with a municipal or provincial police force for sabbaticals? Basically, it could be win-win, since it’s for the protection of public safety. Thank you.
[English]
The Chair: We can extend for another four or five minutes, if you can, so we leave it in your hands. The questions aren’t getting any lighter.
LGen. Bourgon: Thank you for all the questions. I’ll go rapidly.
[Translation]
We have new ships, new planes, new helicopters, new equipment on the way. We know we have to find a solution for recruitment and retention. It’s crucial for our future capacity in terms of operational capabilities and readiness.
When it comes to the numbers for military personnel, my priorities are recruitment, retention and modernizing our training to accelerate it and keep as many people as possible. It’s a challenge. Six months ago, I was 7 feet tall. Now, I’m 5′3″ because of the responsibilities weighing on my shoulders. We know we have to do better to recruit and retain our people. Otherwise, it will have a long-term impact on the Canadian Armed Forces and our capacity.
[English]
In terms of culture and its evolution, the CAF that I joined in 1987 is not the CAF that we have today. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Are we making incredible progress every day? Absolutely. One thing we are fighting for and with is the communication piece. We are having such a hard time getting the positive out. I know Lieutenant-General Carignan can add something there. Every time you see something, it’s always negative. We cannot communicate the positive and great steps we’re doing. That’s the narrative that we have to continue fighting, but you also have to help us fight. Our image did suffer, and we’ve done some great work since then. CPCC was created for that culture evolution.
LGen. Carignan: Very quickly, because that question alone would probably be a two-hour conversation.
How is culture changing? We are standing up one organization that remained vigilant to monitor culture and establish guiding principles and measuring. We are measuring, and we are getting ready to put out a public-facing dashboard. It is our first product that will put out there publicly where we are now, and we will keep measuring over time.
We are working top-down, bottom-up and horizontally across the whole of the department. This is not just ordering people to change. We need to get out there and consult internally and externally and get best practices from various corporations, the private sector, public sector, academia and so on. We’re getting a lot of advice from that perspective, and we’re giving people a voice as well to inform our policies and our initiatives.
We have seen change already. Over the past two years, I’ve engaged with more than 14,000 people, and we’re not having the same conversation today that we did two years ago, so we are already seeing changes in that area. Thank you.
LGen. Bourgon: On the question of the progress of citizenship, we are in talks with IRCC. Right now, we are really concentrating on the sharing of information on our permanent residents so that we can accelerate the files from a transfer of information, academic, security clearance, et cetera. The next step will be looking at how we have a path to Canadian citizenship, but we’re not there. We’re working closely with IRCC. That’s where we are.
[Translation]
As for the question about the sabbatical pilot project, it’s a very good question. I think the Australians take sabbaticals fairly regularly and it works for them on the level of retention. Right now, it would be difficult because of the pressures to deliver, especially on the policing and investigation side, and so on. We don’t have enough people. If we send them on sabbatical, we will have even less.
Over the long term, it could be a solution, because it’s a retention measure. It’s something we will consider when we have a bit more staff.
[English]
BGen. Brodie: Right now, we’re changing one human interaction at a time. That is how we’re driving culture change. The alignment of attitudes, behaviours, beliefs and conduct is done one human interaction at a time. We could be doing that much faster on a much broader scale if we had a new process that supported agile digital business transformation that allowed us to be able to build the capacity that we need to implement change that, right now, is accruing in backlogs, much like the files that we need to be processed.
So while the state of the public discourse is sometimes demoralizing, the state of military personnel generation is hopeful: 28% of our prospects are women, and between 30% and 40% of our prospects in any given month are visible minorities.
We will have done many things well if we can close that gap between our rhetoric and our reality in terms of being able to deliver an operational effect in this space, and then it stands to reason that we could do reconstitution very well.
The Chair: Unfortunately, we have to bring the discussion to a close. Thanks for the additional time.
On behalf of our committee, I would like to thank Lieutenant-General Bourgon, Lieutenant-General Carignan, and Brigadier-General Brodie for joining us today and for your candour and the forthright approach that you have brought to some testing questions. Your contributions and expertise are very valuable to us.
On behalf of the committee, my fellow senators and Canadians across the country, thank you for your service every day. In particular, thank you for taking on this vital task of regenerating and renewing our Armed Forces. You’ve given us a sense of the spirit in which you do that and of the creativity that you’re bringing to this task. It makes a big difference. Thank you very much for your help today.
