EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, November 22, 1995

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[English]

The Chairman: I call this meeting to order.

We are proceeding with our study pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), a study of the report of the Special Commission on the Restructuring of the Canadian Forces Reserves.

This afternoon we have with us Mr. Michael McCloskey, executive director of the Reservists' Association of Canada. Mr. McCloskey is a junior officer in the reserves and has some definite opinions on the subject. Mr. McCloskey appeared before the special commission, so we welcome him here today to share his views with us.

Mr. McCloskey, before you start, please introduce the people who are with you. You can make a ten-minute presentation and then we'll go to questions and answers.

Mr. Michael J. McCloskey (Executive Director, Reservists' Association of Canada): Mr. Chairman, Christopher Brown is the communications director for the Reservists' Association of Canada. He is also a serving member of the reserve. He is a graduate of the Citadel University in South Carolina. He is also at the Royal Military College in Kingston. Dean Howard is from Kentville, Nova Scotia, and he is here to witness the proceedings today.

I've been the executive director of the Reservists' Association of Canada for the last two years. I'll begin by reading a prepared statement, and we will be available for questions afterwards.

The RAC has quickly become the voice and moral force for the 26,000 members of today's serving reserve. Our membership spans the nation and there is an RAC representative in every major centre in Canada. Our members come from all ranks, services and elements of the militia, naval, communications, air reserve and cadet instructor cadre.

Our last membership drive, which was 60 days ago, signed up 1,000 active members. We are Canada's only independent member-supported defence association dedicated to the study of and support of the reserves.

In a period of exciting change, it is our pleasure to appear before this committee. Unlike some other organizations, the RAC is a change agent, but when we speak of change we do so against the backdrop of reliable data and reasoned analysis. It is therefore our duty to speak out against the recent report on the restructuring of the reserve. We had hoped the report would answer the two fundamental questions that reservists across this country were asking: how do we make this organization more efficient, and will it really save money?

Unfortunately, it was on these very questions that the special commission failed. It is often difficult to look at the reserve without being caught up in the minutia of pay scales, regimental histories and flow charts, but let us look at the reserve with some perspective.

Canada is a country that is on the verge of replacing cost-effective, efficient reserve personnel without a detailed examination of the entire department. Some people are inclined to view the reserves as a spare tire, as something to be used just in case. The problem with this recent committee report is that it tried to determine the size and shape of the spare tire outside the context of the entire vehicle, that vehicle being the Department of National Defence.

The report's application of business language toward the reserve is also interesting to note, but it is not backed up by the necessary business principles. Let us compare the reserve's operating expenses. Our estimate is $500 million per year, or roughly 5% of the entire Department of National Defence budget. A private sector company in the same range would be Magna International or Noranda. These companies understand the requirement to be efficient and effective.

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I have here a copy of the annual report from Magna. It can clearly identify how many dollars were spent on what and where. Let us compare this to our commission report, where the phrases ``costs around'' and ``costs approximately'' abound.

There is a stunning lack of research in this document. The departmental estimates on cost were not included as an annex to the document. Before any changes can be decided upon, fundamental research must be conducted. The RAC has been very active in its search for innovative solutions to get more out of this organization for less. For example, our new model militia and reserve project shifted the current paradigm to one that used university education as payment for young reservists. We have also begun what will be the largest survey ever, encompassing 40,000 current and former reserve personnel.

The question remains, why is an outside organization required to provide the fundamental research for the department? Where in this committee report are the savings created by these harsh structural changes identified? This committee is being asked to take the department's word for it. The RAC won't take their word for it, and neither will the community leaders that we are in contact with daily. Nor will Canadian taxpayers once they are shown that the 5% of the total defence budget spent on the reserves will somehow provide great peace dividends. I hope the confusion of cost for the reserve will serve as a wake-up call to this committee to start a thorough investigation on the manner in which the reserves are administered.

Let us leave the issues that were poorly addressed and go to those that were not examined at all. There are a myriad of factors that were not considered in the report that are worth noting here. There are a variety of constituencies that will be impacted by the implementation of these haphazard policies. For example, what will the impact be on women and visible minorities in the military?

In fact, in the letter prepared by the RAC for the minister of state for the status of women, it was pointed out that the number of women serving in non-traditional combat units, especially the land force, is 80% higher in the reserve than in the regular component. A reduction in the reserve is a de facto reduction in the number of women who are allowed to serve in these roles. The reserve is a good model for the regular component to follow in this capacity.

In terms of visible minorities, the case is much the same. The number of these citizens being allowed to serve will also be reduced by half. We have had the opportunity to speak to a variety of community leaders from various groups, who articulated serious concerns about a military allowed to develop in isolated locations. The recent airborne and Somalia experiences have heightened their awareness that support for multiculturalism has not pervaded the regular component of the department.

The reservists, serving in and drawing from all communities, is a model for the department and for Canada as a whole. The report states that the military is the mirror of the society that produces it. We want that to continue and to improve. We want an environment where all Canadians can serve. You cannot create such an environment by cutting the reserves in half.

Another factor ignored by the commission report was the impact on the 85 communities that will be left without a unit. What of the national unity implications of closing the last national institution? What of the implications for emergency preparedness of communities across Canada? What about the economic factors of the reserve and their impact on youth job creation, regional development and local economies?

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Ladies and gentlemen of the committee, this report is a poorly constructed and fundamentally flawed document. It is not worthy of the serving members of the reserve whom we represent here today. It is not worthy of the Canadian public and is certainly not worthy of this committee. I urge you to enact real change in the reserve - change contemplated on sound reasoning as opposed to this commission's knee-jerk reaction. The RAC is ready to be an active participant in these changes.

In closing, I would ask that you remember the key element in all of these discussions: the reservists. These are men and women who believe in themselves and their country, willingly shouldering the burden of freedom, and whom other Canadians depend upon in times of crisis at home and around the world. Canada depends on them and they are there. These are Canadians at their best. Reject this report.

Thanks for your attention. We're now available for questions.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. McCloskey.

Mr. Frazer.

Mr. Frazer (Saanich - Gulf Islands): Good morning, Mr. McCloskey and Mr. Brown, and welcome. I noticed in your commentary you mentioned that the commission determined the size and shape of the reserves, but it appears to me that this was pretty well pre-determined by the mandate it was given. Basically, they were told not to exceed the 23,000. Would you agree with that?

Mr. McCloskey: Yes, I would. The primary concern we have and had on the commission is the structure of the commission and its mandate. The commission, at the beginning, said it would not be confined by that mandate. We were disappointed to see that the commission, upon the publication of the document, noted that it felt it could not move past those constraints.

Mr. Frazer: Are you aware that the commission pointed out that down-ranking - that is cutting what they considered to be in excess of senior positions in the reserve - would in fact provide the financial capacity to expand? I think the figure they used was that one lieutenant-colonel disbanded would give you four additional privates on the floor. Were you aware of that, and do you support this sort of argument?

Mr. McCloskey: Yes, we support a rationalization of the reserve process.

Mr. Frazer: Would you agree, then, that there is a surfeit of senior positions in the reserve at the moment?

Mr. McCloskey: No. I wouldn't say that. One of the problems the reserves have in comparison to the regular component is that the reserve units do not have supplementary offices or bureaus where supernumerary personnel can be moved to. If you are a lieutenant in the 48th Highlanders in Toronto, you then proceed up the chain of command and are rewarded by your service by this commission by being told that, by coming out and attending and taking all the training courses, your position is going to be reduced.

In the regular component, there are a variety of capacities to move these personnel from a regular infantry battalion to serve at NATO Headquarters or at National Defence Headquarters.

Yes, at first glance the reserves have a large number of officers. However, if that is taken in comparison with the regular component, I think it is actually less.

Mr. Frazer: You will be aware that this committee, as members of the special joint committee, didn't show a great deal of sympathy for the position you're putting forward. We recommended cuts of at least 50% in the hierarchy of National Defence Headquarters and other headquarters, because we thought there were too many bosses and not enough followers in the organization. That would also apply - certainly my view; I can't speak for the others on the committee - to the present reservists.

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I agree that your lieutenant might be somewhat constricted in his ability to progress, but the aim would be that in the case of being called to active duty in an emergency, each reservist should be able to progress at least one and perhaps two ranks because of the expansion of the force. Would you agree with that?

Mr. McCloskey: I think Mr. Brown has something to add to that.

Mr. B. Christopher A. Brown (Communications Director, Reservists' Association of Canada): Mr. Frazer, something to keep in mind here is that we are not talking about whether there is.... You're saying we should downsize, that there are too many officers across the board to the ratio of soldiers. That may in fact be true in the current context.

However, being an officer, I have somewhat of a point to make here. Am I and the rest of the officers and the rest of the soldiers in the militia to be punished because of this system, a system that doesn't allow an officer who may...? I may start my year with 12 soldiers, or my colonel may have a regiment that is supposed to have 400 soldiers in it, but the system doesn't allow him to have 400 soldiers for various reasons that I'm sure you've heard ad nauseam throughout all your other hearings and witnesses.

