NDVA Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL DEFENCE AND VETERANS AFFAIRS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA DÉFENSE NATIONALE ET DES ANCIENS COMBATTANTS

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Monday, June 1, 1998

• 1903

[English]

Colonel William Reid (Commander Recruiting Services, Canadian Forces Recruiting): Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this evening's session of the SCONDVA committee.

This afternoon everything went very well and I urge you this evening...

[Inaudible—Editor). At the last two meetings of this committee I found them to be very understanding of the issues and also very good listeners.

[Translation]

If you have any questions, I will do my best to answer them in French or in English. And now, please allow me to introduce to you

[English]

the chairman of the committee, the honourable MP from Nipissing, Mr. Bob Wood, who will take over this evening's proceedings. I will leave and you can say whatever you want.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood (Nipissing, Lib.)): Thank you very much, Colonel.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the colonel and everyone here for their hospitality. As the colonel said, it has been a great couple of days.

We invite anybody who has anything to say tonight to please come forward. We're here until everybody has had a chance to speak, regardless of the time. We will stay here until everybody has had that opportunity. So we invite you to come forward if you have anything.

Everything will be handled in both official languages, so if people feel comfortable in French, by all means do so. Translation is available at the back.

We have research staff here. My colleague, Leon Benoit, is here from the Reform Party. We've had a chance to travel the country together and have a fair handle on some of the main issues. But there are always other things that come up at various hearings that we haven't heard of before, so it's always interesting to listen and take notes and ask questions.

• 1905

If you would like to register to be a speaker tonight, you can do so with Sharon at the back of the hall. You can pick up your translation there as well.

Don't let all this stuff intimidate you. A lot of the proceedings are being recorded so that we have everything on tape so we can go back and check anything we need to check. With that in mind, we will get things started.

The first person to appear before us this evening is Colonel Vince Kennedy.

Colonel Vince Kennedy (Individual Presentation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am Vince Kennedy. I'm not here alone tonight. I bring Sergeant Nadeau as well. We are from the Canadian Forces Command and Staff College in Toronto. I've only been there a year; Sergeant Nadeau has been there seven years.

We're here, though, to talk about a Toronto issue, and unfortunately all those from Borden are going to have to put up with our 10 minutes of concentration on Toronto, although there are many parallels that can be drawn, I think, with Borden. Our challenge tonight, Mr. Chairman, is not just to present to you a long list of complaints, because to do that would only be to paint half the truth. We want to give you an impression on how closely tied the health of the military community in Toronto is to the mission of our college, and we believe that mission has been degraded in the recent past. So we want to give you a human dimension about what it is that's wrong in Toronto that we think you can help us with.

The opening facts are that the Canadian Forces decided in 1994 or so that Toronto should be closed and the rush was on to get out of Toronto. The reality is that we still have some 400 military members and their families remaining in Toronto. We are left with an area support unit, not a base, and we have only the remnants of what was there.

However, Toronto has a cost of accommodation that exceeds the national average by more than the 12.5%. That is, it is one of the 3 Canadian sites that qualifies for AAA, accommodation assistance allowance. Accommodation assistance allowance, as I'm sure you've heard, returns to the married member the amount of rent they pay over the 12.5%, and that benefit is taxable. So your soldiers, airmen, and sailors in Toronto, of course, and at the college, see the posting to Toronto as an immediate imposition of the 12.5% penalty, which is over and above the national average, compounded by the tax they must pay on that which is reimbursed over 12.5%. As accommodation costs are the single biggest element in most families' outlays, this inadequate allowance is a chief target of scorn amongst my members. It represents a monthly reminder that I and the other leaders have failed to adequately protect the disposable income of people posted to Toronto.

You know in Toronto we have three married quarters patches. The old officer area is called William Baker Park and the old NCO area is called Stanley Greene Park; they're both in the Downsview site. You've all been in Toronto recently. We also have the Oakville site, which is out by Hamilton. At the Oakville site, Oakville aside, the married quarter patch represents to our members security and predictability. It's close to work for everybody, and while half of our people still choose rentals or to buy away from the married quarters, these quarters form what we call the hub of our military community.

For those who choose to buy in Toronto, which is none of my 15 non-commissioned members and only 13 of my 59 officers, the average Downsview price for a detached bungalow or a standard 2-storey is $231,000. So given a down payment of $60,000—if he tries to get one-quarter—and a 7% mortgage over 25 years, the house costs $1,200, and $200 a month for taxes. That means only majors and above at the college in Toronto can afford to buy a house.

• 1910

So one of the sensitive areas that I think may not often be stated to you is the relative inability of military members over time to accumulate capital, based on both member and spouse working.

We think this represents a comparative impoverishment of the military member against other Canadians. By our estimates, for most people, if their wife has left employment because of posting for example to Europe or to other areas, the loss of that second income or the loss of seniority in a second job, which is now a feature of Canadian families everywhere, represents, over a 20-year career, a deficit of some $200,000 in capital, and this represents a loss of equity to buy houses.

Of course in Toronto there are the other costs. Insurance for your car is subject to premiums; food costs more; driving; busing—everything seems to be higher in Toronto. Most families have told me, and many wives have told me, in many meetings, that they think they're running down their savings by living in Toronto, and that it costs most families up to $500 a month more to live in Toronto than it did to live wherever they came from.

Another true element in Toronto is the sense of general social disadvantage. Many come to Toronto from places like Petawawa, which I think you visited, and here in Borden, where you are today—places that in Toronto we consider full-service bases.

In Toronto we have one officer's mess, which everybody in five different sites comes to, but which is at least 30 minutes away from some of the other sites. We have one combined facility for senior NCOs and junior ranks and the garrison.

There is a contract at a civilian fitness centre in York for military members, but it's 25 minutes from my college, and for spouses who can get to it, it's a good deal, at $200 a year.

We also have a family support centre in the old military police shack that is right at the corner of Sheppard and Keele, which, if you've been there, you'll know is a very high-traffic area. Our kids get to smell the fumes, see the accidents, and watch the people running the red lights each day.

All that is to say there are almost no non-public-funded services in Toronto. When we compare that to Borden—and we don't want to say Borden shouldn't have it; of course they should—it has two golf courses, a curling rink, an arena, a rod and gun club, three messes, several all-rank facilities, their own base schools, churches, and support centres, and we in Toronto feel envious, and we feel disadvantaged.

Our conclusions at the Canadian Forces college are that we must undertake some very direct support for our members in Toronto. We need housing that is secure and that is close to accessible and affordable family support services. We need to provide our members—as there will never be enough married quarters—a better buyer and renter assistance program. And we categorically need to protect the disposable income of people posted to a high-cost area like Toronto.

How do I propose to you that we do these?

First, for housing, the Canadian Forces Housing Agency has been working up a strategy with the Toronto units to meet the housing requirement there. I think your committee should provide an early report to government to amend the current contract with the Canada Lands Company, which has all the Downsview lands for disposal. The Canadian Forces Housing Agency should be empowered to sponsor the development of the north site away from the Canada Lands Company grant—that is, to sever it from that grant—and to build replacement quarters there so that half of the married population in Toronto could still have the option of living in quarters.

We have also recommended a buyer assistance plan for Canadian servicemen anywhere on intermediate or indefinite periods of service, whereby up to one year's gross pay could be borrowed out of either public or NPF funds at the same rate as posting loans are currently given when you go overseas. The sole purpose of that loan would be to use it as equity in a house purchase. The loan would be guaranteed from the pension contributions of the member and would be fully repayable within a certain fixed period after the house had been sold. This would be a demand loan, with only the interest on that loan payable during the run of the loan.

This would go a long way towards offsetting that lack of capital accrual that occurs in members' careers. I would urge you to recommend to the government such a buyer assistance plan.

• 1915

We have also recommended a like scheme for renters. For renters, a loan of up to three months of gross pay would help a great deal in Toronto to meet the first and the last month's payments, prepaying insurance, and so on. That renters' assistance loan would be fixed at the same rates as the buyers' demand loan and would be administered and guaranteed in the same way.

Additionally, and most importantly, the AAA allowance should be widened to include all renters, married and single—not just the married ones—and should be interpreted so as not to be taxable, and it should provide for 100% of the costs over the national average. I would urge you to make that recommendation to the department or the government.

Another area of concern recently is the emphasis that our system has been placing on married members and their families. Some of that emphasis on families seems to be at the expense of looking after our single members. We would recommend that you endorse eliminating any bias in our treatment of members based on their marital status alone. We believe the Canadian Forces should deal equitably with members and with their dependants, as a principle.

The final area is general disposable income protection for service persons. This issue begs for a national, i.e. a federal, solution, whereby servicemen across Canada are charged the same amount for the same service—a PMQ, for example—but are also given the same amount of support—that is, NPF or non-public funds investment in the place they live.

Now, if that's too difficult, maybe more practical and fair would be to directly offset each base or garrison that is above the national average with a direct subsidy tied to the cost of living. We used to do that in Europe—it's called the cost of living allowance—and I believe we can do it here in Canada. So I would urge you to make that recommendation to government.

In summary, the Canadian Forces college believes that its ability to attract excellent people to a demanding job in Toronto is imperilled by the conditions in Toronto. It is certainly up to me to argue for and ask you for your help in providing a housing solution in Toronto and income protection for our people.

Thank you for your attention.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thank you very much, Colonel. I'm sure we have some questions for you. It would also be appreciated if you could, before you leave, give us your brief, because obviously you have some great and well-thought-out recommendations, and we'd like to have it with us before you leave. Is that all right?

Col Vince Kennedy: Yes. Fine.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): I just wonder, with the Canadian Forces college and the problems you just went through, is this starting to hamper the whole mandate of the Canadian Forces college?

Col Vince Kennedy: Well, I wouldn't say the whole mandate, but the very distinct problem is attracting quality people to come to Toronto, because right now, with the elements that people feel in terms of the higher cost of living and so on, it is not a popular posting choice.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Are there a number of people who turn this down?

Col Vince Kennedy: There are. I'm in weekly negotiations to try to attract people. It's not the job and it's not the service of the college; it is the nature of living in a very large, very diverse community, and a very expensive community as well.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): The buyer assistance plan, can you just...? Equality, equity—and what were some of the other things? I was writing so fast that I didn't get them all.

Col Vince Kennedy: Well, we're proposing that a member, if he wants to buy a house, should be able to get up to one year of gross pay as a buyer demand loan so he's only paying the interest off, at the same rate that we provide posting loans to people going overseas to meet financial commitments. It would be guaranteed by his pension contributions. I believe the current rate, when I last asked, is 7% this year, or something like that. That would all be for use only as equity in a home purchase.