For our second panel, we are pleased to welcome, from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Chief Superintendent Andrew Blackadar, Commanding Officer, Nunavut, whom we’re pleased to see again. Closer to home, we have Nadine Huggins, Chief Human Resources Officer; and Kathleen Clarkin, Director, National Recruiting Program.
Before I begin, I’ll note that Nadine Huggins used to work, many years ago, at this end of the table as a procedural clerk, so she knows the ins and outs of our operations and is well informed.
Thank you all for joining us today. Chief Superintendent Blackadar, it’s a pleasure to welcome you to our committee after the warm welcome you gave to us at your headquarters in Nunavut during our tour of Arctic Canada.
We will begin by inviting you to provide opening remarks, to be followed by questions from our members. Ms. Huggins, I understand that you will be delivering today’s remarks. Please proceed whenever you’re ready. Thanks very much for being here.
Nadine Huggins, Chief Human Resources Officer, Royal Canadian Mounted Police: Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Mr. Deputy Chair and honourable senators, members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to be with you today to continue the discussion on public safety considerations in Canada’s North.
I respectfully acknowledge that, as I’m in Ottawa, I am greeting you from the traditional and unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe Nation.
We look forward today to sharing insights on our holistic Recruitment Renewal and northern operations and to responding to your questions.
We welcome this opportunity to speak to you about the RCMP’s key initiatives under way and planned to modernize recruitment across our organization. Given that we have the largest federal presence in the Arctic, the RCMP contributes to asserting Canada’s sovereignty in the region.
In addition to our federal and international mandates, the RCMP provides contract policing services to eight provinces and the three territories. We are also under direct contract with about 150 municipalities. In total, the RCMP has 700 detachments across Canada. Among these, 14 are in the Yukon, 22 in the Northwest Territories and 26 in Nunavut.
The RCMP mandate is multifaceted. We prevent and investigate crime, maintain order, enforce laws, contribute to national security and ensure the safety of state officials, visiting dignitaries and foreign missions. We also provide vital operational support services to other police and law enforcement agencies.
The RCMP is committed to our partnership with community leaders and organizations to address critical issues and implement solutions. Our policing approach in the North requires concerted community collaboration and support, as well as significant planning to resource isolated detachments and prepare for extreme conditions. We rely on our team being equipped with specialized emergency response skills and the resilience needed to adapt to challenges unique to remote postings.
Policing, like other sectors of the economy, is experiencing unprecedented challenges to recruit sufficient numbers of applicants with the skill sets needed to meet service delivery commitments. Recruitment Renewal is a key pillar of RCMP modernization. The RCMP is transforming and reimagining how it attracts, recruits and retains police officers.
In setting our course, we listened to Canadians, sought advice from external experts, looked at our program and policies through a Gender-based Analysis Plus and equity, diversity and inclusion lens, and considered recommendations from stakeholders as well as the Management Advisory Board.
Our modernization agenda focuses on implementing long-term solutions and driving real and sustainable change. We are on an ambitious path.
[Translation]
Recruitment is a key organizational priority. We are streamlining and innovating to attract new and experienced police officers from other jurisdictions. The RCMP offers truly unique and rewarding career opportunities.
In June 2020, following an integrated assessment of the national recruiting program and an end-to-end assessment of the recruiting process, the RCMP set concrete goals to eliminate barriers and streamline processing times without sacrificing the rigour of our assessment or the quality of our officers.
We designed our integrated approach to recruitment renewal to improve the volume, quality and diversity of police applicants, while increasing efficiency and enhancing applicants’ experience.
[English]
In May 2021, the Management Advisory Board completed an assessment of the RCMP’s Indigenous recruiting, training, retention and promotion approach. A team is developing a national Indigenous recruiting strategy that dovetails with our whole-of-organization commitment to reconciliation.
Further, in order to meet our objective of being more representative of the communities we serve, we established national and divisional recruitment targets that will be revised with the release of new census data and other associated demographic information.
To attract more applicants, we modified our proactive recruiting strategies to ensure that our recruiters increasingly reflect the diversity we seek to attract and are equipped to support candidates from diverse backgrounds to navigate the recruitment process. We are expanding our reach beyond traditional recruiting venues, and we are building relationships with new communities.
Proactive recruiters play a key role in guiding candidates through each step of the application process. They work with candidates in remote areas who do not have internet access at home, providing them with a connected laptop so they can submit their applications or take entrance exams online. For Inuit candidates, whose first language is neither English nor French, proactive recruiters offer one-on-one sessions to help them prepare for interviews and other parts of the process. Mandatory career presentations are offered online or by phone. We are working incredibly hard to ensure that no interested applicant is left out.