Are we to punish the people who are in the system because the system is broken? Or are we to take a broad look at the whole process and see where to fix it? I think there are changes we can make overall to find out that in fact we can find soldiers to fill in those positions to make that ratio less and it would cost less overall.

Mr. Frazer: I'll reveal my bias right off the bat, I guess. The commission said that it had found in its interviews with a number of reservists that the people would get a lot more satisfaction out of commanding a real platoon or a real section. You, as an officer, should not be commanding a section. That should be a sergeant or a corporal.

Mr. Brown: Absolutely.

Mr. Frazer: By having a surfeit of officers, they are, by virtue of a lack of things to do, forced into a position where they are either taking away the opportunity for junior ranks to do what they should be doing or they're underemployed in that position. I question your rationale that the current officer ratio in the reserves is accurate.

Mr. Brown: I guess it's a situation we understand because we're in that situation every week. I used to be a private, a corporal, a master corporal; I've been there. I know what goes on and I know why soldiers don't show up and why regiments are in the current state they are in. To say that to fix this problem is to cut off all the officers or cut 20% of the officers, and the next step is to cut 20% of the regiments, in the end we're still going to have the same problems and the ratios are going to remain the same.

Mr. McCloskey: If I could add to that, there's another perspective to bring to this view, which is the acquired training of the higher levels of the reserve - sergeant majors, majors, colonels. I was at a luncheon on Saturday speaking to a colonel who said to me, I can go down to Canada manpower and get 100 privates in an afternoon. Where can I go to get a ready-made sergeant major? Where can I go to get a ready-made major? The quick answer to that is nowhere.

Mr. Frazer: With all due respect, an RSM without a regiment to work with isn't fully qualified. He is working well below his capacity or his presumed....

Mr. McCloskey: The question is one of perspective. Are we going to look at the system and say that the system doesn't work and therefore we are going to downsize? Or are we going to take a different perspective and ask how we can make the system work so that it can be fleshed out for the same amount of money? That's where we're coming from.

Mr. Frazer: The information the commission gave us - and I can only rely on that as a starting point - is that people would gain more satisfaction and be more likely to stay in the reserves and become productive reservists if they were given real jobs, like a sergeant commanding a section rather than a lieutenant, and a platoon commander, a captain or lieutenant, commanding a real platoon.

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Moving on to another item, you came out with a very interesting figure - $500 million for the reserve - which is one that the commission and others, including the auditor general, can't really identify. You mentioned Magna as an example, that they were able to break it all out. But does Magna have equipment that is used by two different elements? Do they intermingle and have to break out what share of it should go to this element and what share should go to the other? Is it as easy as that?

Mr. McCloskey: Magna has to report to shareholders, and I guess the Department of National Defence has to report only to citizens.

Mr. Frazer: No, Magna is reporting on the use of its equipment or personnel. In this case we have shared usage, and we therefore have to come up with some rationale on how we apportion the share that goes to each bunch.

Mr. McCloskey: One of the main themes we'd like to get across today is that the initial estimate of cost started at the $1 billion mark and has steadily dropped. I'm sure the committee is going to take a very serious look at that and find out why. Where did the first cost difference of $1 billion to $875 million - I'm not exactly sure - come from?

Mr. Frazer: I think it came out of the air. The commission, in the briefing it gave Mr. Hart and me, said that it's about $750 million, but gave no rationale for saying it. They just said it isn't the $1.08 billion or whatever.

Mr. McCloskey: Yes, sir, and that's our point.

Mr. Frazer: I'm with you, but what I'm asking is how do you break that out, when you have two different users using equipment, facilities, and the whole bit? How do you apportion it and come up with a precise figure? And I agree I would like to see it.

Mr. McCloskey: In terms of the accounting principles, I'm sure there are numerous organizations that have shared equipment problems and can work in complex organizations, but we do not have the resources to come out with that. For our $500 million figure, we started at the bottom of the reserve and worked our way up. We subtracted things such as recruiting and the use of Canadian forces recruiting centres from the reserve portion.

Mr. Frazer: It is performing a service on your behalf. I know you don't like the service that is performed, but -

Mr. McCloskey: Yes. It is performing a very costly, very inefficient service in theory on behalf of the reserves. It is replacing something the reserves did very well on their own.

Mr. Frazer: At what cost?

Mr. McCloskey: Reserve units, prior to the Canadian forces recruiting centre involvement, would be able to operate on a class A or class B basis...one or two positions, to fulfil their recruiting needs. Now in the city of Toronto, for example, you have a Canadian forces recruiting centre with approximately 35 full-time employed people putting through reserve applicants.

I cannot say that is an efficient use of reserve dollars, and this is something I'm hoping that the committee will endeavour to find out. Somebody has to make that decision and come up with a real figure. I don't think it's acceptable that expenditures, even if they are at the low end, which is our estimate of $500 million, cannot be clearly defined. I don't think that's very acceptable, and I'm sure this committee will do everything it can to come up with a rational dollar figure. How much do we know we are going to save unless we know how much everything costs?

Mr. Frazer: I agree and I would support that. If that figure can be captured, it would be of most use, not only to the Department of National Defence but also to the taxpayer.

I have one more question. You mentioned women and visible minorities, and again I'll give you my position right off the bat. We do not believe in employment equity. We believe the best qualified people should get the job. Are you implying that the reserves should in fact incorporate employment equity and make special positions for either women or visible minorities to ensure that the multiculturalism of Canada is represented, or would you advocate taking the people who are best qualified to do the job for Canada?

Mr. McCloskey: We are in favour of using the people who are best qualified, and I think the fact that multicultural input and the input of women in the reserve has managed to happen without employment equity is a very strong indication that there's no real requirement for it.

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We mentioned those two aspects, because in the reserve we have very high proportions, especially in urban areas, of new Canadians and women being allowed to serve in capacities in which there are no such people serving. For example, I do not know of one female regular ``infantier'' serving with a battalion right now in the entire regular component of the Canadian forces.

Mr. Frazer: But you know there have been.

Mr. McCloskey: There have been, yes. But there is no arguing that the reserves have far and away surpassed the regular component in that integration.

Mr. Frazer: May I then ask you if the reserves are demanding the same from their females in this case, as are the regular forces?

Mr. McCloskey: Well, we're attracting different people.

Mr. Frazer: No, no, but are they demanding the same performance? In other words, is there a reason there aren't women within infantry battalions right now?

Mr. McCloskey: In terms of training standards, training standards are set by the department.

Mr. Frazer: No, I'm saying performance. This isn't training standards or the level to which they're trained; it's the demands that are placed on them by doing the operational job they're required to do in service. Therefore, I'm wondering whether you aren't, to an extent, comparing apples and oranges.

Incidentally, I want to say very, very clearly that we believe nobody should be restricted from applying to either the reserves or the regular forces, and to my knowledge there is no such restriction in the regular force.

Mr. McCloskey: No.

Mr. Frazer: The implication that you had -

Mr. Mifflin (Bonavista - Trinity - Conception): Except on submarines.

Mr. Frazer: I'm sorry. Women are not allowed to serve on submarines.

Mr. Brown: Mr. Frazer, you had said that we're not comparing apples and oranges, but in fact we are. At one point in this document it said that there are two cultures, and there are two cultures here. Reservists and regular force personnel tend to be drawn from different aspects of society. You have a different personality breakdown. We have people who want to contribute to their country on a part-time basis. What we found is that there is a higher proportion and opportunity for visible minorities, for the multicultural aspects of this country to be represented, and for equal opportunity for men and women. The fact is that our regiments are operating at the same standards, or better, that they were operating at ten and twenty years ago.

To answer your question, yes, women have not affected the operational readiness of these units to the standards of the department at this time.

Mr. Frazer: With all due respect, are we talking about the actual performance demanded of these people - in this case, infantry battalion exercises and duties?

Mr. Brown: I was a master corporal in Meaford, Ontario, in 1991, and I commanded the first section of female recruits in the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps. I will guarantee you that I put them through standards equal to, if not greater than - maybe subconsciously, and I'll admit my guilt on that - those of the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps and the armour recruitment standard. I had a 100% pass rate, and those soldiers are still serving at their regiments.

So to answer your question again, I, with ten years' reserve experience, believe that these female soldiers are performing to operational standards.

Mr. McCloskey: As well, the reservists who have served on United Nations missions with both the Vandoos and the Patricias in infantier capacities and with the engineers have done very well.

Mr. Frazer: I guess I'm missing your point, then. If they've done very well in the regular force, why -

Mr. Brown: The reserve augmentees.

Mr. Frazer: Okay.

The Chairman: Mr. Richardson.

Mr. Richardson (Perth - Wellington - Waterloo): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to pick up on some rather quick ones. They go back to the recruiting program.

Since you're familiar with the Toronto recruiting centre, how many of those recruiters are class B reservists trained to be recruiters?