I would suggest that the crown would share both in the risk of capital loss and the benefit of capital gain through that loan, in the same way we currently do with the guaranteed home sale program. That is, if it were more or greater than 10%, there would either be an accrual or a shared loss on that investment, but that would, I would suggest, be income-neutral to the separate program. It would all be repayable within, arguably, 10 days or 21 days of the sale of that house.

• 1920

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Of the 400 military people who are there, how many are below the rank of major?

Col Vince Kennedy: I can't answer for all of Toronto, but I would say.... I don't know how gross a term you want—

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): The only reason I was asking is because you were just saying that majors and above can afford to buy a house.

Col Vince Kennedy: Somebody was saying it was 80% in all of Toronto. At the Canadian Forces Command and Staff College, our instructor is a lieutenant-colonel. I have 30 officers of that rank, and all of them can afford to buy a house if they wish to. Those are not the people who need help the most.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): I know. I'm just trying to get a fix on about how many people—

Col Vince Kennedy: Toronto-wide, I think 80% would be below the rank of major.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): You mentioned biases on single and married people. Can you just elaborate on that too?

Col Vince Kennedy: We've been doing a lot to say that we are one big family, and we're looking after married personnel and their families and dependents. As for our single people, for example, in Toronto there are no single quarters. There's one last element of quarters for single people. Because we're tearing down the base, these people got their eviction notices last week, I believe it was. They were in some block-leased housing on the west side of the Downsview site.

They are going. There is no assistance for them. Of course, they don't qualify for triple-A, so they are largely out on the street. They feel somewhat disenfranchised. They hear us leaders and everybody talking about families, families, families, which is important, but sometimes we forget that they are a member equal in status to every married member, and we need to look after them as well.

So a housing solution in Toronto, or perhaps Borden or anywhere else, is not complete unless we have housing for our single people that is adequate, affordable, and of the right size and nature.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): I understand. Thank you very much.

I think Mr. Benoit has some questions for you.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Leon E. Benoit (Lakeland, Ref.): I just have one question.

I've heard that people posted to Toronto are screened based on, you might say, household income. Take a married couple in which both are likely to be working, whether they're both in the forces or where one is likely to have a job outside. They're trying to get two-income families there. Do you think that's the case?

Col Vince Kennedy: Sir, I've heard of that, and in fact, I believe that certain elements in terms of the career management shop in Ottawa have attempted to apply that, but I know of no overall policy that says singles or single-income families cannot be posted to Toronto.

The fact is that anybody below the rank of major in a single-income family and who is posted to Toronto—Sergeant Nadeau, the next speaker, was such a case—faces very difficult financial times.

Would such a policy be acceptable? I suspect that those who have double incomes or are married would feel that they are being perhaps targeted for a posting to a very high cost of living area because they have taken up the effort to have both member and spouse work.

So I'm not sure that this would be considered fair, although I obviously haven't thought about it, and maybe after due consideration it would be fair.

I have heard, though, of career managers and others recommending people to come to Toronto...to consider not sending any family that only has a single income. But I have them in my college, so if it was being applied, it has not been applied universally.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Okay. Thank you.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thanks again, gentlemen. Would you mind leaving your brief with us?

Col Vince Kennedy: In fact, as for our full proposition, I'll make sure the military staff have it as well.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thank you very much.

Next is Sergeant Marc Nadeau.

• 1925

Sergeant Marc Nadeau (Individual Presentation): Good evening, gentlemen.

I'm currently a senior IS Tech at Canadian Forces Command and Staff College. Since moving to Toronto in 1992, I can honestly say that this is the first time in my career that I have encountered difficulties in trying to make ends meet.

One of the major causes of divorce in Canada is financial difficulties. For the Canadian Forces family, you could add the stress of isolated postings, UN tours, many career moves, and having to adjust to different changes. Our lifestyle is unique. It cannot be found anywhere else. We can only try to do something about the financial difficulties since everything else comes with the job. Will the job change? Probably not, since there will always be a need for some kind of Canadian military presence, even if it's only for things like UN tours, disaster response, and civilian protection.

In my case, I was promoted to sergeant in 1992, and I had to leave Saint-Jean, Quebec to move to Toronto. After 11 months of separation from my family, we decided to sell our home in Saint-Jean and bring the family to Toronto.

In Saint-Jean, I was paying $650 a month with taxes to own my home. We are now paying $630 a month for rent in Toronto. Did I have a choice? No. I cannot afford to buy a house in Toronto.

In the Toronto Star there was an article that said the average house in Toronto costs about $226,000. Also, the average civilian comp went up from $50,000 to the current $51,000 per year. In another Toronto Star article, a survey showed that 31% of homeowners who had a house did so for the pride of owning their own home.

According to these articles, our salaries are below the average annual income in Toronto. Therefore, choosing a PMQ is sometimes the only choice we have, but again, the price tag is still hard to swallow. I know that an average three-bedroom PMQ in Borden or Trenton is being rented at about $360 a month. That's almost a $300 difference. Our family could definitely find a better use for that extra $300.

What's left in Toronto? Not much. The recreational centre and community activities that brought everyone together are gone. Also gone are the necessary things such as general maintenance on our PMQs. We are now faced with living in what CFHA has considered substandard housing. Repair maintenance is kept to a strict minimum. We have little, if any, police patrol. Is this the life we chose? Maybe it is; maybe it isn't.

While every member joined for a different reason, the one thing we all had in common, whether we were in the navy, army, or air force, was a sense of belonging to a big family. There was a kinship, a close bond. No matter what happened, we could always count on our fellow soldiers and leaders. It's sad to realize that the majority of persons no longer share this feeling. Now it's everyone for themselves no matter what the cost. Pride and loyalty are no longer in front; rather, there's selfishness, greed, and survival. Is this wrong, or is this just human nature?

Where does that put me? No matter how hard we try, we never seem to be able to put money aside for our golden years. Before coming to Toronto, our RRSPs were always paid in cash. That's not the case in Toronto. We have to go into our savings to help make ends meet. Until now, our grocery bill was average, but not now in Toronto. Of course, we could run around for specials and cut coupons, but we would be spending more in gas than we would be saving on our grocery bill. That kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

Let us not forget our car insurance. We feel that a car is a necessity in Toronto, not a luxury. When we were posted to Ontario from Quebec, we brought an impeccable driving record with us. Yet after calling approximately 40 different agencies, the best quote we got was $1,700 a year instead of $350 a year in Quebec. We also had to promise not to go over 15,000 kilometres in a year. So much for visiting our family in Quebec.

• 1930

As for clothing, basically we make a habit of visiting goodwill stores. We have to save on clothing.

We try to put aside for emergencies. And we all know Murphy's Law: if anything can go wrong, it will. Just when I think I can put money away, the car breaks down. Right now it would probably be better to get a new car instead of fixing our nine-year-old car, but the bottom line is we can't afford a down payment on a new or even a used car.

Is it wrong to want to provide other activities for our children? Is it wrong to want to enrich their minds and bodies with physical and mental challenge rather than letting them stare at the TV?

When we first arrived, a family membership at the Base Toronto recreational centre was $40. We were able to use the gym, swimming pool, weight room, tennis and squash courts, baseball and soccer fields, and so on. We could also register our family for various lessons and activities, such as swimming lessons, T-ball, volleyball, and aerobics, at a very good price. This practice can be seen on other bases, such as Borden, Trenton, and Kingston. As well, this was done in a safe and secure environment on base.

Not any more. Our recreational centre is closed. In Toronto, for 10 weeks of public swimming lessons, it costs me $83 for both my children. It is the same story for skating lessons. It took us three years to find a summer camp that both was within our budget and promised a variety of activities for our children. Aside from having to change our working hours to accommodate this camp, the only drawback is the registration. For a 7 p.m. registration, whether it is for swimming, skating, or summer camp, my partner needs to leave her job at 3 p.m., using her annual leave, and wait in line for four hours. No, this is not to get tickets to a rock concert. This is to guarantee a spot for our children in a program that will keep them both mentally and physically active. Again, we pay additional costs for services that other military members across Canada take for granted.

So do we need special help in Toronto? Are there any solutions? There are many. But I guess the first one would be the housing problem. The fact is our PMQ will be torn down eventually. It will be nice to have new PMQs, but again, the fact is we cannot afford to pay what CFHA will be asking for in rent. It is simply impossible. Our salaries, including triple-A, are not enough.

Therefore the immediate problem in Toronto is not the housing issue but rather the financial issue. I do not need to tell you about the dissension that was felt by the troops after learning about incentives that were given to higher-ranking officers. I'm sure they were deserving of it; however, I still find it hard to believe they are having trouble making ends meet. To lead by example takes on a whole new meaning, one that does not include the lower ranks. I do believe even the reporters pick up on this feeling when this info hits the news. Even non-military people can see a problem.

That brings me to think about the lifestyles of our single personnel. The treatment reserved for our single service people in Toronto is nothing short of ridiculous. They lost their single quarters in November 1995 and were not entitled to move into PMQs at that time. Since then the rules have changed. However, when accepting a PMQ, they are not allowed triple-A, and they can still be kicked out with one month's notice.

When considering any quality of life commitment for the military community, especially in Toronto, I urge you to treat our single personnel as equals in this and other military issues, such as costs relating to a UN tour. In some cases, a single service person will financially lose more compared to a married service person in that same situation.

As a sergeant, I make $40,000. But what about a private, a corporal, or a lieutenant? Their lifestyle must be beyond words. Although we try not to compare salaries among ourselves, I wonder how much difference in basic living costs there has to be before someone's quality of life is considered unfair.

Personnel posted to Germany or embassies will receive significant compensation and allowance to meet the local cost of living. If these persons qualify to receive extra financial assistance, why not other military people in Canada who are also faced with financial difficulties? Civilian companies do it. We should have a local established cost of living allowance that will include all major costs, such as housing, transportation, food, clothing, and insurance.

• 1935

The non-commissioned members of the Canadian Forces college and of Toronto take pride in their jobs, but they also take pride in their families. Do not make them choose. The government must be made to understand that the military is not cheap labour. We are highly qualified and extremely flexible. Do something concrete to help us escape this crisis.

We definitely need real leaders to help us fight for a better life. Soldiers who are expected to fight for freedom and peace sometimes make the ultimate sacrifice. A better quality of life for the military members and their families—is it too much to ask in return?

Thank you.

Voices: Hear, hear!

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thanks very much, Sergeant. And as I did with Colonel Kennedy, could we have your comments?

Sgt Marc Nadeau: Yes, sir.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): I have a couple of questions. Do you think the demand loan, the buyer's assistance plan, would be of help to you as a sergeant?