To address bias and barriers in the application process, our National Recruiting Program implemented a new online aptitude assessment that replaces the RCMP Police Aptitude Test that was in place since 2005. This new aptitude assessment uses accessible, inclusive and barrier-free language and helps us to mitigate biases by using questions that place all applicants on a level playing field. The assessment no longer uses scenarios that may give advantage to applicants who have experience working in traditional office settings or urban environments. The new assessment is also unproctored and accessible as a paper version when necessary.
Similarly, we replaced our previous psychological screening — which only looked at significant mental illness — with a broader assessment based on industry best practice. The California Peace Officer Standards and Training, or POST, assessment has been in place for the past year, and it helps us to better determine an individual’s overall psychological fitness for a career in policing. Modernized candidate assessment tools and approaches are designed to remove barriers and bias to ensure that all applicants have an equal opportunity to shine in their ambition to serve in Canada’s national police service.
To ensure a solid evidence base for our recruitment efforts, the RCMP procured the services of market research and marketing strategy firms to assist in developing new media materials. Targeted recruitment efforts will help us to build a modern and diverse police service.
To tap into a younger demographic of applicants, the RCMP will launch the Diverse and Inclusive Pre-Cadet Experience, or DICE, pilot in September 2023. DICE is a new three-week program at Depot focused on addressing systemic barriers that impact racialized and underrepresented persons who aspire to join the RCMP and expose pre-cadets to a positive police experience. DICE follows in the footsteps of our Indigenous Pre-Cadet Training Program, which has over 30 years of success supporting First Nations, Inuit and Métis pre-cadets to develop the skills and information they need to apply to be a police officer.
In the territories, the RCMP makes concerted efforts to mitigate local and systemic cultural barriers to the recruitment process. One example of this is our work to navigate the challenge of restricted driver’s licences and ensuring applicants from the North are able to train with driving instructors at our training academy to prepare them for work in any detachment. For applicants who live in locations where there are no street names or house numbers, we’ve adopted the use of Google maps GPS coordinates so applicants can accurately fill out the necessary forms. Security requirements mean that we have to know where folks are coming from. Where there is no facility to complete mandatory hearing and vision testing, applicants are flown south to have these completed. During that time, we also make sure we complete any other interviews or support them in completing any other paperwork they need to get done. This is done free of charge to the applicants.
We also established the RCMP-Indigenous Collaboration, Co‑development and Accountability office, or RICCA, which collaborates on culturally relevant modernization initiatives within the RCMP, including enabling Indigenous recruitment, retention and career development for existing and future RCMP employees. RICCA is strengthening trust with national Indigenous organizations and communities to promote the RCMP as an employer of choice.
We look forward to our next 150 years. We will continue to take action to be the modern, inclusive and healthy organization that our employees and all residents of Canada expect us to be. We are proud of the contributions made by our employees and our modernization action. We are pulling all levers available to attract and retain the very best into our ranks.
Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Huggins.
We will now proceed to questions, colleagues. I remind members we have until 6:40 p.m. for this panel. Again, I ask you to keep your questions succinct and identify the person you’re addressing the question to.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: Thank you to our witnesses. In 2018-2019, you received 8,000 applications. We know your school’s training capacity, which is about 2,200 per year. That means being able to train 1,200 police officers. Where is the shortage of police officers in the ranks of the RCMP coming from?
Ms. Huggins: Thank you for the question. Our academy can train over 1,200 candidates. It’s also true that the number of people wanting to enter policing is falling. It’s a problem we have across Canada; I’d even say across North America.
The measures we’re currently taking to improve our recruitment process, to attract more people, should increase the number of applicants, as well as facilitate the number of candidates who can move on to Depot.
Senator Boisvenu: If you have eight times more applicants than your training capacity, where is the shortage coming from?
Kathleen Clarkin, Director, National Recruiting Program, Royal Canadian Mounted Police: We have candidates, but there’s a strict process to make sure the people we hire are really the right candidates to work with us.
Senator Boisvenu: So, if I look at the data, it’s a direct result of your criteria that you keep one out of eight candidates, is that right?
Ms. Clarkin: The ratio is not that high. Sometimes, the same people have a shot at success in the future, but it takes time for them to improve, get more life experience or even be able to meet the physical challenges.