Mr. McCloskey: I'm not exactly sure how many are currently on the staff. The differentiation here, when I say full time, is class B or regular, meaning these are not class A soldiers who are the bodies on the parade square for training.

Mr. Richardson: I'll just pick up on your response, then. How much money - what's the dollar figure - have you looked at that's set aside from either class B or class C service vis-à-vis class A service in reservists, class B and class C being full-time members and class A being the part-time, which is the large number of reservists, and the idea of the dollar differential?

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Mr. McCloskey: In terms of the entire recruiting process?

Mr. Richardson: No, the whole system - shaking out class A and putting class B together and the total class A packages. That should be easy to identify.

Mr. McCloskey: We haven't brought those statistics with us, but we can prepare that for you.

Mr. Richardson: That would be a valuable statistic to have.

I move on from there, then. When recruiting from downtown Toronto and the Toronto area, public transportation is rather good to get people into the recruiting centre. How does someone from Renfrew or Lanark get over to Pembroke? Where do they go for a recruiting centre?

Mr. Brown: Usually, the local recruiter will have a route they base out of a Canadian forces recruiting centre, and then every Wednesday they'll go to Cobourg, Ontario, or Lanark. There might be a recruiting office set up in the local post office, and there will be a regular schedule. For example, he or she will be there on Thursday afternoon. So when you open your local yellow pages and you call the number, you know that at a certain time there's going to be a recruiter in your area. If not, they're bused in.

Mr. McCloskey: I don't want to get off on a tangent, but our reason for bringing up the recruiting process was that if you look at the demographics for the reserve, upon entry to the reserve, somebody is in most cases a beginning university or college student. We are looking for a rationalization of the process that asks how we make this as easy as possible and make it as cost-effective as possible.

I'll give you one example of what one of the paradoxes in the system is. You take somebody who is accepted to the University of Toronto in an undergraduate degree in physics and, as part of the recruiting process, you give them the standard Canadian forces test that asks you to identify which of these three words does not exist. You have ``dog'', ``cat'', ``baseball bat'', and others. It's that kind of thing. That test was designed for applicants of the 1950s and 1960s, when you had a different demographic group going in there. The administration of that test, the compiling of that test, the filing of those tests, and the storage of those tests add up to dollars. Do we need to do that now to service the people we have?

If somebody is going to join the Peel regional police force as an applicant, the Peel regional police force asks them to do their medical with their own doctor. These are the kinds of ideas we are trying to get across for the committee to look at in shifting the paradigm.

We want to maintain a high number of reserve forces. We want to make sure we have this reserve capacity, but we recognize - and as I mentioned, we are a change agent. We want to make sure that if we are wasting money that could be better spent elsewhere in support of the system, we are doing that.

Mr. Richardson: I'll go beyond, because commanding officers often put this down as the number one problem they have across Canada, and that is recruiting, availability, identification, and getting them into recruiting centres and back, more particularly in the Nova Scotia area than anywhere else because of the distances to and from.

I want to pick up on another area to follow up on Mr. Frazer's questioning on budgeting, recruitment, and ratio of officers to persons. Isn't it true that a budget for a regiment, a squadron, an artillery regiment, or a service battalion is allocated from the area headquarters to the unit and that determines what they can recruit? Isn't it budget-driven? You have your establishment of 250 people for a traditional battalion - and some go up to 300 and some - but you're not budgeted for that many people.

Mr. McCloskey: Certainly not.

In fact, to also add a point, commanding officers of units are technically paid according to CF pay scale, which is approximately $130 per day when they parade.

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Mr. Richardson: I'd just like to question you on that figure. What did you say? I'll give you a chance to correct that. You said $131 a day.

Mr. Brown: We're just giving an approximate figure -

Mr. McCloskey: Of a lieutenant-colonel's pay for one day.

Mr. Brown: We haven't reached that rank yet, sir, so I wouldn't be intimately familiar.

Mr. McCloskey: But on paper that is the pay scale. However, whether or not the colonel is allowed to be paid for those days, he takes that money and foregoes the pay in order for that pay to go down to his troops. There are many unpaid days of reserve service. There is a lot of work that is done on kitchen tables at home that is not paid for. I think it's kind of an interesting thing again for the committee to look at in terms of the ratio and how much it applies. Yes, if we downsize the reserves so that a lieutenant-colonel became a major at that rank and pay, how much money is that really saving in terms of the entire context?

Mr. Richardson: I was trying to get at the kind of ratios Mr. Frazer was trying to get at. You could never reach those kinds of ratios with the kinds of budgets that are received at the battalion level. It's not recruitment.

Mr. McCloskey: Not under the current paradigm, no.

Mr. Brown: I'd just like to add to that. Again, from personal experience, I've been a local unit recruiter and at one time I was turning away fully qualified applicants that had gone through the recruiting process because we had reached our ceiling. That's not to say we didn't have room on the parade square. That's not to say we didn't have the resources, but we had filled out our line serials. We are a regiment, which means that we should technically be able to have 300 soldiers, all ranks, on parade. However, I was having to turn these people away. So to answer your question, yes, it is budget-driven.

If I'm at the Royal Montreal Regiment or the Seaforth Highlanders, they could be the most popular units in their areas. They could be recruiting some of the best people, but they're having to turn away qualified candidates.

Mr. McCloskey: The commission report itself, on page 52, identifies that, even with all the difficulties, reserve units have no shortage of recruits. Yet on page 2 of the preface it states that the recruiting pools are too far away from reserve units. We haven't been able to quite figure that one out yet.

The Chairman: Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly has the next question, but before I go to him, I just want to tell you that he'll probably tell you several times in his presentation that his riding is bigger than my province, so I just thought I'd....

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Mr. O'Reilly (Victoria - Haliburton): I thought I covered that yesterday, Mr. Chairman, and I thought you accepted the facts.

Welcome, Mr. McCloskey, Mr. Brown, and Mr. Howard. I appreciate your taking the time to come here and give us your view on the report, but I want to take you back to what we're here for, and that is the study of this report. Our mandate is to study the report and present it to Parliament with possible amendments and your mandate is to have us scrap it. So I guess my first question is whether there is any part of this study that you like.

Mr. McCloskey: We like the allusion at the end of the report that says this all requires further study. That's the first thing we are in support of. We are also in support of the fact that the study recognizes the reserves are a good value - I think that was the terminology they used. Aside from that, I think the report is too loose with the facts and does not have a suitable dollar figure to tell you what it is you're going to save. In fact, it recognizes that it did not do a statistical or a monetary analysis of the reserve.

There are many administrative points in there that on the surface look to be beneficial to the reserve, yet those were administrative points that could have been addressed fifteen years ago. There's nothing new in this report.

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Mr. Brown: In the time of fiscal constraint, in the time of having to rationalize the fewer and fewer dollars that we have to spend on national defence, to have the minister and the department come back to your committee and say, what's wrong with defence is all contained in this book and this is going to solve the problem I think is false. It's creating an illusion that by accepting the points in this report it's going to fix the solution.

The whole system needs a closer look; the whole system needs a special study. For those on the commission, of which I know two of the gentlemen personally and have the highest respect for, I think it is like saying that I want to take a look at socialized medicine in the country and I'm not going to put any doctors or any people who are familiar with the medical community on there.

To talk about the reserves and not put any reservists on that I think is wrong.

So what we're saying is yes, there has to be change, but not the type of change that's in this book, and the changes that you want are not going to be found in the reserves.

Mr. O'Reilly: You're asking for more efficiency in saving money. You're saying it isn't addressed in here.

In particular, how do you take into account the budget restraints the Government of Canada is under right now, and how would you address change, then?

Mr. McCloskey: One of the major problems we have with this report is that it looks at structural cost but it doesn't look at process costs. By process costs I mean that the reserve system at the unit level is basically paper driven. The degree of administration and time spent on administration in reserve units, as opposed to time spent on its primary role of military service, is too high. We want to lower this and try to maximize the amount of time spent on military training by reducing lengthy process.

For example, and it's a difficult process to follow, but the reserve pay system...and I'm sure that if this committee hasn't heard about it already, it will.

Mr. O'Reilly: One of my questions is in that area. What's your answer to solving the problem of three pay systems? You're reading my notes, obviously, so go ahead.

Mr. McCloskey: The reserve pay system is a very complex issue, and it's too bad it is that complex. We have private soldiers who are astounded by the idea that they can be hired by McDonald's and then two weeks later receive a pay cheque that is correct.

Just as an anecdote, Mr. Brown didn't get paid for his duty over the last month due to a pay problem.

It is going to require a very large degree of study, but some avenues may have innovative solutions. For example, rather than paying a private soldier their wage in cash, use a tuition payment plan akin to the United States ROTC for all ranks who qualify. What this would do would be to allow reserve soldiers/students the opportunity to attend university at a reduced rate and be paid by using the university tuition for their military service. That frees up the concept of class A budgeting for paying a reserve soldier $56 a day, or if it's only a half day, and so on.