Sgt Marc Nadeau: Any kind of plan, as long as it is covering the costs that hit us when we arrive in Toronto. As I said, there are many solutions we can have, but as long as there's a solution that helps us to meet all the costs that are involved when we are in Toronto.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): When you're posted to Toronto, do career managers or people like that take the time to explain the cost of living and all that to you, or do they just say you're going and that's it?

Sgt Marc Nadeau: I have a perfect answer, sir, to your question.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Good.

Sgt Marc Nadeau: Actually I had a three-month notice that I was posted from Saint-Jean to Toronto, and I had a house. I received it one day: “Sergeant Nadeau, you're posted to Toronto. You have to report in three weeks.”

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Three weeks?

Sgt Marc Nadeau: Three weeks, sir.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): So obviously you didn't have a chance to do any homework, or you probably wouldn't have gone.

Was turning that down an option? Probably not, eh?

Sgt Marc Nadeau: Exactly, sir.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Okay. Yes, I guess it isn't.

Sgt Marc Nadeau: Because it was three weeks' notice.... My wife had a job and was working at CMR in Saint-Jean.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Yes.

Sgt Marc Nadeau: I had no choice, so I came here as a single. They subsidized the cost for two, but there's also the cost of what happened during that eleven months of travelling back and forth and family matters.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Yes, okay.

Mr. Benoit has a question for you.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Sergeant, you made a comment something along the lines that the military is important and the families are important, so don't make us choose between the two. Do you think there are people who are choosing to leave the military because of postings to Toronto? Have you heard of anybody? Do you know of anybody?

Sgt Marc Nadeau: I haven't heard of anybody. What I'm saying right now is that with so many problems and if you cannot make a good living or something decent, the family sometimes is from the heart, as is my job also, but sometimes we have to choose if we can have a better life.

Actually, I think so, sir. We had a leader, and because he had a hard time.... I'm just saying right now what we've been told; I'm not saying it's true. He had a major problem and he said that's enough, so he left. I believe he went to B.C. So I think so, yes.

Mr. Leon Benoit: We've heard of some cases before the committee where people have been posted, they feel, to encourage them to leave the military. In other words, when a commanding officer wants them to leave, for one reason or another, they'll post them where they're quite confident they won't want to go. Do you think that's been used with Toronto?

• 1940

Sgt Marc Nadeau: Well, we've heard these rumours, but no, I'm not able to say that anybody's been exposed to this kind of situation.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Okay. Thank you.

Sgt Marc Nadeau: You're welcome, sir.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): You say the facilities are gone but the PMQs are substandard. You're living in PMQs now, are you, Sergeant?

Sgt Marc Nadeau: Yes, sir.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Would you describe some of the substandard things that have gone on, just so we can get a feel of what the PMQs may be like in Toronto.

Sgt Marc Nadeau: Well, actually right now maintenance on those PMQs is strictly kept to the minimum. We used to have a mini-patrol, because where we live right now we're not very far from a renowned high crime rate. We used to have more police patrols. Right now, because of the closing of the base, we have what we call the Toronto city police, but they don't come as often, because they are busy.

The community life itself has been lowered down, because with all the recreational facilities closing down, this has been closed down and we'll lose a lot. So we try to struggle; everyone there tries to struggle to find a path, something to grab.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thank you very much, Sergeant. And as I said, if you can drop those notes off, your speech, we'd appreciate it.

Sgt Marc Nadeau: Thank you, sir.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thank you.

Next is Inga Hildebrandt.

Ms. Inga Hildebrandt (Individual Presentation): I wanted to speak specifically on one issue, but other issues that have been brought up for all military families.... I understand Toronto is in a really bad situation, but all military families find it very difficult to make ends meet. Disposable income? Well, for the lower ranks I don't know what that is. My husband and I definitely don't know what that is.

We're lucky here in Borden being posted here because our rent is lower. So for once we do have an extra $20 and we can get movies once a week. But other than that, there is no disposable income. That's largely because of the wage freeze that went on years ago. My husband is supposed to be at a certain level now in his career pay-wise, but because of the wage freeze, now he gets a raise but it's still not the level where he's supposed to be at in this point in time. And put on top of that the fact that PMQ rent keeps going up.

On top of that is the issue I really came here to talk about tonight, which is the medical and dental benefits for military families. In the past year, our deductible for our medical plan has increased by something like $60 for the year. That may not sound like a lot, but for people who have children with illnesses and who are paying out $600 a month in medication, when they find out that the cheque they are receiving back, minus the 20%, minus their initial deductible, is much less than they expected and is hardly enough to pay the Visa back for the money they borrowed to buy the medication in the first place.... People say the junior ranks don't know how to manage their money; they go into debt. Sometimes we have no choice. That's the only way we can afford to buy the medication our family needs. That's pretty pathetic.

And the dental plan.... I used to be the welcome wagon representative for the base, so I've had lots of opportunities to talk to a number of different families here on the base. The dental plan has changed in the last year. That dental plan that used to provide us coverage for our families for cleanings and check-ups every six months has now been changed to every nine months. Well, that in itself is bad enough, but the problem is we were never notified for the medical and the dental changes. These changes took place, and after the fact we go to bring our kids in and ourselves in for a cleaning and a check-up, and after paying for two kids and yourself, you're coming out to sign the forms for the dental plan and all of a sudden you're hit with this bill that's almost $300; all of a sudden that six-month cleaning isn't covered.

• 1945

I never received any documentation, nor did my husband, that the plan had changed.

It's the same thing with the medical deductible. These changes were made behind the back of the military families. That is deplorable. If we had been given some kind of notice, some kind of warning, maybe we would have had the opportunity to bring this forward to the members of Parliament to tell them we had a problem with this being changed. I know many military families that do.

It seems to me that maybe if the military were unionized they wouldn't be able to do these things. Before they change these plans, they'd have to clear it with the union. Well, who do we clear it with, especially when it happens behind our back?

I have talked to so many families who, unfortunately, have found themselves in that predicament where they had dental work done, not realizing it wasn't covered because they were never notified that any changes took place. They were waiting for a cheque to pay back their Visa, only to find out that the deductible had gone up dramatically. This is unfair and I think the military families deserve better.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thank you very much, Inga. Next is Dolores Rice.

Ms. Dolores Rice (Individual Presentation): Honourable members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, to the committee I would like to say thank you for initiating this forum to allow the members and dependants of the Canadian Armed Forces to speak out. This would not have happened 10 to 15 years ago, and I hope if it happens 10 or 15 years from now, there might be a lady on the committee.

Voices: Hear, hear!

Ms. Dolores Rice: That wasn't in the brief.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Dolores, there is a lady on the committee. Her name is Judi Longfield. She's not with us today but she does travel with us and she is on the committee.

Ms. Dolores Rice: Oh, okay. Maybe I'll get to see her some day.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): She's a very nice lady. I think you'd enjoy her.

Ms. Dolores Rice: I hope she'd enjoy me.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): I'm sure she would.

Ms. Dolores Rice: I have been part of this society or culture for over 29 years. I cannot stand here and say that there haven't been problems or disappointments, but does anyone go through 29 years of marriage, three children, and life itself without problems or disappointments? I'd say not. I cannot honestly stand here and say that the service has not provided us with some very good years and a very good life. I have been proud to be a dependent wife, although I do not like to be called dependent. I have never been dependent on anyone in my life. I don't think my mother even breastfed me.

Our family has been very involved over the years. My husband has served as a mayor in the community when it has been allowed that a non-commissioned officer be a mayor; as a coach of both base and community teams; and has been a scout leader for over 20 years. I myself have been involved in church activities, guides, and in sports as both a player and a coach, and my children have been involved in all aspects of base activities throughout the years.

Over the years I've often thought of ways to improve our military life and would like to share some of them with you now.

First, medical needs. I am not sure if the powers to be are aware that dependants arriving here from outside the province do not have total medical coverage. During the waiting period for their OHIP to become effective, they are not entitled to services by community-based services such as community care access centres, formerly called home care. Out-of-province insurance does not cover this service at home. The Canadian Armed Forces should initiate and maintain a contract with the Ontario government, and any other province that has the same policy, to ensure coverage to all dependants at all times

• 1950

Item (b) is to increase the items covered by the extended health benefits and make the coverage 100%. It's about time. There has to be an increase to prevent families from unduly worrying about the purchase of items that may at times cost $2,000 to $6,000. These families already have enough stress in their lives.

I know there is a benevolent fund that can maybe be accessed to assist families. I'm not sure how many families are aware of this. In my 29 years of being a part of this life, I did not know about it until the other day when I tried to access it for an ex-member I was providing some service to.

It would be nice if these types of benefits were publicized. Maybe they could be publicized in the weekly newspaper so everybody would know what is available to them, how to access it, what the benefits are, and what the ratifications are. I would certainly like to know.

On the next point under this, I think there has to be a more sympathetic approach to the postings for families with special needs dependants who are mentally challenged or have congenital or acquired disabilities. What, if any, resources are available in the new postings for these people? We have to consider that. We cannot just move them and let them flounder or drown when they get to their new postings.

My next point is spouse employment. I'm a spouse. I'm usually employed. I am not usually employed when we move. We have many moves, and like most families everywhere, the spouses must work. But unlike civilians, we must resign our positions due to our members' transfers if we want to remain a family. We then lose our accumulated seniority and usually our accumulated pension funds. We lose our accumulated sick time and often a very excellent position that we have worked hard to achieve.

Spouses should be able to pay into a pension fund operated by the military. This would help decrease our anxiety about our senior years.

I just had my hair dyed, but I really am getting very close.

I am very concerned about the fact that I may not have a pension fund. If something happens to my husband, where does that leave me? It leaves me maybe with just an old age pension, a little bit of CPP and some RRSPs. If I have too much of one, I'll lose on the other. So where will I gain? I won't gain. I'll be living in poverty, and I don't deserve poverty after what I gave to this nation. So it would really help if we could pay into a national fund and accumulate our pensions as our spouses do.

A spouse should be reimbursed for any expenses sustained because of a move. One I can think of is professional fees that have to be paid from province to province, etc.

My third point is education. During our 29 years, education of our children caused me the greatest heartache. At one time, as you probably know—or maybe you don't—education was completed on the base using Ontario standards. This allowed our children to start on an even footing with each move.

The current practice causes a lost credit at times, maybe a loss of a year at school, and certainly a loss of confidence among our children. In our experience of moving from B.C. to Ontario, our teenage son lost three high school credits and our teenage daughter lost one high school credit. Our son left grade 12 in Ontario one credit shy of a diploma. Of course, as he kept telling us, “I have it. I had three credits and they were not granted to me, so I have my diploma plus, but not according to the officials.” We fought the school, we fought the school board, and we fought the Minister of Education here in Ontario, to no avail.