Senator Boisvenu: I know that in Quebec, several colleges teach policing techniques to young people ready to take the course. If they go to Nicolet, for example, their training lasts about 18 weeks. If they go to the RCMP, is it longer than police training?
Ms. Huggins: No, our process takes 26 weeks. It’s shorter than the college course, which usually lasts two years. So it’s shorter for us, and it also gives us an opportunity to attract people who may not have had the privilege of going to university or CEGEP.
Senator Boisvenu: My other question is on security. In the wake of all the shootings in cities, Toronto’s police chief told the House of Commons that 86% of weapons seized from street gangs were brought into Canada illegally.
There’s no denying it, many of these weapons come through First Nations reserves, especially those on the border. Based on the public’s mentality, people are saying that the RCMP is afraid to go and check in those communities because it’s too political; it’s too sensitive. Do you have any kind of police officer assigned to fight weapons smuggling into Canada, or is that part of what regular patrol officers do, Mr. Blackadar?
Chief Superintendent Andrew Blackadar, Commanding Officer, Nunavut, Royal Canadian Mounted Police: Thank you for the question.
[English]
We have a number of different units across Canada. For example, in British Columbia, the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit has anti-firearms-trafficking sections. Ontario has the same thing — the CFSU. Across all the different provinces, we have these units that are combined with municipal police, the RCMP and provincial police. They are specifically tasked with doing firearms investigations, but it also rests on the backs of our uniformed police officers.
In the North, I can tell you very specifically that it’s not firearms trafficking. There’s no real firearms trafficking, but it’s a realistic threat to all our members that every house we enter has a firearm.
The Chair: We probably have to move on, I’m afraid.
[Translation]
Senator Gignac: Welcome to the witnesses. I’d like to ask a question of Mr. Blackadar, with whom we had a chance to chat during our trip to the Arctic. Thank you for your hospitality. I’d like to ask you the same question I asked Ms. Bourgon, the Lieutenant-General. When you’re in Nunavut, is there any flexibility in terms of exchanges between the Canadian Armed Forces and the RCMP? Among people far away from Ottawa, some might be interested in joining the RCMP or the Canadian Armed Forces if there were reciprocal agreements between the two organizations. Three- or four-year loans open up many opportunities for moving from one organization to the other. Has this ever been considered, even as a pilot project between both organizations? What’s your opinion on it?
[English]
Mr. Blackadar: That’s an excellent question. I could speak for hours about that because it’s something we’re always looking at.
I can tell you some of the initiatives we’ve undertaken in the last couple of years — certainly in Nunavut. Basically, we’ve formed a very close relationship with the police in Greenland because we all know we have the international border with Hans Island now but also because they have the same Inuk population that we have in Nunavut. They have been very successful with their recruitment and retention strategy for Inuit. We have looked to them for some best practices. We’ve invited the police from Nuuk, Greenland, to come to Iqaluit. We have also gone to Nuuk and observed how they do business and what they do.
We’ve done the same with the Nunavik police in Northern Quebec. We haven’t done an exchange, and we don’t have a formal MOU. In the territory, we work closely with the CAF and with Joint Task Force North, JTFN, on a number of different fronts. We have the Canadian Rangers, who work closely with us.
In Nunavut, we’re the only policing jurisdiction in Canada where we aren’t responsible for search and rescue. It generally comes through Nunavut Emergency Management, and they often take care of that on their own or they look to JTFN for those opportunities to help in the searches.
We actually partner with JTFN and the Canadian Rangers, and we store a lot of their equipment at our detachments, because we realize, being the RCMP, especially in the Arctic, that we’re not an island. Baffin is an island, but the territory itself is not an island. We can’t do it alone and neither can they.
Maybe I can pass this over to the Chief Human Resources Officer in terms of looking at the pieces, the complexities of entering MOUs, but I will say, just before I finish, that we certainly grant educational leave without pay to our members so they can improve themselves, individually or collectively, for the organization. In fact, without getting too far into the details, I’m working with one of our members in the territory right now who wants to become a pilot and, ultimately, a pilot for the RCMP, but it’s going to require some leave without pay for him to get the credentials he needs, as well as the flying time. It’s a very good opportunity that we’re going to be exploring.
I will pass it over to Ms. Huggins to talk about the more formal relationship between the CAF and the RCMP.
Ms. Huggins: Thank you very much.