We're looking for innovative solutions to this. We can put more soldiers on the ground for the same amount of cost. In fact, we are looking to putting more people on for less.

Mr. O'Reilly: I asked you to give me something specific in that particular area and you've given me some theory, which is what I already have here. So two sets of theories don't help me make a decision.

Mr. McCloskey: A specific example of the pay system's inadequacy?

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Mr. O'Reilly: First of all, the question of taking into account the budget restraints...I came out of the reserves in the 1960s and I don't know if I was paid the last time. I should go back and check, but I think they've folded now. So that system existed back then and obviously still exists now.

Mr. McCloskey: Your pay cheque is probably in a file cabinet somewhere.

Mr. O'Reilly: It wasn't a lot then.

Mr. Brown: We were here almost a year ago and the chief of the defence staff stood up and said to the Conference of Defence Associations that they'd sunk $14.7 million into the interim reserve pay system. It should be getting every one of you livid that in this time of fiscal restraint we're spending this kind of money with zero results.

Mr. Frazer: We're used to that.

Mr. Brown: You asked where the reserves fit into this reduction and fiscal constraint. As you all know, as you vote every year on the budget and the estimates that come through from DND, the three major areas of appropriations are capital procurement, O and M and personnel.

We've all seen in our history that if we ignore capital procurement, then we end up paying a lot more twenty years later when we have to replace these ships, these aircraft, these armoured vehicles. We have to replace them and we have to maintain them. We also have our O and M costs. So where are the savings going to come from?

We have to maintain our war fighting capability. We have to maintain our state of national defence. So base economics leads you to say these savings must come in personnel costs. We can't cut people's pay. We've frozen it for the last five years. So you're saying the savings have to come from personnel. Where's the best bargain? Defence 2000, Operation Red Tape out of DND, stated in their latest report that the reserves is the best bargain, yet this is where they attempt to find the savings.

Let's say a full-time soldier gives you 365 days a year of national defence capability. You're paying him 100% of the cost. Let's say you pay a reservist for thirty days a year, one-twelfth, and he can provide you with 70% of national defence capability. That seems to me to be the place to go for savings.

Do we send any soldiers away immediately on operations? Yes, we do. That's why you need a standing army. But do we need to cut back on reservists where the best bargains come from? Let's say we are going on extended operations. We can train reservists to be up to 100% standard. We've been doing it for the last five years in Yugoslavia.

Getting back to your question, Mr. O'Reilly, where are we going to find the savings in this era of budget restraint, fiscal restraint and budget cutbacks? Savings come not by cutting the reserves but by making them rational and rethinking the whole defence process.

Mr. O'Reilly: There would appear to be more reserve officers on the review stand sometimes than there are people in the parade square. Is recruiting up to scratch? Is it because the system advances so many people on a merit basis that they become officers too quickly, or that you're not recruiting at the other end?

Mr. McCloskey: Part of it is a budgetary problem in that the allotment of money for recruiting is given. So you have peaks and valleys. At some points you have a commanding officer of a unit who has more soldiers than they can handle and at other times hardly any.

For example, one of the Toronto units went from a unit that only had 35 people in one year to having 200 the next. This is tied directly to budget allocation. We want to see a smoothing out of this process so that we can have a system that always has a certain amount of soldiers in it. Right now you have wide cleavages between recruitment for the reserve in many locations.

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Mr. O'Reilly: The other comment I had is that when you compare the reserve army with Magna corporation, it's a very poor comparison. I must tell you, I'm not impressed by that. I think it's like comparing Quaker Oats with something that doesn't compete with them.

I would caution you that when you are going to use that type of comparison, you'd serve us better if you used other countries that have reserve armies, that have call-ups...the American system or some other system that we can compare it with. Magna is a very poor example. I wonder why you would draw that as an example.

Mr. McCloskey: The example of Magna is not an example to say that the Magna corporation and the reserves are one and the same. The use of the Magna annual report is to say that a company with the same degree of operating expenses over a year has no problem identifying where its money is going, and does so every year.

What we have is a commission report that uses the words, ``about'', ``around'', and ``the department tells us''. Where are the numbers? Where are the stats? Where is the bibliography for this report?

We are not saying we do not trust the department's numbers, but where are they, and will they put them up to scrutiny? When they did put them up to scrutiny, we saw a difference from $1 billion to $875 million.

So that is why we put that example in there. It has nothing to do with the actual operations of the company. It is merely that they have the same amount of money going out, yet they can report back where it's gone, and how much they spent on research and development.

In terms of the reserve, where is our innovative team of experts? Where is our group of people within the department to ensure that new ideas in the reserve are given an opportunity? One of them is not even in the directorate of reserves but is an independent, Operation Red Tape.

Mr. O'Reilly: But for every company that you pull out as an example we can find four that are poor examples. All I am telling you is that if you're going to compare apples, then compare apples.

My final question is that in the August 1 issue of Defence Policy Review, you stated, ``Millions of dollars worth of computer equipment sits idle in reserve units across the country''. Can you give us specific examples of that? Was it ``million of dollars worth'' or were you misquoted?

Mr. McCloskey: No, certainly not. There are terminals and computer systems that sit idle. By ``idle'' I mean they are not at present linked into network systems. We have battalion orderly room clerks in the reserves who are not trained on computer software. We have staff courses that are run off of paper, basically learning how to write memoranda, etc., which could be done automatically by computer.

We can reduce the amount of administration reserve units down from the large administration staff we have now, to, for a unit of 100 people, 5 people doing the administration - with the use, the proper use, of computerization.

As well, in terms of supply, units are just now going onto systems where they can do their supply requisitions via computer. It's very much a paper-driven system. I don't think you'd get too much of a shock if you walked into a battalion orderly room today. There would not be that much of a culture shock in terms of administration.

This is something that bothers a lot of people in the reserves. If you take people from a business environment, from a university environment, through the door of a reserve unit, they'd walk back into 1971 in terms of administration. We can save money by improving that.

Mr. O'Reilly: We run into that in Ottawa. That's why I wore my Jurassic Park tie today. The Senate is voting on something.

Thank you very much.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, gentlemen.

Before I go to Mr. Hart, I was wondering if you could give me your views on whether you think this proposed job protection legislation would have a negative effect or a positive effect on a reservist getting a job somewhere.

Mr. McCloskey: Job protection, as far as we are concerned, is at present very much a non-issue. There are many other concerns above and beyond job protection legislation.

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As well, there is, again, no database of information available for study. The Canadian Forces Liaison Council does not have any indication of how many reservists would require such legislation, how many reservists have managed to work out details with their employers now.

One of the concerns we also have, from speaking with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Manufacturers' Association and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, is where was the consultation we want to see in any job protection legislation, consultation with business so that it does not have a negative effect on the reservists and the ability to serve their country? In terms of the job protection legislation in this report, we don't consider its mentioning a great stride without that backdrop of data.

The Chairman: Mr. Hart.

Mr. Hart (Okanagan - Similkameen - Merritt): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome to Mr. McCloskey, Mr. Brown and Mr. Howard. We're glad to have you here and to hear your perspective today.

I'd like to get to some specific examples I'd like to talk to you about, but first of all, you mentioned in your presentation that by cutting the reserves by half, you can't create a positive environment for the reserves. That's not really what this report is saying. It's not suggesting cutting the reserves in half. Or do you read into the report that it is in fact cutting the reserves by half?

Mr. McCloskey: In terms of the theoretical numbers put forward by the commission with respect to military personnel, it is not cutting the reserves in half. In terms of the number of units in their locations throughout the country, it is cutting the reserves in half.

Mr. Hart: That may be considered by many as being a very effective thing to do, combining maybe two units that are lower in numbers. What is your rationale for not accepting that argument?

Mr. McCloskey: Oh, there are many. The first is that, again, we haven't seen any numerical data to say we're going to save any money. In theory, yes, by closing a unit's armouries it would save on heat and hydro. However, most of the armouries about this country are now historic buildings and are useless in terms of their sale value.

Mr. Brown: Let me add that the reasons why we have 163 units that aren't up to full strength should not be the rationale for cutting them. If we did that, we wouldn't have a regiment in the Canadian army, less the ones that are on UN taskings.

I mean, this is the state of the Canadian forces across the board. We don't have any fighter squadrons that are up to full strength. We don't have any naval squadrons that are up to full strength. This is a characteristic of the Canadian forces as a whole and not just an independent characteristic of the reserve.

That is why we're saying there may be solutions contained in this, but these are not all the solutions. For us to step forward and say you should accept this commission's report would be unwise, because it's not fixing the whole problem.

Mr. McCloskey: As well, I had the chance to read, for an upcoming presentation, a synopsis prepared by Brian MacDonald. He goes into great length.... I won't steal his thunder today, much as I'd like to, because he did some great work with some statistics. But one of the things he drives at is if you have a 100-person unit 45 minutes away, and you have a 100-person unit in another location, and you combine them at a third location, the mathematics don't work out that you necessarily have, then, a 300-person unit. What you have left over after closing those two is a 100-person unit.