• 1955

It would be great if the service would assist and set a standard, and have someone maybe to act on our behalf with the school board and the school system to ensure these things do not happen to our children. Very ironically, when our son decided that maybe, because the service had been so great to his dad, he would try to join the service, they turned him down because he didn't have his grade 12.

Voices: Oh, oh!

Ms. Dolores Rice: The Canadian Armed Forces should offer a system of scholarships or bursaries to graduate dependants, as often our children are excluded from local awards. A $2,000 renewable scholarship or bursary should be given to any graduating student with an average of over 85% who will be attending a Canadian university.

The next topic is housing. As we travel across Canada and elsewhere, housing becomes a real concern, as we have heard. Housing rates and standards of housing must be the same no matter where we go. The wages of a member must be considered when setting these standards. If necessary, the subsidy should be substantial and should be made available. Moves are stressful enough without adding worries of financial hardship to those over housing, which often leads to breakups of marriages, and I know a lot of these have happened over my 29 years in the service.

The next point I would like to talk to you about is transportation. A great deal of our funds over the years have been spent on transportation, whether it be by car, train, bus, boat, canoe, skidoo, or however. It has cost us money to visit our families, to go home for medical emergencies, and to go home for deaths in the families. Many, many of our young personnel are unable to do that because of the finances involved.

This should be remedied for emergencies. Vouchers should be available for all family members wishing to travel to an emergency. These vouchers should be given with the attitude, “Here you are. We're sorry about your loss. Don't worry about it. You don't have to pay us back; it's a gift.” And these should be made available anytime, day or night, so the person can readily travel to meet their emergency.

Two, the service should arrange with the commercial transportation companies a substantial discount for service members or dependants when they're travelling for any reason. A 50% discount would be excellent. I could live with it; honestly I could.

Next is recreational activities. Many bases are located in rural areas and require a car or a bus to get to the closest town. Just try to move out of here if you don't have your car, tonight or tomorrow, whenever you do leave. Our children are most often bussed to school. For a number of children, this prevents them from taking part in after-school activities. For this reason, base recreational activities are very important. The allotment of available facilities becomes extremely important.

A number of clubs, organizations, etc. are fighting for the all too few spots available. The gyms are used for all kinds of activities. Some of these only require a large floor space. It is a shame that on a base this size, this space is hard to find. Maybe the arena that is slated to be torn down could be renovated and put to good use.

It is now time for the service to give up control and domination of all the clubs, organizations, etc., on the base. Some of these, because of what they do and what they contain, may need some control, but the only thing the paid staff really are available to give us, and do give us, is the facility or the facility time. I really feel that, given all the work of the volunteers, this should be looked at very seriously.

• 2000

Is a recreational fee good or bad? Who knows? From what I hear, some of the costs are just going to be out of this world. It must be remembered that each group on the base also has a fee that people must pay in order to join. So if they have to pay the recreational fee and then another fee on top of that, to me that smacks of double billing. It also may exclude a number of people from becoming involved, especially children and dependants of privates and corporals who just cannot afford it. This represents a real shame when some of these children are just the children who need to be involved the most.

I'm on page 50 now.

It must be remembered that we live in isolation here, nor do I believe that we can isolate ourselves from others by denying our facilities to our neighbours. It's very important that we develop a good relationship with our neighbours in the neighbouring town.

My last point is on salary. I have moved from job to job to job to job because of my husband's postings. I must say that even though he has—and I can never remember this, but he's been in since he was knee high to a grasshopper—I think 30, 31 or 32 years in the service, I make more then he does. He's been with the same employer. He's a technician. He's a manager now. He controls men. But he makes less than I do. I control nobody but myself. I don't supervise anybody but myself. I think the salary must be improved. It must equal Civvy Street in relation to the skill, the length of service, and the position.

A service member should not have to have a second job in order to live at a comfortable level. There are such things as adequate compensation for overtime, which is never really considered, or extra duties. What about giving the odd bonuses like they do on Civvy Street. The service don't see those. There are a lot of other things that make the job on Civvy Street a little bit more attractive and cause a lot of our excellent members to leave, to look elsewhere for a job.

I think once we establish a salary, a lot of other things may take care of themselves.

The last item I would like to talk to you about in regard to salaries and benefits is that I really think it's time that the service re-look at their bereavement leave policy and allow members adequate time for the grieving process.

I thank you.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thank you, Dolores, for an excellent presentation. I know that Mr. Benoit has some questions, and I might even have a couple.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Thank you, Dolores. You've been in the military family as a spouse for quite a while.

Ms. Dolores Rice: Yes, since I was about four.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Since you were about four. Twenty-nine...yes, I see what you're getting at.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): We just wanted to know if you were a spouse at four.

Ms. Dolores Rice: I was a quick learner.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Just for the record, that wasn't my comment.

Ms. Dolores Rice: I have him pegged. That's okay.

Mr. Leon Benoit: This is completely going out of control here.

You've been associated with the military for a long time, married to a military person. Have you seen much change over the years in terms of the way people feel about being a member of the Canadian Forces?

Ms. Dolores Rice: Yes and no. I really feel that probably over the length of time, because of life itself changing and because the way we deal with a number of things has changed, therefore the attitudes have changed. First of all—and it's probably how I feel about a lot of things—I think people go into things without always having their eyes open and knowing what to expect and this sort of thing. Maybe they don't look at it clearly, they don't get the whole picture, and therefore they become disillusioned.

• 2005

I think on the whole, going around any of the bases I have been to, the military have an extreme respect for Canada, for the Canadian way of life, and for the Canadian Armed Forces. I think that, on the whole, they do a very good job. It doesn't matter where I've been or where I have travelled, if they hear you're a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, everybody respects you for the job you do, for the knowledge you have, and this sort of thing. I think the way people outside look at us has remained pretty much the same, and the pride most people have...but I think people are becoming more disillusioned with some of the benefits that are required nowadays in order to give them a comfort of living of some sort.

Mr. Leon Benoit: If you take, say, someone who was in the military for 10 years—say when your husband had been in for 10 years—and someone who's been in for 10 years now and compare their satisfaction level, or their level of morale, or whatever, do you think it would be similar then?

Ms. Dolores Rice: Gosh, it's hard to remember back then. I'm getting senile, but—

Mr. Leon Benoit: You're only 33 years old.

Ms. Dolores Rice: That's right. I forgot about that.

I think really, again, it depends on personality. You had disillusionment back then and you have it now. Is it greater now? Is there more of it? Yes, because I think people are more willing to talk about it and more willing to discuss it. Just your being here tonight—as I said, this would not have happened 10 or 15 years ago, but it's happening today—I think attests to some of the things we're hearing. People feel freer to talk about how they feel.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Thank you very much.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): I just have a couple of questions, Dolores.

You mentioned a pension fund for spouses.

Ms. Dolores Rice: Yes, that's important.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): We've never heard that before, I don't think, and I just wondered how it would work. Have you given it any thought?

Ms. Dolores Rice: I think, as with any national pension fund, there have to be rules and guidelines, but I think if you're a dependant of a serviceman and there is this fund, either through the pension fund that is currently used for the armed forces, which you can pay into, and you would have to make some kind of commitment, I'm sure, of x amount a month or whatever.... But I have travelled now...it's not too bad now compared to what it used to be. At one time they just gave it all back to you. I was young and foolish and I said, I can put a down payment on a new car, I can pay off a debt, I can do some things with this that I haven't been able to do, so I spent it.

Now when I look at myself at my age, I think back and I think how foolish I was, how shortsighted I was. But there was nobody to counsel me, nobody to guide me, nobody to say, there's a fund here right in the service that you can pay into with every job you go to. Otherwise I went and I left, I went and I left—and I left things behind. Unfortunately, now that I'm getting close to retirement age, I'm looking at what happens to me if my husband passes away. What do I have? I've been a good spouse. I've been a good military wife and I don't have anything.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Are you thinking of RRSPs, as Mr. Benoit just said, or—

Ms. Dolores Rice: No, I'm thinking of an actual pension fund. I happen to be a nurse, which may have come across from a lot of the medical data I gave you. At one time they talked about having a national nurses pension, because often nurses are very mobile and move across Canada. It never came about simply because the national nurses' association or nurses' union never really got behind it and pushed it. But I'm sure with the minds we have in the military and the great minds we have in government, they can come up with a solution.

Voices: Oh, oh!

• 2010

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): You're laying it on pretty thick.

Ms. Dolores Rice: Isn't that what we have to do?

Voices: Oh, oh!

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): You talked about a salary increase. We've heard this a lot, and we've heard different percentages and everything like that. Have you thought of that at all?

Ms. Dolores Rice: What kind of salary increase I would like for my husband?

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Yes.

Voices: Oh, oh!

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Why not? Everybody else has brought numbers forward.

Ms. Dolores Rice: For where my husband is and the salary he is getting, probably an increment of about 4% and a salary increase of about 7% would do it.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Yes, that's basically what some of us have been thinking.

Ms. Dolores Rice: I knew I was smart.

Voices: Oh, oh!

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Dolores, thank you very much.

Voices: Hear, hear!

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Dolores, not many people can be serious and be humorous at the same time, and you've done a great job. You've been a lovely lady to talk to. Thank you very much for being here.

Voices: Hear, hear!

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Joanne Hoftyzer.

Ms. Joanne Hoftyzer (Individual Presentation): That's a tough act to follow.

I'm on the other end of the scale. This is my first time on a military base. We've been here a year and a half. My husband and I have been married nine years, and we were in Ottawa for seven years or so. Because of circumstances, we were off the base. We couldn't get a housing unit and we moved off-base, and we were happy there, so we didn't bother to move onto the base.

So this is a new experience for me, and I feel as though I've moved into the twilight zone. Speaking to my husband today, I said, “I feel like I've moved 40 years backwards.” A lot of things on the base need improving, and I see a lot of problems on the base, such as friends moving and being posted and deployed, and you never know who your neighbour is from week to week sometimes, it gets so bad.

One of the comments I heard earlier was about all the recreation and the facilities here on base. My recent concern is, now that all these beautiful facilities are available to us, we won't be able to have a vehicle to get to these things, because base taxi will be taken away from military spouses. We will no longer be able to call up the base taxi to take us to the family resource centre for our kids, to the gym, to wherever we want to go. So that limits the amount of activities you can partake in—either that or you're going to have to buy a second car, which in my case is virtually impossible, because my husband isn't high-ranking enough and doesn't make enough income, and at the moment I'm unemployed, because we left and I left my full-time job behind.

My biggest comment is that after being here less than a year, my husband was deployed, which is fine. We've been through this before in Ottawa. I had lots of support; it was not a problem. Coming here, my closest family is four hours away. The people I knew got posted a month after my husband was deployed, so I had to establish new friends I could trust for support. So I was left without support.