We work quite closely with our colleagues at the CAF in terms of developing recruitment strategies. I’ll be honest and say we haven’t been talking about sharing resources at the moment, because we’re all facing a bit of a crunch with respect to resources as they currently stand. That’s not to say we’d never do it; we’re just not doing it right now. Is there value in doing it? Probably, there is. Do we need to make some alignments between our processes in order for us to be able to put CAF members on the front line? We would, so it’s a bit more of a project that we’d be able to look at in the future.
Senator Oh: Thank you, witnesses, for being here.
In which region or province of the country does the RCMP face its most serious personnel shortage?
Ms. Huggins: Thank you very much for the question.
Our organization makes an effort to ensure that we are resourcing the entire country and all of our detachments to the best of our ability. While we definitely have some labour challenges, we try to disperse them across the country so that there’s not one single area that has a harder time meeting their requirements than anybody else. We generally meet all of our requirements. There is not a single area. Some of our divisions are bigger than others. Our divisions out West are much bigger than our divisions out East. You will probably see a higher number there, but in terms of percentages, we try to keep things as stable as possible across the country.
Senator Oh: What have you done on diversity recruiting of RCMP? Last night, I was at one event, and there was a new Asian RCMP officer who was at the event. Can you tell us a little bit more about diversity recruitment?
Ms. Huggins: I will get this started and hand it off to Kathleen, the Director of the National Recruitment Program, to round it out.
The RCMP is taking concrete action across the board in the diversity and inclusion space. We’ve launched our first equity, diversity and inclusion strategy to set a solid foundation for the organization to be sustainable in doing better with regard to improving our diversity numbers.
As I mentioned in my opening remarks, we’ve established the DICE program, which is specifically intended to tap into potential cadets way earlier than we normally would to start building a bit of an appetite to increase that diversity.
Most importantly, we’ve set very concrete targets, both at the national and divisional levels, to ensure that as we’re driving to increase our overall numbers, we’re not forgetting about the need for us to diversify and ensure we’re representative of the populations we serve.
Kathleen, I’ll turn it over to you to talk about some of the marketing research we’re doing.
Ms. Clarkin: Thank you so much for the question.
As mentioned, it is so important that we reflect the people we serve and that we are really integrated in the communities. For that reason, we have undertaken market and demographic research to better understand the potential applicants out there — where to find them and what’s important to them so we can best position all that we have to offer that will be of interest to them.
It’s been very interesting to see some of the pieces we’ve learned. I, myself, am also not the ideal candidate at my age. Hearing from Gen Z how much a pension matters to them, some of our colleagues have immediately started pivoting and targeting the messaging to showcase what we have to offer. Based on the evidence elements, we’ve developed a bit of a “heat map” to understand who is where and who is most excited to join so that we can better target our efforts to be in the right place at the right time and build those relationships.
We’re also working at improving our metrics to measure how effective our different events are. Just because you have 30,000 people in a room doesn’t mean your presence at a Senators game will be a great win compared to a really authentic relationship at a community centre or other key pieces.
It’s really important that all of that underlines our piece looking forward. Who are we trying to reach? We have not shut the door to anyone. We have to be clear that everybody is so welcome to apply. However, we have really worked to be clear in messaging what we’re looking for — those key characteristics and attributes — and being better about assessing them, as Nadine explained earlier, on a level playing field so we’re not advantaging or disadvantaging others. We’re very excited about integrating the market research into all our strategies moving forward.
Senator Oh: That’s very good. Thank you.
Senator Dasko: Thank you for being here. I have two questions. I’m just going to put them both on the floor.
First of all, in 2019, Public Safety Canada acknowledged that the “demand for officers outstrips the RCMP’s capacity to recruit and train,” although that was specifically said with respect to the contract officers for all the contracts you have with the municipalities and provinces. Are you actually obligated to enter into those contracts? Just as an aside, I’ve been reading all of the stories about Surrey. That’s not your fault. It seems like it’s their doing, but nevertheless. Are you obliged to enter into those contracts with all of those municipalities and provinces? If you’re having recruitment issues, why don’t you just say to them that you can’t take on those contracts? Does anybody just want to comment?
Ms. Huggins: Thank you for the question.
The contracts that are in place are set to expire in 2032. We’re in conversations right now through the Department of Public Safety, which is really probably in the best position to respond to your question, senator. We are in the process of looking at what the contracts will look like going forward. All of these types of questions are part of the discourse right now. But we do have a contract that we are expected to live to, at least until 2032.