In the city of Toronto, as an example, we find that the further away from the downtown core, where most of the reserve units in Toronto are located...has a 45-minute circle around the armouries. If somebody lives outside of that, the attrition rate for them is very high. They will not travel that great distance to do this.

Therefore, the idea of closing a unit in Stratford with the hope that all these people will get into their private vehicles and drive forty minutes to a unit in London requires, I think, further examination.

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Mr. Hart: Were you also suggesting in your comments that the reserve was paying for the recruiting of reservists?

Mr. McCloskey: Somebody is paying for it. Yes, I note in the report that they state that the reserves do not pick up the tab for the recruiting, but somebody is paying for that. It is a process the reserves are using and do not need, regardless of whether or not this month it is being added to the reserve budget or not. Somebody is paying for that. Are we getting value for money? I don't think we are. That could require further study as well by the committee.

Mr. Hart: I said at the start I wanted to talk about some specific examples. These aren't criticizing the reserves; this is basically saying we have a problem in the structure. I want you to take it in that context.

Last summer there was a fire just outside Penticton; 5,500 hectares were destroyed, 18 people lost their homes, and thousands of people were evacuated from their homes. They finally did call in the military to help out. About 125 soldiers were brought in from Calgary. But it struck me funny at the time that there was a reserve unit an hour away in Kelowna, the B.C. Dragoons, that was not called out at that particular time. I think as a reservist...I think they would have been happy to go out.

Mr. McCloskey: They certainly would have been very happy to go. When you're speaking with reservists, you will find they have a very high feeling of moral obligation to serve the communities they serve in their units. The prevention of their serving is not generated by the units themselves. The reservist wishes to serve in that capacity.

We've had instances in the city of Toronto where during large snowstorms people would come down to the reserve unit with the idea that we have all these vehicles there, so we could do something.

Reserve units have traditionally not been integrated into disaster planning or emergency plans because of bickering over who is going to pick up the tab and fear that municipalities will abuse the privilege and call them out every ten minutes, etc. That is something we wish to rectify through our efforts, and that is to increase the capacity. There is a very good opportunity for reserves to serve. The national guard in the United States has become very adept at it.

As well, in terms of military community relations it has an astounding effect. Now people can see that their money.... One private told us that it's interesting that we can spend thousands of dollars on him to go to Bosnia and help out people and get their water supply organized and do food convoys and provide security in Bosnia, yet it is said that reserve units do not have the training to take part in emergency preparedness operations at home.

Mr. Hart: This seems odd to me too. One of the things I think we have to address when we look at the reserves is what role they play in Canada.

There was another example. We've heard it in the news here locally, but I had a person who was very concerned about it because of being a close friend of this hunter who went missing from Low, Quebec, Chris Brown, about a week ago now. There's no one out searching for him, no one at all. The police aren't searching for him. The military apparently searched for him for two days and, as you say, the money ran out. There are reservist friends of the family who are going out now looking for him on their own time. It's a terrible situation. We have a family that hasn't any idea if this Mr. Brown is alive or dead or what his status is, and we have no one out looking for him. We have a military and we have a reserve organization in this country. Why is this happening?

Mr. Brown: It's interesting that you bring that up, Mr. Hart. One, we have the same name, but two, I heard that on the radio the other night and I had the same reaction.

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There are communities across this country with reservists. All they want to do is serve, but we're handcuffing them. The solution is not to make this their primary role, but to make it an auxiliary or secondary role. But there is no apparatus. There is no system in effect that allows this to happen.

The department will tell you, we could give the reserves this role, but how do we know how many are going to show up? That has the negative connotation that these guys would rather do something else. That's not the case at all.

Mr. McCloskey: To add to that, the commission report states that emergency preparedness is something the reserves should be looking at. But then it says we are going to reduce the presence of these units, centralize them and basically take them out of the communities they would help. That is another of the contradictions of the report.

The Chairman: Could Jack jump in for a second?

Mr. Richardson: I want to clarify a point you brought up, Mr. Hart. As a reservist, you should know full well that you can be called out. In the Oka crisis we had 700 reservists called out. It's a simple procedure called the aid to civil power.

Where does it come from? At one time all of the land reserve, the militia, was under the control of the provinces, Upper and Lower Canada. When they joined in union they gave it up under the militia act, but the provinces wanted a guarantee in place of it. It has been exercised many times to put down strikes and other things that may not be quite as popular today. But that is something that has a procedure. You apply, and you apply to the chief of defence staff, not to the government.

Mr. Hart: But there is a problem here when the province doesn't apply. We still have a Canadian citizen out in the middle of a forest somewhere in rugged terrain and nobody's looking for him. Who should be doing that?

Mr. Richardson: I've seen this happen. A young girl was lost in the Minesing Swamp around Camp Borden. They called out the local reserve unit to sweep the swamp on the advice of the commander of the command at the time. There have been incidents where that happened. They called out the regular army at the time of the Winnipeg floods and the reserve units were involved in that. There are all kinds of historical facts of that being put in place. It's used less and less.

By the way, the provinces don't pay. They can be charged, but they haven't paid a bill....

Mr. McCloskey: If I could add to that, I think it is one of process. Yes, there have been historical examples in the past, but they are few and far between.

Mr. Richardson: Just as close as four years ago.

Mr. McCloskey: Yes. However, the individual reserve units at present, with their one or two vehicles, are not in a position to help out in national disasters.

In the city of Toronto, the chairman of the Red Cross in Toronto mentioned to me that the reserve units don't factor into the plan at all. How can that happen in a city of 4.5 million people? That is another example that was brought up in private discussion with the Minister of Defence, Mr. Collenette, at which point he mentioned that 11 units in one city is a lot of units, isn't it? Then we mentioned to him that there are 4.5 million people in the city of Toronto. Every uniformed policeman and emergency personnel even in the surrounding area does not equate to a policeman on every corner.

We have roughly 2,000 reservists in the city of Toronto. How can it be that they are not factored into emergency planning? They have a moral obligation to do so. I'm not sure where this reticence comes from. Perhaps it is from the idea that it will never happen here.

Mr. Hart: I have just a couple more points. I am very pleased to see that the CIC is part of your organization. I was a member of that organization for five years. I believe the CIC and the reserves are the best value-added product that the Canadian government produces, because they put in many hours well above their paid limits per year. Although CIC officers only get paid for 20 days a year, when you look at all the volunteer hours they put in - 60 or 70.... Some of the retired ones are at the unit every day working on issues for the cadets. It is a value-added product that the government produces. We'd like to keep it to make sure that we have a connection with all the communities across the country. I think that's an important role.

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Mr. Brown: I can attest to that link. I recently attended the 83rd Grey Cup game in Regina, and who was on the field during the opening ceremony? The reservist naval contingent, the air cadets, the army cadets and the navel cadets, and the air force flew overhead. It was a great feeling. There it was in red and white right in front of you - Canadians serving their community and active in their community. It was a very patriotic moment. If we accept some of the proposals in this commission report, they're saying we're taking that away. Because of this system, we're punishing the most devoted citizens in this country.

Instead of getting down, doing some hard work and finding out where it's broken, we're going to get rid of it, and I think that's wrong.

Mr. Hart: My last comment is about Magna corporation. Do you know if they allow their employees to have time off for reserve training?

Mr. McCloskey: I am not aware of Magna corporation's reservist policy.

Mr. Hart: I was asking about that because I thought it would strengthen your presentation to say they know exactly what it costs and they have employees who are reservists.

Mr. Brown: This summer I worked for a company that did half of their annual sales - in the millions of dollars - with DND. I went to the president of the company and asked whether they had a reservist employee program - there were other reservists on staff - and they did not. That's fundamentally wrong.

The Chairman: Mr. Mifflin.

Mr. Mifflin: I want to welcome the witnesses here today. The discussion has been interesting so far. I want to set the record straight, but without any apologies or any lobbying here. Given that the size of the militia and reserve force will be 23,000 - that was a policy statement - the committee didn't have any flexibility there. So I just want to set the record straight. It wasn't their idea to go 23,000; it was a policy statement from the white paper.

We sometimes help with policy, but we don't have the flexibility to change the laws. I want to make that clear. We can make all the recommendations we want, but this is policy, so you can't blame the commission for the 23,000.

I have one question needing clarification. Where did you get the figure of 85 communities?

Mr. McCloskey: That was generated from an analysis by Brian MacDonald, who is scheduled to appear.

Mr. Mifflin: So we wouldn't have knowledge of that yet?

Mr. McCloskey: Not until he appears.

Mr. Mifflin: I was a little confused about the 85 communities.

Mr. McCloskey: He refers to the footprint of the military. There will be 85 communities -

Mr. O'Reilly: Don't do that footprint thing again. A footprint is something that's left. Get that word out of there. A footprint is something you find when somebody is gone.