The communication on this base is zip. If I try to find out who to talk to about something, it's almost impossible. Apparently the family resource centre was supposed to get my name. Whatever. They never did, so I didn't know about them. I'm not acquainted with the family resource centre. It looked like a day care centre to me. My youngest is eight years old; I don't need a day care centre.

There was absolutely no support, as far as I'm concerned, when my husband was deployed. There was no communication. Eventually I found the support I needed, but now of course two of these people are scheduled to be posted, so there you're starting all over again. And I'm not leaving my kids with just anybody in an emergency. I like to know these people so I can get to trust them, obviously.

• 2015

In the fall, I needed some help with a situation. Not knowing the procedure or whatever, I got the help my way. I got the results I needed.

When people found out about how I proceeded to get the help I needed, I wasn't congratulated and told that I had done a good job because I got the help I needed. I was told that I didn't follow procedure.

Well, I'm sorry, but no one told me the procedure. I'm basically a civilian. I've been here for a year and a half and I don't know all the dos and don'ts. I did it my way and got the results I needed. I'm basically being told that I didn't do it the right way. When I complained or made some comments, I basically was told that I'm whining. Like, excuse me, I'm not a whiner.

As far as I'm concerned, I accept that my husband can be deployed at any time indefinitely and then I will take on the responsibility of being a single parent. That's not a problem. But it seems to me that the more services—this is like a base taxi to take the spouses or partners around—that are available on the base, the more comfortable the person who's leaving will be as they will know that their family has all the support they need.

I don't want a babysitting service. I don't want somebody babysitting for me at all. I'm independent, my kids are getting older, so I don't need those kinds of things. What I'd like to see is as many services as possible so that we can pick and choose what we need. If we need a base taxi to go to the family resource centre, then it's there. If we need a base taxi to go to the gym, it's there.

I'd like to see a booklet, to start out, with an actual map of the base of the north side and the south side. When we moved on base, I got a little photocopy of the base. There were no street names. There was just a little A1 or whatever. Where are these streets? I'm supposed to find out where these streets are.

To me, it seems like the first thing in the book should be an actual detailed map of the base with street names and things like the base composter. I couldn't find that base composter. As for financial things, where do you go for that? Where are the locations for all these things? There just isn't one around as far as I know. There should be a booklet containing as much information as possible. Who do you call when you're feeling stressed? Who do you call if you need day care? Even for local businesses, or Barrie...what's available? I'd like to see as much information as possible to start with.

Thanks.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): I can understand where you're coming from. They gave me one of those maps yesterday. I was trying to find this place last night. It's right here. I had no idea. I ended up at a guardhouse. I understand where you're coming from.

Voices: Hear, hear!

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): You say your husband is deployed.

Ms. Joanne Hoftyzer: He was, yes.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Is he back now?

Ms. Joanne Hoftyzer: Yes.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): I don't know this, so this might be just kind of a dumb question, but are there a lot of spouses who are deployed from Borden to other spots in Canada? Do you know? I don't know that. What I'm thinking is there should be a rear party or something left behind in a lot of cases to help the spouses. I know they do that in other bases. I just wondered if they do it here.

Ms. Joanne Hoftyzer: No, as far as I know, they don't do it here. Basically, I didn't hear or see anybody to help me out with just information. I can shovel my own driveway and mow my own lawn. That's not a problem, but as far as—

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Your husband's unit wouldn't.... In a lot of cases, that's what they do on some of the other bases.

Ms. Joanne Hoftyzer: Well, this is the first base I've been on, so it's been an eye-opener. My husband was away when we lived in the civilian world, or whatever that is, and I had lots of help. Maybe part of that is because I was established there and I had more friends and people didn't move about in the way they do here. But my husband was gone for six months. Some husbands or military people are gone for nine months; some are just gone for a few months.

• 2020

It would be nice to see services available such that we could pick and choose what we need, if we have young children at home, and have a variety of services available.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Well, we'll bring it up with the commander when we see him.

Yes? Go ahead.

Ms. Inga Hildebrandt: I can answer that question about getting support when your husband is deployed. The family resource centre here on the base is supposed to get the names of all the members who are deployed and the people who are left behind. I know this as a volunteer with the centre for a number of years.

Unfortunately what happens is some people fall through the cracks. That happens—I don't want to point fingers—because of top brass who are used to doing things the old way, where the unit takes care of their people and that's it. So if nobody calls up crying, “I need help, I need help”, they don't get taken care of.

What's supposed to happen in order for the family resource centre to do their job is the names of those deployed members are supposed to be brought forward to the resource centre so that they can be contacted, just to let them know, “Hey, we're here. If you need anything and if there's anything we can do for you, here's our number. Give us a call.”

Unfortunately, like I said, there's a lot of upper management who are so used to the old way of doing things and are not willing to convert to the new way that we have people who fall through the cracks. That's very unfortunate, because nobody should be left alone facing that kind of situation.

Thank you.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thank you.

Mr. Benoit has a couple of questions.

Mr. Leon Benoit: If your husband was deployed for six months and you've only been here a year—

Ms. Joanne Hoftyzer: A year and a half.

Mr. Leon Benoit: How long had you been posted here before he was deployed?

Ms. Joanne Hoftyzer: We got here in August and he was gone by the following June.

Mr. Leon Benoit: So nine months.

Ms. Joanne Hoftyzer: I mean, common sense is that it takes a while to get to know the area and stuff like that.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Right. That is a concern we've heard about in the past. A couple is just newly posted, and one person is deployed and the other left to kind of take care of the family in a completely strange environment.

Ms. Joanne Hoftyzer: The first comment that kind of took me aback was that when they told me my husband was deployed and would be gone for six months, someone asked me if I was going to go live with my mother-in-law for six months.

Voices: Oh, oh!

Ms. Joanne Hoftyzer: It's like, excuse me? I don't think so.

That totally took me aback. Why would I want to uproot my kids again and go wherever and live with my mother-in-law to be taken care of? You know, I don't need that. I need things in place where I am so that I can take care of myself and my family.

Mr. Leon Benoit: The base taxi—is that a service that's provided at no cost to the person using it, or is it a normal taxi service, almost?

Ms. Joanne Hoftyzer: Apparently there's no cost for it.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Okay. Is that provided on most bases, do you think?

Ms. Joanne Hoftyzer: I can't answer that one.

Voices: No.

Mr. Leon Benoit: It's something I hadn't heard about.

Thank you.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thanks very much.

Next is Bernie Tessier.

Corporal Bernie Tessier (Individual Presentation): How're you doing?

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Great!

Cpl Bernie Tessier: I have four points. I've been in the service for 20 years. I did 10 years in the army and I'm now in my 10th year in the air force. I'm still a corporal, and that's because we've had such a freeze.

All that aside—you've probably heard that 100-and-how-many times; I don't know—I want to talk about my PMQ.

First of all, I'm an instructor over at the school, and I wear the light blue shirt. There's nothing like washing your clothes in orange water.

Voices: Hear, hear!

Cpl Bernie Tessier: I have a little cat at home, and I don't even give him that water to drink. So I have to wash my clothes in this water. My light blue shirts turn out to be yellow. I stand in front of a class of students with a yellow shirt. It's supposed to be blue. But I have to go and buy new shirts, because my boss says “Your shirt is worn”. It isn't; it's new, but it's yellow. So I have to buy new shirts. If they should get a better water filtering system or whatever, I don't know.

• 2025

On the army side, they wear combats. They get them exchanged and that's their work dress. We have a dark blue shirt we can wear. For some unknown reason we have a law in our school that we cannot wear those as instructors. We're issued this shirt but we cannot wear it.

There is another thing about the PMQs. When you look down my street, every PMQ except mine has beautiful siding. I brought my neighbour here today too. My siding is brown. Everybody else has white. It's old; it's stained; it's falling off. I have old windows. Everybody has the flip windows.

Hey, Bernie, they say, did you clean your windows? Look at my windows, they flip when you're cleaning them. I have to get a ladder and go up to the second floor to clean my windows. They don't seal, so I use plastic in the winter. I have more plastic than Mattel in my PMQ. That's not the worst of it.

First, I asked for some maintenance to be done. There was mould in my bathroom. I asked them to come by and have a look at it. They asked me 25 questions on what I used to clean it. I told them I cleaned it and cleaned it.

What did you use? It's dirty. They came by with something we can't even buy. They cleaned it. Then they said we'll send the painters in because it was stained. That was three months ago. I haven't heard anything from them yet.

Secondly, I'm bilingual. At the school I teach French students and I teach English students, whereas a unilingual instructor will only teach his language. I get paid the same. I feel the workload should be distributed evenly.

Thirdly, I'm forced to make a leave contract. I work for my holidays, for my 25 days a year. Every April we're told we have to make a contract for the year.

When are you going to go on leave? How am I supposed to know that? So I have to start guessing on the calendar. I don't think that's right because it's my leave. I should be able to take it whenever I want. I know we can't accumulate it, because then they'd have to pay for it. They should come out with a policy where your leave should be used up before the end of the fiscal year, where it's not a matter of give me some dates now.

My last point has to do with the recreational facilities on the bases. I want to talk about Borden. Borden has great facilities. They're even getting better facilities. I have to buy a membership for my five-year-old daughter. The membership's going to cost some $200 for the year for her to use the facilities on our base, on our community base, to use our facilities that we helped pay for. Why? Why are we doing this?

Voices: Hear, hear!

Cpl Bernie Tessier: Thanks.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thank you. Perhaps I'll just ask you about the $200. It seems rather excessive for the facilities. How did that come about?

Cpl Bernie Tessier: I was talking to one of the PSP employees at the gym. I was asking about the new facilities and how it's an open-based concept now. People from the outside are coming in and buying memberships. This person came up to me and said even the dependants are going to have to pay for a membership; it's not expensive. I can't remember the exact figure but it was over $200. He came up to me and said they were even thinking that the military people should pay a membership, but that was squashed. This is straight from a PSP's mouth.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Okay, thank you.

Next we have Christine Woermke.

• 2030

Ms. Christine Woermke (Individual Presentation): I have two major problems to discuss here. One is the issue of dependants.

I don't know if you noticed on your way in on the English sign it says that this briefing was for military members and their dependants, yet on the French side they used it accurately by saying militaires et leurs familles.

I just moved here last year from Ottawa, and before that I was in Petawawa, and it's been a number of years since I've been called a “dependant”. When I moved here my husband was told he had to get me a dependant's card so that I could use some services on the base.

I've been here 10 months and I've refused to get my dependant's card because it's not right. If you were to check with the director of military family support programs, they would tell you they don't even use that terminology any more. We are spouses, we are families, we do not need to be referred to that way. And when you show up somewhere to register your children for whatever activity they ask you for your dependant's card. When you tell them you don't have one they want your husband's phone number so that they can call and verify.