Senator Dasko: So you’re not sure if you actually have an obligation to enter into such contracts in the future? That will be decided by the department?
Ms. Huggins: That’s correct.
Senator Dasko: My second question is around the Honourable Michel Bastarache’s 2020 report. It said:
… the culture of the RCMP is toxic and tolerates misogynistic and homophobic attitudes amongst its leaders and members …
I would like you to comment on that. That was in 2020, not that long ago. Could you please comment on that and where you’re going?
Ms. Huggins: Thank you for the question.
The RCMP has been adamant and deliberate in establishing a number of changes within the organization to ensure that the recommendations coming out of the Bastarache report are addressed. I’ll talk about three.
One is conduct. We have undertaken a whole-scale conduct review within our organization and established a new framework by an external expert. External legal experts have come in and looked at our conduct process. We have established a new approach as to how we will deal with egregious behaviour by any of our members.
We’ve implemented an independent centre for harassment resolution. For anyone who experiences harassment within our organization, there is a clear process — again, external investigators — to get to the bottom of it.
From a culture change perspective, we have updated and revised our core values so that they’re no longer words on a page but clear expectations of behaviour. With the core values change, the ICHR and the conduct review, we expect that we will not only see changes in behaviour as a result of the core values but consequences if there are folks who are not living up to the core values as we expect them to be.
We are working diligently to improve our culture. Are we there yet? No, we’re not there yet. We continue to work toward it, but we’ve made some substantive progress. We report on our progress publicly. We have an external-facing site that tracks where we’re going on all of those recommendations. We are adamant that we are going to revamp our culture.
Senator Yussuff: Obviously, you have something unique for the RCMP in the context of the responsibility as contract policing. You’re the national police force, and then you have these side engagements you do, which from my perspective seems like a great deal of distraction because the core is you’re expected to perform this national responsibility. How does that impact your recruitment and retention? More importantly, what challenge does that pose for the RCMP in recruiting people, especially when you’re doing contract policing, knowing this could end one day and we need to retain the people we need to perform the national service?
Ms. Huggins: Thank you for the question. I will start and then pass it to the commanding officer for Nunavut for an operational perspective.
We operate with an expectation that we will be in the business of contract policing. Our recruitment initiatives speak to the 150 opportunities that one can have when working in the RCMP, including front line policing under the contracts.
When we recruit, we are very clear that our recruits are front line police officers first, with opportunities to work in the other federal and specialized areas that we have access to. For us, it is not at any time a barrier or seen as a barrier to our recruiting strategies — quite the opposite. The opportunity to work across the country or, increasingly, because of our changes in our mobility clauses, to work in your home province, that kind of flexibility is quite attractive to many recruits.
I don’t know, Andrew, if you want to add anything.
Mr. Blackadar: Thank you.
I’ve been around for a long time, thirty-three and a half years as a police officer. Until recently, the conversation just didn’t happen within the RCMP in terms of whether you are a federal, municipal or contract provincial police officer. We’ve always just been a police officer. We all do the same training, we all go to Depot, and we enforce the law. As part of the training at Depot, we learn how to enforce the Criminal Code and federal statutes. We then go out into the field and do our recruit field training. There are a number of pieces that we have to deal with there in terms of the federal, provincial and municipal mandates that we have.
Organizationally, we also recognize that we have to change. We have to modernize and look at each function that we do within the RCMP. Thinking back 33 years ago, there were very few public servants within the RCMP; everyone was a uniformed police officer. The finance clerk was a uniformed police officer. The person in staffing was a uniformed police officer. We are looking at federal transformation now and looking at career streaming and what skill sets people need. Can we bring in civilian investigators who don’t necessarily have to go through the full six months as a police officer and learn that provincial side of policing? It’s going to take a while to get there, but we have to be nimble and be able to respond to the changing demands of Canadians. We are looking at that.
I’ve never heard the conversation are we concerned about not having a job or not being able to do the job, because every time a door closes, we know another door opens organizationally. We are alive to it, and right now our federal resources in the territory work very well with our territorial resources.
Senator Yussuff: In the not-so-distant past, Black Lives Matter and abuse by police officers have been on the front page, including right here. Our aboriginal community has seen a fair share of that. Does that hinder your ability to attract people from those communities to join the RCMP? If I were from those communities, why would I want to join a police force that is engaged in this kind of behaviour? This is a challenge that I’m sure you’re faced with. How do you respond to that?
Ms. Huggins: Thank you for the question.