Mr. McCloskey: That figure was generated from a report done by Brian MacDonald. It will be -

Mr. Mifflin: I couldn't figure out where you got this from.

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I know where you're coming from and it's interesting to hear from somebody with your approach to the report, but I had to tell you what our mandate is. We have another six or seven days of hearings to make some recommendations on this, and if every witness says this report is not worth the paper it's written on, then we have a serious problem with respect to our recommendations. If it is 50:50 then we will have to apply some judgment, and if the reverse is true, if everybody says this is the greatest report in the world, we'd probably say implement it because everybody loves it.

So it's good to hear different opinions. As a committee member, I welcome these kinds of opinions. Having said that, there were a couple of things in the report that don't necessarily concern me, but they will be the crux of the recommendations that I will be concerned about when I put my name to the final report.

What is your view on recommendation 6, which talks about reduction of the 14 districts to 7 brigades?

Mr. McCloskey: We really don't have a set policy in terms of the districts command as opposed to this new brigade command set-up. Under this new brigade command set-up, we have no figures to compare. A district costs x dollars in the report and we will replace that with a brigade-style headquarters, so we will save x dollars - that has not been identified.

Mr. Mifflin: At the risk of sounding a bit irrelevant, which I certainly don't intend to be, let's just put the cost aside for the time being. From the purely organizational viewpoint, the report has said.... Let me go back. In our joint committee report - and many of us served on that committee - we said there's something wrong with the reserves. We don't know what it is, but we need to study it further. We don't have the time and we can't focus on it because something else will suffer, so it was a recommendation in our report that caused the commission to take place. I kept cajoling and hounding the minister until we got this commission going.

Notwithstanding your comment or anybody else's comment, the chairman was a chief justice of Canada, and one officer is a retired lieutenant general who started out in the militia. As an army commander he commanded militia units - all of them were in the army - and is probably one of Canada's best historians.

I think we have to take that into consideration. I'm not trying to dissuade you from your viewpoint. Having said that, put cost aside. Purely from an organizational viewpoint, do you think it would be better to have 7 brigades - one in eastern Canada, one in Atlantic Canada and two in the other three areas - than the current 14-district set-up? If you say yes, why? If you say no, why?

Mr. Brown: It's wordsmithing. That's all it is. I have the highest regard and respect for these gentlemen and I want to make that clear, but the nature of this report and these recommendations - it's wordsmithing.

Mr. Mifflin: I'll zero in on this one here.

Mr. Brown: The districts becoming brigades - what does that mean? Have we re-roled the militia?

Mr. Frazer: There are seven fewer.

Mr. Brown: Yes, but the overall problem.... Why are there 14 districts that aren't filled out? Why are there 163 units that aren't filled out? Is it because of headquarters staff? No, it's because there's a systematic problem. There's no real role. There's no apparatus for real service. There are so many handcuffs on the reservists that changes like taking 14 districts and making 7 brigades - unless you make these brigades part of a round-out division with a real role and have them training alongside the regular force, all we're doing is doing the same thing, and it's just a mirage.

Mr. Mifflin: I want to thank Mr. Frazer for his intervention, because my understanding, like his understanding, is that the big advantage of getting rid of all the districts is that you turf out all the senior officers in the headquarters. You do in fact have a brigade that has a better raison d'être and a better role. I read somewhere that it's based on the divisional concept.

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So the criticism you just made in fact is one of the reasons given here. I'm not trying to argue with you, and I do respect your opinion, but I think -

Mr. Brown: Let me take that one step further.

Okay, so we have a round-out division. Now let's say the First Canadian Division out of Kingston has with it the 2CMBG in Petawawa; one brigade, let's say, out of Ottawa; and another one based out of Toronto. Now do you really see in the current status, in the way the reservists are structured today, that this division will ever go to the field?

Mr. Mifflin: It may do so. It certainly couldn't go to the field the way it is right now, except to augment -

Mr. McCloskey: No. What Mr. Brown is getting at - and I think we're having a violent agreement here - is that the reserves as they are now cannot go to the field. There's no indication that by changing from a district headquarters to a brigade headquarters, that is going to enact a real change that filters down through the system.

Mr. Mifflin: But you do get rid of all these people in the headquarters.

Mr. Brown: But then you're going to have 7 brigades with the same problems of the 14 districts now, and you're going to have 7 understrength brigades.

Some of the reasons you have units at the strength they are at is that they identify with their unit, their community, and the regiment they're in. If you take away that....

Let's say you're left with half of those people, but you cut the headquarters; there are still the same problems. Instead of 14 units understrength, you're going to have 7 amalgamated units understrength. It's the same problem, because the overall system is not structured for an effective role for the reserve.

Mr. McCloskey: The premise of the original question - if we could get back to that - to put costs aside, has never been an attitude the RAC has adopted.

We look at it from the point of view of costs and what we are going to produce. I don't think we could give you a very detailed answer on the administrative or structural implications of changing from a district to a brigade headquarters. We haven't seen a dollar figure related to that.

Therefore it's not really an issue for us, until we can determine that this is going to improve the system, rather than just move the chairs.

Mr. Mifflin: Jack, did you have something you wanted to add to this?

Mr. Frazer: My understanding of the organization they're recommending is that the brigades.... This is a skeleton force that will eventually develop into two corps. Only now there's a rationalization where each of them knows where they belong and how they will be fleshed out to form those two corps. Does that follow?

Mr. Brown: So if you're asking us whether we have any problem with them calling it a brigade and a district, the answer is no. Do we think this is a solution? No.

Mr. Frazer: No, but I question your mathematics. When you say you have 14 districts and they're undermanned, how can you then wind up being fully manned with 7 brigades?

But surely if you cut the number of units in half, they're going to be at better strength, aren't they?

With regard to people identifying with a unit, is the loyalty not to Canada and to country? Isn't that what it's all about?

Mr. Brown: Yes, Mr. Frazer, in a perfect world that might be the sense. There are soldiers, however, who identify strongly with their community.

I'm sure you can understand that in some components of the country.... Let's say I'm in the P.E.I. regiment. That's the only militia regiment in Prince Edward Island.

Mr. Frazer: Then there's no choice.

Mr. Brown: Yes, but there's a strong affinity to -

Mr. Frazer: Understandably, and presumably that wouldn't be done away with.

Mr. Brown: Well, I mean, everything's on the table here.

Mr. Frazer: No, no. Surely to God, common sense will intrude somewhere in here. If that's the only unit in P.E.I., would it be likely that -

Mr. Brown: Well, I'd hope -

Mr. McCloskey: Mr. Frazer, that's why we're here today, that is, to see a common-sense approach applied to this commission.

Mr. Frazer: But again, these people have recommended that the militia should decide which units remain and which units would be taken off strength. Surely you can't get it better than that.

Mr. McCloskey: I'll reiterate that we have not seen a rationale for the elimination of any units at present.

Mr. Frazer: They're all understrength.

Mr. McCloskey: Yes.

Mr. Brown: But every regular army unit is understrength.

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Mr. Frazer: No, no. What's happening is that the people are unhappy because they're dealing with every.... As we were saying earlier, a lieutenant is commanding a section. He shouldn't be commanding a section.

Mr. Brown: Yes.

Mr. Frazer: People would get more satisfaction out of having a full-blown platoon -

Mr. Brown: Sure.

Mr. Frazer: - than they would -

Mr. Brown: But, Mr. Frazer, the solution is that if they want to try something like this, you have to put it on paper and you have to run a test.

There's no company in the world that says it has a great idea for a car, let's build it and sell it. They test it out, they test-market, they see whether it works.

We don't have any proof that it works. An example of this is theoretically -

Mr. Frazer: How do you know this committee won't recommend that, that we try it out in an area?

Mr. McCloskey: That's what we're hoping for. We're hoping for -

Mr. Frazer: But you didn't recommend that, eh? I'm not trying to be at all adversarial here, but -

The Chairman: I'll stop right here and just come back to Mr. Mifflin.

Mr. Mifflin: Would you be prepared to have a look at the recommendations and tell us which ones you agree with and don't agree with?

You can take any report and say, I don't like the report, I don't like the basis, I don't like the costing. You could have done that with our report, which we thought was pretty good. I'm talking about the joint committee report.

So as a systems analyst you can take any report and say, the assumptions you made, for example.... That was commented on by Mr. O'Reilly with respect to equal rights and all the rest of the stuff.... I was a bit lost on that myself.

But putting that aside, I would be interested in knowing.... You both seem to have a tremendous attachment to and experience with the militia. Help me out here. I'd like to know which of the recommendations you like and which ones you don't like.

Mr. McCloskey: Is the report all bad then? We divided the report into two sections, that which could be changed with the stroke of a pen and that which, once changed, could not be reinvented even with a magic wand, if I can say that in this building.

The major division is between the structural change.... Once a unit is closed and moved, a year or two years from then, if it is determined that you've made an error, it is going to be very difficult and very costly to re-establish that unit.