I have no problem with having a community card, a membership card, something to prove I am entitled to use these services and that my husband is a military member, but it does not have to be a dependant's card. That's something my mother had when my father was in the military 30 years ago.

The other problem is we just moved here recently. I've been here for 10 months. One of the issues that was brought up was health care. We were in Ottawa, so it's still part of Ontario, but I have a special needs child. As a result we explained the kind of difficulties that would happen to my husband's career manager: the specialists and so on, the educational needs, the serious impact it would have on our one child in particular.

At that time we came up with a plan; we offered a solution to the problem. The career manager's argument was that if it meant that much to us, why didn't we go without our family?

We're family; we want to stay as a family. There have been times in the last 14 years that we've had to be separated for military requirements and we do so, because it's part of the job, but we're not going to continually live apart for an indefinite period of time. That's not what we are about. Families have to stay together.

The other thing is that it really doesn't solve the problem if you're just taking one parent out of the situation and leaving the other parent behind to deal with all of the grief that comes with having a special-needs child.

We were reassured by the career manager that our services would be available here at this location. Ten months later my son still has not seen a specialist and I will get in to see one around September. I think it's very dangerous to be using lots of medication and to have no specific specialist capable of following up.

You run into a crisis; you do not have the resources at your fingertips. These are all things we had available to us before. The problem with the Ontario health care system is that you sit on waiting lists forever, but I did my sitting on waiting lists with my son when I lived in Ottawa.

Because my husband had to be posted, we moved here and and I have to sit on the waiting list again. That is not fair. There is an inconsistency and a lack of continuity to my child's health care. We've all made choices as military families and as military members. I've given up jobs the same as everybody else has. I have sold houses, I have left my family, which I normally would not want to have to do, but I should not have to sacrifice my child's health because of a posting when there are other alternatives available.

The argument would be, use a compassionate posting, which is a CFAO20-4. It's not adequate because it has such strict guidelines that you can't fall into it. You cannot have a chronic problem. Not all of us are left with having healthy children. I have two healthy children and one who is not. My husband's career should not suffer because of that. He would not be able to be employable to fit the criteria of the compassionate status.

• 2035

There's no reason he can't be deployed; he has been deployed in the past, and will continue to be deployed. That isn't the issue. The issue is that we must be in locations where proper medical services are available—and that is not everywhere. But it does not mean that he cannot do his job at certain locations.

That's it.

Voices: Hear, hear!

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Does he have a specialist? Is a specialist here in this area for your child? Is there one?

Ms. Christine Woermke: No, there's not. I will have to travel to Sick Kids when I do get an appointment.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): You said there were other alternatives available with specialists. What did you mean?

Ms. Christine Woermke: Well, one of the things we had asked for in this particular.... I mean, all circumstances are different, but we had been in Ottawa for a period of six years, and we were told that it was time to move on.

We said, first, that we didn't want to move, because Ottawa had all the facilities we required because of the special needs and because of the educational problems we had in the past. And he was part of a three-year program. He had just started the first year of a three-year program.

We said that what we would offer as a solution was that we would stay in Ottawa for a period of two years to finalize this stage. At that point he would have to be changing schools anyway, so we could do the change at that particular time.

We also said that we would prefer a location such as Petawawa maybe. My husband was willing to do another field employment. That would mean, you know, deployment. That was so we could still continue the same doctors, because if you were in a place like Petawawa, you would have to travel to Ottawa to get your facilities anyway.

Those were not acceptable to the career manager. We were told, you will come to Borden.

So when you offer viable solutions, I do not believe that a career manager is equipped to make those types of decisions for your children. They need to research it far better than they do without just saying, well, sorry, that's the way it is, it's time for you to move. There has to be a better reason to move us.

Mr. Leon Benoit: I have a question about the career manager, again, and what happened. You said that the career manager actually said to you something along the lines that if it means that much to you, why don't you go without your family? I assume he said that to your husband?

Ms. Christine Woermke: Yes, and what she was implying was that there are other alternatives to moving accompanied. You can go unaccompanied, and some people do choose to do that.

In the past we have chosen to do that, but at this particular time we were not willing to do that for an indefinite period of time because of the distance. I mean, he's going to be here for a minimum of four years. There has to be an end in sight. When we did it previously, it was for one-year periods. So that's what she was trying to say.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Could you see any reason that a posting to Petawawa should have been difficult for the military to accommodate?

Ms. Christine Woermke: No, I don't. I see no reason. My husband is a clerk. It's a very generic trade. He can be used absolutely anywhere.

The reason that was given to him is that he had already done field time. Well, I know there are plenty of people who don't want to do field time, and he was willing to do it. It wasn't his first choice, but he was willing to do it because it was an option that was better for our family.

There was absolutely no reason we had to be posted to this location because actually my husband went to a nowhere job.

Mr. Leon Benoit: The decision, of course, isn't just made by the career manager. It's made by the current commanding officer and the commanding officer of the base that is requesting to have someone moved. In some cases, they request by name.

What did your husband's commanding officer say when that was taken to him?

Ms. Christine Woermke: My husband's commanding officer made three telephone calls to the career manager specifically requesting, on his behalf, that our posting be changed or cancelled, preferably cancelled, with the second option being a change.

We were told that in order for that to be done, it could not be done administratively, which we were trying to do. It would have to be done by a compassionate route, which has career implications.

As I said, we do not meet the criteria because the problems need to be resolved within a two-year period of time, of which we cannot say.... I mean, we couldn't even stretch the truth slightly.

The other thing is that my husband could not be deployable. There's no reason my husband cannot do his job. He just has to do his job some place where medical services are available.

• 2040

Mr. Leon Benoit: Why would you think a career manager, though, would make that decision if she had—

Ms. Christine Woermke: I have no idea. I wish I did know, because now my son is in.... We're almost at a crisis point with him because of these problems.

And the thing is that we told them exactly what would happen should we be posted. It is almost guaranteed that everything I said would happen has happened or, I'm sure, will happen.

So why they would say that, I don't know. The point is that they had a posting slot, they had a job for him to go to, and they were not derailing that.

I know that he's not the only person in the world who's ever had that happen. It happens on a regular basis.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Yes, and as you say, the clerk position is a common position, is it not, in nearly all cases?

Ms. Christine Woermke: And he's a master corporal, so it's not like, you know, he's the only person available for one particular job.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Yes, okay.

Ms. Christine Woermke: I mean, they're a dime a dozen.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Thank you.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Do you want to add to this?

Master Corporal Kerry Dagenais (Individual Presentation): Yes, sir, I would, please.

My son is also a special-needs child. I've been here in Borden for three years, but it almost took an act of God to get here.

My son has gone through some very serious surgeries at Sick Kid's, and we were posted to Moose Jaw, Saskatoon. Out there now there are facilities available, but they're geared towards the older population; for children it's almost non-existent.

To get here took me two career managers I had to fight with. The only way I got here for my son was because at the same time my mother was dying of cancer. I had to throw that in and ask for a compassionate posting here to Ontario where my son could be followed up on a regular basis, and also to get here to be with my mother prior to her death.

It was a continual fight with two career managers. Finally they broke down and found a way to get me here.

Now, it's not that I was limiting their options, because I told them, I need to be in Ontario and there are units available. I'm a master corporal. We're a dime a dozen. We can fill positions.

So I'm just adding to your situation. I faced it myself. Career managers and the hierarchy are trying to make the decision that, yes, we're going to move him, or no, we're not going to move him.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Is the fact that you've asked for a compassionate posting going to affect your career?

MCpl Kerry Dagenais: In my case, sir, it worked out to my advantage—or so I've been led to believe. I was supposed to be here on a compassionate posting, but through the goodness of the career manager at the time, they found a way of getting me here without a compassionate status. That's what I've been led to believe.

If what happened first was that, yes, I was here on a compassionate posting, my career would have been restricted for that timeframe. But going through my channels to try to have that compassionate status lifted, because I was here, I found out that supposedly I'm not here on a compassionate posting.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Okay, thank you.

MCpl Kerry Dagenais: Thank you.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thank you, Christine. And thank you very much, Kerry.

Voices: Hear, hear.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Lieutenant-Colonel Alan Stephen, please.

Lieutenant-Colonel Alan Stephen (Individual Presentation): Good evening, gentlemen. I'd like to speak to you on leadership.

In February of this year, after 26 years-plus of military service, I submitted my resignation from the Canadian Forces. I was trained and educated in the Canadian Forces school and education systems. I was a soldier, and still believed to be one. I've had the privilege of commanding soldiers, sailors, airmen and airwomen, both inside and outside our country and operations.

I was asked by my new employer to speak on leadership, which must raise a few questions, because the question was what does a soldier have to say to community college leaders on leadership?

What I want to do is give you a couple of excerpts of what we said, because I think it casts a good light on the forces. Then I want to talk to about three stories that I think are worth bringing back to Ottawa.

The excerpt goes like this:

The answer lies in understanding and acknowledging what the Canadian Forces has accomplished in recent years. And in my belief that experience is much less unique than one might see at first glance.

Despite serious budget and personnel cuts, the Canadian Forces has succeeded in re-engineering for new tasks, upgrading the capabilities of its people, and developing new avenues to digest and capitalize on technology and to achieve a higher degree of performance than at any time, under anything that I've seen in the last 26 years of my service.

• 2045

Recently at a conference I found that many business associates were seeking out the Canadian Forces. They were looking for leadership ideas and learning ideas. The business leaders I met wanted to know: Can the management methods that we apply in the Canadian Forces work for them? Can today's business and non-profit organizations be transformed following a similar philosophy that we use in the Canadian Forces?

I believe the answer to that question was yes. I believe the experience of the Ontario community college system, to which I now belong, will not parrot the Canadian Forces, but if the comments and reactions of my peers in the business world are any indication, almost all of my experiences can suggest that the ideas that are applicable to the challenges we in the community college face were faced by the Canadian Forces.

What were some of the challenges that I faced when I was being groomed to assume leadership roles in a post-war Canadian Forces, and how do these challenges compare with those faced, in my case, by community colleges today? I listed six of them: the competitive atmosphere is changing rapidly; the budding technology poses new opportunities and new difficulties; the complex skills and collaboration abilities of our people must be continually upgraded; our increasingly demanding stakeholders are assigning us unexpected new tasks; and budgetary pressures are causing massive cost-cutting and downsizing.

We discovered in the Canadian Forces that not only must we change, but we must change the way we change. Our experience led us to reshape our thoughts about leadership, strategic leadership that's directing and controlling rational and deliberate change in the organization, what I call creating the future.