There is no question that world events writ large — Black Lives Matter, Indigenous Lives Matter, all of those movements that have brought voice to injustices that communities feel — figure into the challenges that we’re having with recruiting in the policing space. Having said that, our market research suggests that young racialized men and women are quite keen to join police services. From our perspective, part of our targeted recruitment effort is to figure out how to reach them and how do demonstrate that our organization is striving to be welcoming, inclusive and supportive as they navigate not just the recruiting and the training part of our process but their full careers.
In spite of the negative press — we get our fair share, for sure, and sometimes with reason — we accept and acknowledge the challenges that we have in our organization. We are very proud of the work our organization does, but we don’t pretend to be infallible. We do very clearly want to ensure that we are representative of Canada’s population and that we are representative of the communities that we serve. The market research will certainly help us figure out how to tap into those communities that, based on what we’ve learned, are interested in policing and in our organization.
Senator R. Patterson: This has been wonderful.
I have a question that’s a bit more technical. It concerns the California assessment tool that you talked about. We know that many paramilitary or military forces struggle with the predictability of these tools so we can use them to bring people in. My question to you follows two trains of thought. Have you adapted that for non-traditional, White, California male populations? In other words, the GBA Plus perspective. Second, do you have any metrics whereby you’ve followed up to see how predictive these tools are? I know these tools are new, but there is quite a lot of interest there.
Ms. Huggins: Thank you very much for the question. I’ll start and then hand it over to Kathleen.
The decision to move to the POST assessment was evidence-based. We know that a number of police services in the U.S. use the POST assessments. We wanted to ensure that we were looking at not only mental illness but overall mental suitability to policing — issues of resilience and of being able to work with and deal with people. We wanted to ensure that the psychological assessment was reinforcing some of what our research told us about the characteristics and attributes necessary for modern policing. The decision to move to the POST assessment was evidence-based and grounded in a lot of research.
I will speak briefly about the question you had around how we ensure that it’s not biasing others. We monitor very closely the reports coming in from the psychologists who are doing this work. The assessments themselves have been developed to be bias-free and are reviewed regularly for bias.
I’ll turn it over to Kathleen to round that out.
Ms. Clarkin: Thank you so much.
As the Chief Human Resources Officer was saying, there are a lot of key elements in terms of customizing this to make sure that it’s a right fit for policing with us. Some of that includes the way it is administered.
There are different elements to how we assess the PSS, or Psychological Suitability Screening. There is a multiple-choice test, as well as many elements of information that are gathered from the applicant up to that point in terms of background checks and security screening. All of this is presented to a psychologist, who has an in-person interview — or online, in remote areas — to go through this full body of information, based on the evidence of what we’re looking for, to assess along the lines of whether there are areas of concern or key pieces.
As mentioned, once they’ve written their report, there is a quality control challenge function — those who understand what it is to be an RM with us at the RCMP — and if there are some pieces of cultural competency that the psychologists might not be aware of, we have the opportunity to challenge that. Not every psychologist will have lived in remote or urban communities. We have an experienced team from the RCMP that is able to weigh in and make a more informed recommendation based on a broad body of evidence.
We have been happy with this so far but, as you’ve flagged, it is a newer tool that we have adopted. We will be closely monitoring the people who are now heading to our National Training Academy at Depot. We are looking forward to coming back once we have some results. So far, it has been quite positive. It has been a great tool for applicants to gain self‑awareness and has been an opportunity to do some soul‑searching in terms of, “Do I have what it takes? Is this how I want to best serve my community?” In many cases, it has been a wonderful learning experience and has set them up to know what to expect as they move ahead in the process. But, yes, it is a bit early for big metrics.
Senator R. Patterson: It’s wonderful that you’re having a look down this path. You have officers who have served for longer periods of time. Do you have an equivalent type of tool to use as you move forward? This goes back to Senator Yussuff’s comments that we don’t have good reports of what is coming out of policing in the U.S. We recognize that that is what the media is reporting. There are many officers who want to serve their communities safely and respectfully. From an RCMP perspective, do you have other tools that you use for people who are already in the system? Do you have periodic assessments? Do you use them as you go through discipline processes in terms of, “I can say whatever I like on a test and then I act”?
Mr. Blackadar: That is a very interesting question and very poignant in terms of some of the changes we’ve made within the RCMP.