The administrative changes recommended by the committee - the extension of benefits, the cursory mention of job protection legislation, etc. - could be changed with a stroke of the pen, and could have been changed with the stroke of a pen five years ago.

The benefits could have been extended then. You didn't need a commission to determine that. Therefore the main, real, concrete issue coming out of this is the structural changes. That is the basis for our rejection of the report.

As well there are the terms of reference for the report. We started with flawed terms of reference for the report, restrictive terms of reference. This was even mentioned by the committee. They were not allowed to view some of the other aspects, how the reserves fit into the general context.

How do you do a commission on the reserve? A reserve to what? How does this organization fit into the big picture?

Mr. Mifflin: I think they describe that in the report. They do that very clearly.

Mr. Brown: How can they discuss...? If they're limited to the reserves, then the solutions in principle have to be limited to the reserves.

I think that's flawed. Any restructuring of the reserves has to be done in the context of restructuring the whole Department of National Defence, and they were not allowed to do that.

Mr. Mifflin: You can't have people to change the world. Three people in -

Mr. McCloskey: Mr. Mifflin, again, let me reiterate what we said in our prepared statement -

Mr. Mifflin: You have to set some kind of perimeters when you send people off to study things.

Mr. McCloskey: In many cases the reserve component has been described as the spare tire. Again, we don't have clearly defined roles. The fundamental difference is between the Canadian -

Mr. Mifflin: Can I interrupt there? I think, Mr. Chairman, this is important.

You said the reserves don't have a clear role. Well, I don't agree with you there, because I look at the naval reserves. I have to tell you that about ten years ago I inspected every naval reserve division in Canada, because I wanted to know what the hell was going on.

Mr. McCloskey: I can clarify by saying land force reserves.

Mr. Mifflin: Okay, but I want to tell you what happened. The standards were different. People didn't really believe in what they were doing. I had four-stripe captains whose job in an exercise was to take a pointer and point at a map. It was degrading.

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I also noticed on the inspections that there were no chiefs and petty officers. There was a lot of leading seamen and a lot of able seamen. You'd go to the senior NCOs' mess and there would be three, four, sometimes two.

So I started off by asking the questions: how do we get senior NCOs, chiefs and petty officers in the navy? I found out that wasn't the problem. The problem was, what do you want the naval reserves to do? He said, Jeez, that's a good question, what are they supposed to do? They're supposed to augment the regular force. In this day of complexity and training, I expect to have a radar plotter know exactly the same as a reservist what a regular force does? I looked at him and said, hey, you can't do this, this is crazy.

So we developed what was called the nine steps to happiness. We started off with the role of the naval reserve and then we worked all the way down. It took us eighteen months to do it.

We ended up basically getting new ships because they had roles. We had naval reservists who didn't have to spend two years learning a particular aspect of their trade. We actually developed trade patterns for the reservists.

So we got less complex, smaller ships to be run by the naval reserves. To do that, we had to give them another role, and that was basically the control of the coastline, naval coastal shipping.

Mr. McCloskey: With their own designated ships.

Mr. Mifflin: With their own designated ships. We went forward and got the government...and it wasn't the Liberal government either. The government said, yes, that's a reasonable thing to do.

Mr. McCloskey: I think that line of logic, Mr. Mifflin, is translated into this report in that the commission has very little to say about the naval reserve.

Mr. Mifflin: That's right.

Mr. McCloskey: I think that line of logic has not been applied to the land forces reserve in terms of role.

We're talking about structure. We're talking about minor details such as how many majors we have at $60 a shot. What are we going to do in terms of the role of a unit?

In an American example a reserve is a true reserve. They have very specific taskings for their unit. A reserve unit could be a chemical decontamination unit.

Mr. Mifflin: But they have a different set-up than we do. They have different laws as well.

Mr. McCloskey: In terms of the role, however, they are given a very clearly defined role. They are not asked to provide all things to all people.

Reserve units in Canada - we'll use infantry battalions as examples because that's what I'm most familiar with personally - are asked to measure up to a regular battalion's standard on an eye-dropper of equipment and money for operating. That can't happen.

Now, there are a variety of ideas out there for further analysis, and that's what we want to see. We want to see a progression of...let's examine the role. What do we want this thing to do?

You can't examine the role of the reserve without seeing how it fits in. The reserve is just a back-up to what you have out there currently, or what you want the army to do. Therefore your reserve is going to have to fill this gap.

Mr. Mifflin: Wasn't that described in the mobilization phases?

Mr. McCloskey: I'm speaking in terms of unit capacities, an infantry unit being given a specific task and a specific role that it can attain.

The mobilization plan is interesting, but in terms of the actual application and its effects on reserve units now, it is very limited. Again, mobilization is something great to talk about when the system is in order. We have a serious problem with the system and the set-up right now. So we have to get back to basics here.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Mr. Mifflin: I could go on, but others have questions, so I'll -

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Cannis.

Mr. Cannis (Scarborough Centre): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me also welcome the witnesses. I'm a new member on this committee, and I must say that compared with the other two committees I've been on previously, I very much enjoy what I'm hearing here.

Before I go on, I know the term ``magic wand'' was mentioned a minute ago. It's a very sacred word.

Mr. McCloskey: My apologies.

Mr. Cannis: There's only one person who's allowed to use a magic wand, and has one, and that's Mr. Bouchard.

Voices: Oh, oh!

Mr. Cannis: The other day we met with Mr. Mannix, and he also used this business approach, this concept of being able to make proper estimates, etc.

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Maybe I wasn't listening, but could you elaborate for me on how you derived the $500-million mark? I know that was one of the issues we discussed yesterday. We haven't actually figured a cost, and we have to get to that point before we go a step further.

You mentioned the computer hardware just literally sitting there. Is it sitting there in storage? I'm asking the question only because you said that they're not on line to the system. Are they being used as stand-alones? If they're being used as a stand-alone system, at least they're getting some use out of them, or are they just stored and locked away?

I know there have been certain recommendations. I didn't see us, throughout this afternoon, discussing specific recommendations, agreeing or disagreeing or making changes. But you did mention one area, as far as the university program was concerned. I know the commission did make a specific recommendation. Do you agree with its recommendation as far as the timeframe and the retraining program are concerned? You generalized.

Mr. McCloskey: There are a number of questions there; the computer question I'll answer first.

When I said that millions of dollars' worth of computers are sitting there, that means the possible utility we would be getting out of a system, which would maximize its use of computerization for administrative purposes, is not being reached right now.

We have trained clerks incapable of operating the machinery. They are not interconnected. When I say on-line, I don't mean Internet connected; I mean connected into some electronic highway that can transmit the information back and forth in an efficient manner. We are all for that. We want to see it improved and increased, as we said in the article.

The last question was with respect to the university. The Reservists' Association of Canada is very happy to have a high degree of university and college members. We would view as beneficial any move towards increasing the participation, through programs, of members of the reserve who are in college and university. However, we need to test these programs.

The COTC program that was originally in place many years ago answered a lot of questions. It provided a military influence on campuses across the country; however, we would like to see its utility, in terms of producing trained officers, applied to all ranks of the reserve. We think it's an excellent avenue to minimize costs and to maximize participation.

Mr. Cannis: As far as the timeframe - and let me read the recommendation here. The commission recommends that the term of primary reserve service for the reserve entry training program graduates be five years in the first ten years after graduation. Do you agree with that?

Mr. McCloskey: Let me first state that the RET program, or the reserve entry training plan, which allows reservists to attend military colleges, is not accepting candidates now for want of bed space, as quoted by the RMC commandant. I'm not really sure whether that is an issue.

In terms of a timeframe, I don't think you'd have any problem in asking somebody to sign on. If you put it into a contractual agreement, that's fine as long as there is an articulation of those terms to the individual.

Mr. Cannis: And the methodology used to derive the $500-million mark?

Mr. McCloskey: We can provide the committee with a copy of the report. The methodology was to start at the bottom of a sample reserve unit, work our way up, and define that by costs involved in solely reserve activities. That would mean not taking into account recruitment, a payment of a fee for the usage of a training area, or a portion of fixed capital costs for equipment that was earmarked for the reserves but is now sitting in the former Yugoslavia.

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That's where our $500-million figure comes from, and we'll put it up for discussion. One of the reasons we did the study was to induce some discussion into how much this costs and allow this committee an opportunity to try to nail it down with some firm numbers on which you can at least get some agreement.

The original estimate quoted of $1 billion was what started this in motion. A billion dollars is a lot of money, and we didn't see that transmitted to the parade square. Where did it go, and is this the most efficient way of producing soldiers, sailors, and air crew?

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Frazer: Perhaps I could pursue Mr. Mifflin's line of thought. I'm on page 76 of the report; it's ``Budgeting Process'', item 11.

I just wanted to see whether we can get some agreement from you that perhaps some of these recommendations have some common sense and strength to them.

