NDDN Committee Report

SUPPLEMENTARY OPINION NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF CANADA

On behalf of the New Democratic Party, we would first like to thank the witnesses who appeared before the committee, especially those who serve in the Canadian Armed Forces.  We also would like to thank the Library of Parliament analysts for putting together an excellent report and the clerk and interpreters for their work.

Canada’s military is responsible for three incredibly important roles – defending Canada, protecting Canadians at home, and contributing to a more stable, peaceful world through operations abroad. Across the world we are seeing an increase in tensions as well as armed conflicts. Canadians are also asking more from their military as we see an increase of climate change related disasters.

Unfortunately, after decades of Liberal and Conservative cuts and mismanagement, our military has been left with outdated equipment, inadequate support and an unclear strategic mandate. We need to do better for Canadians in uniform and for the defence of our country.

Canada’s New Democrat’s vision is a military where Canadian Armed Forces members can work safely, get the support they need when they need it, and count on fair policies to govern their work. We support upgrading outdated equipment and providing a clear mandate while also providing a realistic spending plan to deliver on these goals.

One of the greatest challenges highlighted through the study is the need to improve operational readiness of the Canadian Armed Forces. This includes tackling the problems in recruitment, retention as well as sexual misconduct in the CAF.

Improvements in recruitment, retention

Each year, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) must select and train thousands of recruits, and retain a substantial number of its trained personnel, to maintain operational readiness. Our CAF continues to fall short of and has a deficit of 7,500 personnel. To respond to the global threats and domestic challenges we need to have a military that is fully operational.

A lack of inclusion is a major barrier to both retention and recruitment. As an organization, the CAF must attract, recruit, and retain the talent that is representative of our Canadian society. The situation requires serious attention and clear leadership that is sadly missing.

The CAF reported that 71 per cent of the military's workforce is made up of "white males.” They have seen a large drop in female recruits following the sexual misconduct allegations that continue to come forward.

New Democrats have called on the government to create a special program within the Canadian Armed Forces aimed at the recruitment of women and under-represented groups as recommended by the Auditor General in 2016.

The NDP has called on the Government of Canada to increase funding for Canadian Armed Forces recruitment to be allocated for services like mobile clinics which would allow those living in remote and rural communities to complete medical examinations closer to home as part of the recruitment process.

Many people with young families who want to start a family worry about what that would mean for their relationships; this can present a barrier in joining the CAF. Members of the CAF are often on their own to find housing, own their own to find a doctor when forced to move, and on their own to find childcare. Many of these services used to be provided by the Government of Canada but have been cut. When it comes to recruitment there is a saying that you recruit the soldier, but you retain the family. The CAF needs to make the necessary investments to retain the family.

Tackle Sexual Misconduct within the CAF

Women in the armed forces should expect their accusations of harassment to be taken seriously however the more we learn, the more we realize that allegations of sexual misconduct towards the most senior members of the Canadian Forces were not taken seriously and outright ignored. All women, including women who serve, deserve much better than that from their government. We need to ensure women who serve can do so equally.

The Canadian government announced a plan to reach 25% women in the CAF by 2026. Without addressing the toxic culture and the sexual misconduct crisis, the CAF won’t be able to hit this goal.

We continue to call on the Canadian government to fully implement all recommendations of Justice Deschamps’ 2015 report entitled External Review into Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces. We also call on the government to implement Justice Arbour’s 2022 Independent External Comprehensive Review of the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces and outlines next steps to address and eradicate sexual harassment and misconduct.

Women in the Canadian Armed Forces who continue to wait for a real culture change in the face of sexual misconduct and assault in the military. And instead of implementing the recommendations of the Deschamps Report, the Liberal government has delayed action when the solutions are already known. We have another report, we can’t allow for the recommendations not to be implemented any longer.

Supporting Our Members of the Canadian Armed Forces

We need to do better for Canadians in uniform and for the defence of our country. A New Democrats continue to call for the government to make sure that our troops have the equipment, training, and support they need to do the difficult and dangerous work we ask them to undertake. The government needs to ensure that funding supports our national defence and international commitments however it shouldn’t tie itself to arbitrary figures like the two percent to GDP for military spending.

We in the New Democratic Party don’t support Recommendation 1 of this report.

Over time, Canada’s defence procurement process has become more complex and bureaucratic as additional federal departments and agencies have become involved. Despite delays, cost overruns and other challenges encountered with defence procurement projects over the past 20 years, the federal government has maintained the current decentralized, multi-departmental process.

Canada needs to streamline our defence procurement system in order to ensure that we get better value for money in defence procurement and to ensure that the job and technology transfer benefits of military procurement flow to Canadian companies and workers. 

We should look carefully at the more efficient systems used in Australia and the UK where there is a single minister in charge of defence procurement instead of our needlessly complicated system involving four Ministers and two additional government agencies in order to get sign off on a contract.

In the Prime Minister’s mandate letters to the Ministers of Defence, Public Services and Procurement, and Fisheries and Oceans and Coast Guard, Trudeau directed them to establish a centralized procurement process under a new department called Defence Procurement Canada however this promise has yet to be fulfilled.

Committing Canada to be a Force for Peace

Canadians are proud of our country’s rich history of international peace building. Over the last 70 years, more than 125,000 Canadians have served as UN peacekeepers. However, in recent years our contributions to global peace have deteriorated. Despite Liberal promises to increase the number of peacekeepers, those efforts have dwindled and today we have just 34 peacekeepers deployed.

On global disarmament, Canada played a lead role in forging the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in the 1960s but, in 2017, the Trudeau government opposed the Treaty on the Prohibition of nuclear weapons which called for a nuclear weapons-free world.

This report makes mention of witnesses discussing joining the U.S. ballistic missile defence program. While Canada made the decision not to take part in ballistic missile defence a decade ago, it is important to reiterate the reasons why that decision should stand. A decade after the U.S. ballistic missile defence program has been created it has achieved a success rate of only 50% even in controlled conditions and, despite billions of dollars spent. The U.S. still has too few interceptors to be effective against Russian or Chinese attacks. We urge the Liberal government to not get caught up in the headlines of ballistic missile defence.

It is clear that BMD is not effective, that the U.S. would in all likelihood keep the system under their own command and not make it a part of NORAD, and that the costs to join such a system this late would be astronomical, especially when considering Canada’s other recapitalization needs. Additionally, New Democrats recommend that Canada focus on its efforts to promote non-proliferation of ballistic missiles and not join a system that is likely to spur a new arms race in offensive missile technology.