It is possible to create your own future, to break down outmoded structures and create organizations that can thrive in tomorrow's uncertainty. It is a process grounded in values, shaped by vision, guided by a strategy that is rooted in the critical process of an organization, focused by deliberate action and matured through structured learning.

The challenge for leaders is not in getting it exactly right, because there is no “it.” The challenge has become “good enough”—good enough to seize and exploit developing opportunities, good enough to deploy our forces more rapidly than competitors, good enough to get it about right in the execution.

This kind of leadership is not passive or accommodating; it's a roll-up-your-sleeves kind of leadership, short on buzzwords and wishful thinking, in which transformation starts at the top with a deep and uncompromising commitment to the values and purpose of our respective colleges, both today and tomorrow—and I would say the same to the Canadian Forces.

An American general, General Sullivan, said, “Hope is not a method to help leaders understand that the future is created by positive action, not by slogans, not by fad surfing, not by perfect planning, but by action.”

My story is for leaders, leaders at every level. The measure of a leader is seldom reflected by what he or she appears to accomplish, as reported in an annual report. It's rather the enduring character of his or her organization and the success of those who follow.

It does not matter the size of the organization, or whether and where you fit into it. The measure is the same: did you create a future, or merely contend with the present? How well did you prepare those who will follow you? Were you a builder, or merely a maintainer? My focus was for those who aspire to build.

So you're probably asking yourself, why am I here tonight? Well, I'm not retired from the forces quite yet, because I don't end my retirement leave until November of this year. And I believe that if I were still serving as the commandant of the Canadian Forces School of Administration Logistics today, I would be speaking to you, so why should I be any different now?

I have three messages for you as our elected members of government. First, the issues you are dealing with today should probably be dealt with by our military leaders. Issues of pay, housing, equity, frequency of operational tours and family support are not government issues, as I see them.

I believe we've abdicated our responsibilities to do leadership by wandering. We've forgotten the ability to listen. We've lost the ability to make logical decisions based on government direction.

Regrettably, few of our leaders are wandering. Fewer understand what's happening at the coal face. Most of our senior leaders were excellent battalion commanders or their equivalent. Some have never made that transition to the operational and strategic levels.

• 2050

I'll ask the question. In the United States of America, in the last week, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and their immediate commanders were considering how the American forces would fight into 2020 based on their government's direction, which is the equivalent of our white paper. What are our Canadian commanders thinking about? I would suggest it's not about how we'll fight in 2020, never mind the transition to get there. More importantly: what is politically correct? How will we respond to this individual or this media attack? But that's not totally what they're getting paid to do at the strategic level.

You gentlemen must give us a white paper. We must give you an honest assessment as to whether that white paper is affordable. If it's not, then we cannot hide where we're hiding today, fearing that if we tell government our current white paper is not affordable, they may give us something less.

Our senior leaders are role models. If they cannot make those ethical decisions, how can they expect those whom they mentor to do so?

The second message is one of follow-through. I'll use the training of non-commissioned members in the logistics branch as an example.

About three ministers ago, we were told to look at getting rid of those activities that were not core or essential or had to be done by a military person in uniform. At about the same time, we had a scathing report tabled by the Auditor General on logistics accountability. At about the same time, we began to realize that we were not preparing our logistics NCMs, at the entry level to support operations.

Many activities were undertaken, one of which included a rationalization of the entry level training at the individual level. The training was to be undertaken because it was felt that units were not capable of conducting training due to operational tempo.

The training was to be conducted here in Borden. The first course, in fact, wasn't conducted here. The second was cancelled because the bureaucratic paperwork had not been received, and with a complete turnover in staff and commanders, all but the air force decided that they had to look at it again, probably using our terms “turf wars at their best”.

Headquarters here, in my opinion, was reactive, not proactive. Everyone recognized the need, but no one was prepared to take the risk or make the decisions. As we speak, young men and women of the logistics branch are again not being trained to meet the day-one standard that they are mandated to do.

The second message then if one of follow-through. It's one of training for risk-taking and assessment. The problem today, unlike when I joined, is that people are not allowed to make mistakes at the second lieutenant and lieutenant rank levels. We have developed the U.S. forces “up and out” attitude. Leaders must be trained to act, learn from other mistakes and their own mistakes, deal with risk taking, and be proactive or we will have a force that will not be able to fight and win on or off the battlefield when things are not working out to the black and white of a written plan.

My third message is one of pride and dignity, and a personal belief that we, the Canadian Forces, are the repository of the national identity. We understand what it means to respect the dignity of all. We understand what it means to place a group ahead of ourselves, obey, and probably just as important, support lawful authority.

We need you all the time, not just when things are not working out well. When things are great, we need you as much as when we face embarrassing moments caused in some cases by professional arrogance and in others by honest mistakes.

I do not believe that the members of the forces want a larger, more secure, and better-paid forces. I think we want a force that can meet our defence commitments whatever the government determines that to be, and one that is equitable to the other armies, navies, and air forces of our major allies, such as the British and American forces.

I left the forces, as so many of my peers are doing today, not because I or they are the have-nots of tomorrow. I left because I was in danger of challenging the dignity of my superiors, placing myself and my family ahead of my people, and not supporting the decisions that were being originated in Ottawa.

I left with no feelings of bitterness, hoping that one of the many hundreds of young men and women I trained to surpass me as a leader could dig deep and find the courage to continue the battle.

Thank you.

Voices: Hear, hear.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thank you very much, Colonel. I agree with just about everything you said.

There's one thing you did say that I don't agree with. That's when you said we needed another white paper. I think that's the last thing we need. I think there are enough white papers floating around that mean nothing. I think what we need to try to do is have some action, not another white paper.

• 2055

This is not a committee that is looking for work, believe me. This is a committee that was asked by the minister to go out and find out about the quality of life and try to improve it. I do agree with you that it's an issue that should have been dealt with by the military. It obviously wasn't, and that's why we're here.

You make a lot of other good points, and I wonder if we can have a copy of your brief before you leave.

Mr. Benoit.

Mr. Leon Benoit: You said that you left because you were afraid that you were going to challenge or not be able to deal with a decision of your superior. Could you just elaborate a little bit on the type of situation you were referring to?

LCol Alan Stephen: I commanded the largest Canadian Forces occupational training school that supports our army, navy and air force. The Government of Canada had made some decisions on alternative service delivery. I believe that with the tack we're taking—although I'm now dean of a community college that will be competing for those activities—some strategic and operational errors are being made.

I believe that it's right that there are some jobs that do not need to be taught by members in uniform. However, a wholesale sell at the time, which was in December and January of this year, where the base was being ASD'd, where our civilian support staff was being ASD'd, where our military training was being ASD'd, led a whole bunch of us to wonder what's going on.

Change is good. Too much change is like eating an apple—if you try to eat a whole apple at once, you'll swallow it and die. If you take one bit at a time, finding out where your success is, being able to retreat what's raw, and attack again, you're probably going to have some success.

What was presented here to the commanders was a different story. General Caines has been fortunate. He's managed to get a year's hold-off on implementing those policies. A year will go by very quickly.

The same thing is still there. What is the strategic direction? What is it that our government wants us to do in the military? And is the current white paper, if we're not going to get another one, affordable?

I'd suggest to you, and I would think that the Chief of the Defence Staff, who has said it...will not go to government, because he does not believe that the white paper is affordable as is currently written. It is what we use to train. It is what we use to fight with. It's what we use to prepare for the next operation that we will go on.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Are you saying you think there's a major flaw in what's in the 1994 white paper? Or do you just not think the money is going to be there to carry through on it?

LCol Alan Stephen: I think it's both of those. One is the white paper—you are what you were when. The white paper was written in a Cold War mentality. We will never fight a Cold War battle that we were prepared to fight in western Europe, nor are any of our allied nations preparing to fight that type of battle. Our training is designed that way. Our army organizations, our fleet organizations, and our air squadron organizations are designed to fight that type of battle.

Is it affordable? I'd suggest not. You ask young men and women, and ask senior commanders, and ask commanders when the last time in the army we trained as battalion groups, as battle groups, as divisions. I'd suggest to you that we've lost skills. If we haven't lost the fighting skills, we've lost the ability to support them, and any commander who goes into battle without logistic support is an idiot, because he'll lose.

Mr. Leon Benoit: In terms of the ASD, you said that the military people as well as the civilian people in that particular case, and that college, were scheduled to be replaced under ASD.

LCol Alan Stephen: I beg your pardon? Could you say that again?

Mr. Leon Benoit: You said that the military personnel and the civilian personnel were going to be replaced under alternative service delivery.

LCol Alan Stephen: At that time there were several schemes that were on. One of them was on the civilian staff and one was the military staff, as we took a look at what could be delivered by outside agencies. At that time, several pockets were coming at us all at the same time, and as a general once said to me, generals get two minutes in the sun; lieutenant-colonels get 21 seconds.

• 2100

Mr. Leon Benoit: But you indicated that you left because you were concerned about the impact of these services being delivered under—

LCol Alan Stephen: Very much so. I knew where the schools were going. I knew where the commander of training schools was trying to take his organizations. I knew that the Government of Canada was forcing us to have more of an operational look in our support service organization, and if we carried on where we were going and carry on where we are going—although I have not been privy in the last two months to the change in direction if there has been one—then, in my opinion, we will lose the ability to train young men and women at the entry level to support operations.

Mr. Leon Benoit: So you're concerned that if changes are made so that alternative service delivery is put in place that in fact the training won't be up to a standard that will meet the needs.

LCol Alan Stephen: No, not at all. I believe there's a space and room for ASD, although I think you have to have a strategic focus on where that ASD is, you have to know the cause and effect as you're doing it, and it's not something that because we say we want to do it, you immediately move with it. You have to move with it very quickly because the training system is one that takes a long time to develop and the impact of failure is not seen until about five or ten years out.

Mr. Leon Benoit: You're also concerned that the alternative service delivery wouldn't be more efficient, wouldn't be less costly.

LCol Alan Stephen: I run a community college. I can tell you what it costs me to do business. In some areas I would put us to shame here in Borden. In other areas, you put me to shame.

Mr. Leon Benoit: You didn't have a clear feeling on that then.

LCol Alan Stephen: I have very clear feelings in certain areas on where we do a super job and where the military does a super job. Where they do a super job is in general military training. In the technical training it's open for grabs. I think it's open for interpretation, and there's a big grey area between technical training, general military training and the connectors that are in there.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Thank you very much.

LCol Alan Stephen: Thank you.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thank you very much, Colonel.

Voices: Hear, hear.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Next is Brad Phillips.

Mr. Brad Phillips (Individual Presentation): Good evening.