Item 11 states:

11. The Commission recommends that every Militia unit should be guaranteed funding of four days per month for each of its effective members to receive the required training for the September-to-May period. The unit must devote these funds entirely and directly to training its members.

Do you agree or not agree?

Mr. McCloskey: I would agree with that comment.

Mr. Frazer: Okay.

Item 12 states:

12. The Commission also recommends that the level of funding necessary to exercise command, control, and administration of units be quantified, and that units be funded accordingly.

Do you agree or not agree?

Mr. McCloskey: We would agree with that.

Mr. Frazer: Do you agree with this one?

13. The Commission further recommends that any delegation of tasks to units (such as collective training) be accompanied by the funds necessary to execute the tasks.

Mr. McCloskey: Certainly.

Mr. Frazer: Do you agree with this?

14. The Commission recommends that increased authority and flexibility be delegated to reserve units to manage the operations and maintenance costs of their units and their infrastructure.

Mr. McCloskey: Certainly.

Mr. Frazer: So you do agree with some things in this report, then?

Mr. McCloskey: This is a fine methodology for how the reserves should operate and be budgeted. Yes, we are in full agreement with this methodology. However, before we can apply this wonderful methodology, we have to find out how much we're paying.

Mr. Frazer: But you have to start somewhere, and the principles that are embodied in there surely make it -

Mr. McCloskey: The principles that are embodied in there in terms of allowing reserve units to utilize their money and their equipment in the most cost-efficient manner and of allowing the lowest level of command to have as much autonomy as possible in the disbursement of those moneys are things we're in full agreement with.

Mr. Frazer: You see, we need your help. We've found that there are in fact four of the recommendations of the committee with which you do agree. Yet you said the whole damned report is no good.

Mr. Brown: But a colonel in Halifax could make these decisions. It doesn't take this committee to do it. What you should be saying is: okay, guys, you've given us this commission report and are these the types of changes we should be making?

Mr. Frazer: But is this not necessary then?

The Chairman: That's what we're doing.

Mr. Frazer: Is this not necessary? The recommendation is that they be guaranteed funding of four days a month for each of their effective members. That implies that doesn't happen at the moment.

Mr. Brown: But what's going to happen is that you're going to take these reports and say, this makes sense, go ahead and do it. Then you're going to have the sense that you fixed the problem.

That's not the problem. You should be getting upset they're sending you such minutia. They should be sending you -

Mr. Frazer: You may think that's minutia, but I don't think it is. It's funding that you say you need to do the job. You also said it's minutia when you talk about the number of officers, and I don't think that's minutia either. I think that's very important. We're talking about the satisfaction of the people participating in the program.

Mr. McCloskey: To put a cap onto the budgeting process aspect of this, do we have any strong heartache about items 11 through 14? No. We don't have any heartache with the idea that reservists love their country, but that doesn't have to be in this report. The recommendations here should be given in the way we have done that.

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Mr. Frazer: But these principles are being stipulated here. If we concur with them, then surely, if you agree with them, that's the step in the right direction to solving some of the problems you're talking about, is it not?

Mr. McCloskey: Is four days per month - and this is another question - enough for each effective member?

Mr. Frazer: I don't know. I asked you the question.

Mr. McCloskey: What do you want the reserves to do, Mr. Frazer? Until we determine -

Mr. Frazer: Really, what I'd like to see them do is, given sufficient notice, to form a unit that could be deployed to Bosnia or wherever the hell it is. They need sufficient training to do that, in the September to May timeframe but also in the summer training, which augments that, or at other times of the year. That's what I see as the eventual need, plus forming this nucleus, this skeleton, that can be used in a national mobilization plan.

What I guess I'm trying to say to you is perhaps you could be more positive, if you could say, ``I like this, but there's something lacking.'' You've just basically said the whole damn report is no good other than the fact that it says there should be more study given.

That doesn't help us very much. As Admiral Mifflin said, we get another six days to deal with this, and then we have to go to bed with it.

Mr. McCloskey: Again, allow me to say that these details, in terms of the budgeting process, are foundational - or should be foundational; let me qualify that. We would accept these as given in the operation of any reserve environment.

Now, what we have a problem with is, we are talking about a budgeting process without a discussion of role, without a discussion of the entire context. Your interpretation of what you would like the reserve to be able to do, and Mr. Hart's, of being able to carry out some UN missions, being able to help out in local emergencies, being able to do this and that: can we do that in four days?

This is why we came here with more questions for you than we had answers. We want to find out.

Mr. Frazer: Until now you hadn't even mentioned the training time. That wasn't part of your briefing to us. As I said, we're seeking information.

Mr. McCloskey: Again, the training time, taken out of context, is a red herring. We are here to raise our concern that the money that is.... We're talking about savings, about being efficient and effective, but we have not identified how much things cost. Without knowing that, we cannot identify how much we are going to save. Without discussion of role, we cannot identify whether or not four days is enough, or ten days. How do we determine that? The only way we can determine that....

I wish I had a palette of documentation for you. You have six days; we had five days to come here. I wanted to make sure the committee understood our reservations about this commission report, that the structural changes are being made on the basis of, ``Take my word for it, we'll get savings, we'll make this more efficient.''

We're talking about an organization with $500 million - arguably - in expenditures. Perhaps there could be an incremental approach to a restructuring, testing out, in four or five regions of the country, a university-type payment system in one, a contract-based system in another, and another option somewhere else.

That's not what this report is telling you. This report is telling you that everything will be fine. If we just amalgamate units, switch them together, change a few chairs around at headquarters, we'll get savings.

Mr. Frazer: I don't wish to be adversarial at all, but you didn't make those kinds of recommendations to us. You came here and said the report was no damn good. Yet you do have ideas about how this could be tried out and so on. We didn't get them. We're pulling them out of you now.

Mr. McCloskey: We came here solely to discuss the basis of the report, and the report itself is -

Mr. Frazer: Yes, the report's there, but we're talking about how do we better the ability of the militia. This is a trite statement, but to me, halitosis is better than no breath at all. If we're moving in the right direction here, surely nothing is cast in iron forever. What we're looking at is how can we move the militia onto a better footing? That's what I think I'm interested in, and I'm sure you are, as well.

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Mr. Brown: It saddens me, not just as a militiaman and a reservist but also as a taxpayer, to come here and tell this committee that this report should not go forward.

Mr. McCloskey: We had very high expectations of the committee.

Mr. Brown: It saddens me personally, but I can't in good conscience, representing our membership, come forward and tell you folks that we believe you should go ahead with the current recommendations, whether in part or in whole.

That being said, we have to tell you, in good conscience, to put it aside, to reject it, and to demand a review of the whole structure of DND and of the various roles. I do not apologize when I say to you that it's going to be a lot of work. We're talking about $11 billion. We're aiming to get down to $9.5 billion by 1999, I believe. This is a lot of work. But we owe it to our membership. You owe it to the citizens of the country. DND owes it to its employees and to the servicemen. It's a lot of work, but we have to do it.

This isn't 1950 any more. We have to change it from the bottom up. In the militia, fine-tuning it and tweaking it: that's not the problem. We're blaming the reservists. We're blaming the most patriotic citizens of the country for what the problem is in DND. I think that's wrong.

I wish I could come forward, Mr. Frazer, and say otherwise. General Belzile is a mentor to many junior officers. Jack Granatstein, I studied under, and studied a lot of his work. I would love to come here and say this is good work; it is good work, but it's not the work we need to be doing right now.

The Chairman: Thank you.

One short question from the admiral.

Mr. Mifflin: It's probably in my records somewhere, but precisely who do you represent?

Mr. McCloskey: The Reservists' Association of Canada represents all members of the reserves, including naval, air and cadet instructor cadre - all members of all ranks. We have members who are privates and we have members who are generals. They are joined together in their belief in the reserve system and in their belief that the reserve system is one that should be maintained and improved.

Mr. Mifflin: How many members do you have?

Mr. McCloskey: We have at present 1,000 members. We have a representative in each large centre in Canada.

Mr. Mifflin: Do you have members in each of the militia and naval reserve units?

Mr. McCloskey: Since we started our active membership drive over the last 60 days, we currently have 60 members in specific units. Serving as representatives we have members of the army as well as the navy.

Mr. Mifflin: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Thank you.

I just want to say to you gentlemen that a year and a half ago we started a review of the whole defence system. Most of the people that were on the committee are here today. We completed that, as was said today by one or two people, and we felt very good about that report. I'm sure - and I speak without fear of contradiction - that when this report goes from this committee, we'll feel very good about that. We're hoping you people will too.

I'd like to ask you one thing. You're going to come back to the committee, I understand, with the costing, the $500 million that was mentioned. You were going to bring us back some details.

Mr. McCloskey: Yes, sir.

The Chairman: Would it be possible for you to give us a minor detail as to what you think of each of the recommendations?

Mr. McCloskey: Certainly.

The Chairman: We thank you for being with us today and for putting your comments forward.

We are adjourned.