As a regular member of the RCMP, every three years I go through a medical process. Before we do certain duties, we have a psychological screening as well. One is the fitness for duty medical that we go through, including me. As a commanding officer, after I went to Nunavut — it was a bit delayed — I sat with a psychologist in Ottawa for a couple of hours and went through a number of different screening tools. As Kathleen mentioned, it is very insightful, and you learn a lot about yourself during the screening.
The other thing we do is that after all critical incidents, we debrief our members. Sometimes we use telehealth to do this. I had an incident in Nunavut over the weekend where we had to notify the psychologist — not only for the employee, the regular member, but for the family of the member as well. We go a layer deeper. As we transfer our employees throughout the country, we realize that we’re not just transferring that regular member but an entire family. The entire family has to be fit for life in the North — I won’t say fit for duty, but fit for life.
Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about what’s collected as a result of that, but it is something within our health services that is totally separate from the operations. I will get a report back from the health services officer saying, “This employee has limitations and restrictions.” I am then asked if I can accommodate that employee, but I don’t know what the issue may be. The process is robust, and we continue it from cradle to grave as a member of the RCMP.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: A few weeks ago, I attended the tabling of the report on the Portapique massacre. In the report, there’s an important point regarding deployment of RCMP officers as part of municipal or provincial police work. We know the RCMP is present in many provinces.
The short deployment period of some police officers means that when events like those in Portapique occur, their knowledge of the area is minimal. During a police operation to track down a criminal, it’s a major shortcoming. Are you going to start thinking about it, to make sure that when police officers go to work in an area they don’t know — if someone from Montreal goes to Portapique, they don’t know the area —, they have good training on its geography and longer work assignments to reduce turnover? Has the RCMP thought about a solid strategy to make the public feel better protected?
[English]
Ms. Huggins: I will start and then pass it over to the Commanding Officer for some comments.
The duration of postings differs across the country. At a minimum, we generally have folks in post for five years. We go through a process whereby new recruits are supported through a Field Coaching Program. They’re given the opportunity to learn not only the actual job itself but also the territory they’re responsible for policing. Over that five-year period, we can expect that folks will have a good sense of the area that they’re responsible for policing.
Andrew, did you want to supplement that?
Mr. Blackadar: Some of the biggest challenges we have with our postings are in Nunavut. We have two- and three-year postings in Nunavut. Some of the smaller communities outside of Iqaluit are only two years. This is a criticism that we get from the public, from our partners at the Government of Nunavut, from the Inuit organizations and from the people we serve. However, there’s nothing to say they can’t extend beyond that. We do have a fair number of police officers who spend a couple of years in a community and then extend for a third year in that community, or they may go to another community for two years. To follow up on the previous question, we reassess again for psychological issues and health care to ensure that our members are fit for duty in the North.
The other piece in Nunavut is that we have access to a community profile for every community that we police. We have maps within our detachments that lay out the houses and the numbers where the houses are. Many communities in Nunavut, as Nadine mentioned, do not have street names but house numbers. I always fight with Canada Post when I try to get a package delivered. It never seems to verify my address because the people don’t recognize the street address. We all live in post office boxes in Nunavut. For example, I live at house 5208, and everyone knows exactly where that house is. For the most part, we have a robust records management system in which we can do a very quick query through our Operational Communications Centre and say who lives at that house and what is the history of that house.
We have some police officers within the territory who have been there for 10 years or maybe even more. In all places where we police across the country, we have some police officers who are the cornerstone of the community, the jurisdiction, and they tend to mentor our junior police officers coming in.
We still have challenges, as the Mass Casualty Commission report demonstrated. Some of those challenges we can hope to overcome, but I think policing is something that’s ever-changing. We can never be 100% ready for something like Portapique. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal or some rural community across Canada.
The Chair: We have come to the end of our questions. I’m not seeing senators raising any hands, so it is time to thank you all for appearing today and for the high quality of your answers to some very probing questions. It sounds as though you are doing terrific work. We take this opportunity to thank you for that. It is hugely important. We certainly thank those of you who are on the front lines of policing for the work that you do. We are all aware that there have been a number of tragic situations that have affected officers and their families across the country in past months and obviously years. In that respect, on behalf of this committee and the Senate, we express our deep condolences for those losses and want you to know that we are with you every step of the way in the work that you do. Thank you very much for being here today. It is, again, greatly appreciated.
Colleagues, our next item of business is the consideration of the report for the committee’s pre-study of Division 24 of Part 4 of Bill C-47, the budget implementation act. Are there any objections to proceeding in camera for that discussion? I see none.
(The committee continued in camera.)