I only have a couple of quick points. In 1991 I went to the Gulf War and I came back and I've been sick ever since. I was wondering when the government is going to recognize the Gulf War syndrome or sickness, whatever it's called nowadays. I am not as bad as some of the people I know and I'm certainly a little worse than some others I know. I'm not asking for money. I don't want a pension. I just figure the army broke me, they should fix me. When I go to the hospital it's almost like I'm talking make believe; people don't want to believe me. I've seen three or four doctors and only one doctor's ever mentioned Gulf War syndrome to me.

I don't believe this is right. Somebody has to look after us. If I wanted to really complain about things that I feel ill about, I could probably get kicked out of the army now. So I can't go to MIR and complain about what I really want to. I have to make do with some things just so I can keep my job, and I don't believe this is the way we should be treated after what we've gone through.

My second point is just a little one. The Government of Kuwait recently offered Canadian servicemen—all coalition forces—a medal for going to the Gulf War and it was going to be free of charge, all our government had to do was hand it out and they turned it down.

That's all I have.

Voices: Hear, hear!

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Are you currently getting medication or help for your Gulf War syndrome here at the base, or do you have to go elsewhere because of the fact that nobody recognizes it or they don't want to recognize it?

Mr. Brad Phillips: I tried to get some here and I asked in Shilo. I've done three studies now. One of them was a civilian one, I believe. In Shilo we did some tests and they said, yes, you're sick but we're not going to fix you, we don't know what's wrong yet. I came here and asked about it and they said, yes, you're sick, we'll see you later. That's all that's ever happened.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): So where does it stand now? Are you still trying to get medication?

Mr. Brad Phillips: No, sir, they said come back some other time. They just aren't going to do anything. I suppose if I fall down dead next week my wife might get something. It's certainly not going to help me at all.

• 2105

Mr. Leon Benoit: I don't really have any questions, because I understand that the Gulf War syndrome hasn't been recognized as a disease that they can identify in Canada or the United States, so it's very difficult.

Mr. Brad Phillips: The Americans have recognized it at least, and so has the British government. The Canadians haven't. I don't know what the big deal is to recognize it or not. I suppose it means money somewhere along the line, but I really couldn't care less about the money, I just want to be healthy. I have three and a half years to go in the army, and I want to make sure I get there.

Mr. Leon Benoit: The Canadian government has recognized post-traumatic stress disorder—

Mr. Brad Phillips: Yes, that's right.

Mr. Leon Benoit: —as a disease and they have taken responsibility for dealing with people who have that illness. I don't know enough about why this hasn't been recognized.

Mr. Brad Phillips: I think that's the whole problem. Not too many people do.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Including, I quess, the Canadian military, so far.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): The clerk tells me—and I vaguely remember this now—that when we were in Valcartier, I believe someone came before us with Gulf War syndrome. And correct me if I'm wrong here, guys, but there was a doctor in Ottawa who treated this individual who was in the Gulf War.

If you'd like us to try to find that doctor for you we'd be more than pleased.

Mr. Brad Phillips: Apparently, sir, what I heard was that they were going to try to get every war vet through there. I think there are 3,800 of us so it might take a long time. But I even tried inquiring about that and nobody seems to know anything about anything to with it.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Let us try to inquire about it. And if you'd give us your—

Mr. Brad Phillips: There are others who'd have to go there long before me. A friend of mine in Shilo has had half his hair fall out. It may or may not have been from the gulf, but strangely enough it happened the summer of 1991 when he got back. Another friend of mine had to get out of the army because his lungs failed. Again, it happened the summer of 1991. Maybe it had to do with the gulf, maybe it didn't. These guys should have been treated a long time ago and nobody has ever seen them.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Yes.

Mr. Leon Benoit: So have you actually been to the clinic in Ottawa?

Mr. Brad Phillips: No, sir.

Mr. Leon Benoit: You haven't. Have you asked about it?

Mr. Brad Phillips: Yes, sir.

Mr. Leon Benoit: And what do they say? It doesn't exist?

Mr. Brad Phillips: They said they don't know about it.

Mr. Leon Benoit: That's pretty interesting, because the gentleman from Valcartier or Bagotville, shortly after he appeared before this committee, the next day I think, was referred to this clinic. He was told that he would be examined at this clinic.

In fact, this gentleman has written to me since saying that he is satisfied that he will get the attention at this clinic. It hadn't happened yet, but he was absolutely convinced that it was going to happen and that the process was moving along accordingly. So I'm surprised that whoever you asked about it wouldn't know about the clinic. It's something that we've known about for some time as a committee. We've heard about it several times.

Who did you ask about that?

Mr. Brad Phillips: I talked to people at the MIR here in camp, sir.

Mr. Leon Benoit: In camp, here?

Mr. Brad Phillips: The people in Shilo knew about it. They were the ones who told me about it. It's when I came here they didn't; or maybe it's the people I talked to, I don't know. It wasn't widely known, I know that.

Mr. Leon Benoit: We can certainly get you the address or a phone number of the clinic and it's a starting point.

Mr. Brad Phillips: They'd brought out a 1-800 number once, again when I was in Shilo. The day it came out I phoned and it was out of service already. And that was the last time I heard about the number.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): I think we can do better than that. As my colleague, Mr. Benoit, said, we'd be glad to try to help you if you don't mind giving us a phone number.

We're just checking with our staff, because I remember that happening and the gentleman got in fairly quickly.

Mr. Brad Phillips: Maybe he had something really serious.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): It would be worth trying, wouldn't it?

Mr. Brad Phillips: Yes, sir.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): We'll try to do that for you.

Mr. Brad Phillips: Thank you.

Voices: Hear, hear.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): We're about halfway through our presenters and I think it's probably a good idea to go for a stretch and maybe get the circulation back in parts of our bodies that need it. So we'll be back in about ten minutes.

• 2110

• 2124

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): All right, we are ready to begin. Our first presenter in the second half is Corporal Colin Feaver. Is he here?

• 2125

Corporal Colin Feaver (Individual Presentation): Honourable members and ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to come to speak tonight.

I was at today's meeting. At suppertime I felt compelled to come back to try to get a couple of answers to some of the questions I got from today's meeting.

One of the things I listened to today was about pay incentives. I recall that you sort of favoured the idea of seven incentives, or you took a liking to it.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): I said that because we're also looking at doing something with a pay raise. This is just on top of that because of the fact that in a lot of cases, we're led to believe—I think it's true—that promotions don't come as quickly as they should, mainly because of the downsizing and people are in the trade a lot longer or in the rank a lot longer than they maybe should be normally.

It would be nice, I think, to kind of try to reward these people with some pay incentives along the way whereby they would maybe get some extra money. Maybe I didn't explain it properly to the gentleman before, but that's what I was looking at.

Cpl Colin Feaver: Okay. Because I wasn't sure if you were talking about the ceiling right now. For a beginning corporal to reach the ceiling of the fourth-year incentive, it takes four years, so to spread that over seven years, it'll be going backwards. That's the way I was interpreting that. It would take seven years to reach the ceiling.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): No, that's not what I had in mind. I had in mind some way to try to work in some kind of formula that would reward corporals like yourself with a pay incentive for the trade or just for the level. They could go up a level a year as well. Sometimes you stay a corporal for a number of years, or maybe you don't want to go up, maybe you don't want to get promoted, but it would still be nice to get reimbursed with some extra money.

Cpl Colin Feaver: Yes, it would be, sir.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Now if that doesn't work, just explain it to me, because I'm not in the military. I'm just putting out some ideas that I think might work or might not. That's what we're here for.

Cpl Colin Feaver: Personally, I agree with the line of progression because these promotions are slow in coming right now. If that were implemented, it would be beneficial to me in my career right now. I've been stalled at my pay incentive—I've been a corporal for six years—for quite a while. Even though the promotions are not there right now—they may come—a lateral progression would have been beneficial to me right now.

Hopefully, that will start to turn around soon, promotions will start coming along, and I'll get to my next level as a master corporal. That was one issue I wanted to bring up that I wanted to get cleared up.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): That's what I was trying to get at. Do you understand what I was—

Cpl Colin Feaver: Yes, sir. Thank you very much.

The other point I want to talk about is one of the main reasons I came back. It was because of a phone call that I made back in the barracks. I live in the barracks on the base, and I phoned my son in Ottawa. He's five years old, and he wanted to know why I couldn't come to watch his baseball game tonight. That's the other reason why I came back.

Back in 1993 my wife and I were a service couple, and we were posted to Toronto. The military being what it is, divorce and separation are very common in the military.

Being a service couple, I found that I didn't have the same rights as my civilian counterparts. For example, I spent numerous dollars with a lawyer to obtain joint custody of my son, which I think is insanity in itself. I think that in Canadian law, joint custody should be automatically awarded. I had to spend thousands of dollars to get equal opportunity to my son.

In the civilian world, when you have joint custody of your child, there is legal action you can take to keep within the same geographical location. If one parent tries to move, you can get a court order not to move, because you have joint custody. It's a legal binding thing that my civilian counterparts have.

• 2130

I have joint custody, but in the military it's useless. Just shortly after the separation, when the heat of separation was at its peak, I was posted to Borden, which was a benefit, because my ex-wife was in Toronto. I wasn't posted far away and I was willing to accept that posting with gratitude. Six months after I arrived here my ex-wife was posted to Ottawa. That was two years ago.

The separation was very easy compared to a lot of people. I'm still not divorced yet. We're still on good terms: we still talk; we still have communications. I have open custody; I can visit my son. I have no problems getting my son any time I want him, but I don't want to be a generic father to my son; I want to be a dad, and it's very difficult in the military. I think I'm in a unique situation.

I've heard a lot of complaints about career managers. I've heard you describe them as cold, but I don't believe they're cold, sir. I believe they have a mandate. When we sit in this theatre and our career managers come to tell us their mandate, their mandate is service requirement. Service couples and marriages are at the bottom of that list. There's a list of about ten things that decide whether you get posted and where you get posted and why you get posted, and the main reason is service requirement.

I believe they are overworked and they don't have the time to be compassionate. They have to fulfil their mandate as fast as they can and the compassionate issues don't come in until the last. I've sat with career managers. In my situation you get ten minutes every year to speak with your career manager, to plead your case, to put any memos or notes on your personal file or your PER.

They have hundreds of files to go through and they don't have the time to become familiar with each individual case. My suggestion to the career manager, and luckily my ex-wife agrees with me, was that we both should have equal opportunity to raise our child together. She's willing to go to Petawawa and I'm willing to go to Petawawa. We're separated, so it doesn't even come into account that we're a service couple, even though service couples are at the bottom of the list when you get posted. We're separated, so it's not even taken into account.

I'm willing to go to Petawawa and my ex-wife is willing to go to Petawawa so we can be in the same geographical location to have equal opportunity to look after our child.

The miles I'm putting on my car.... My son has a terrible fear of the highway. He just hates going on the highway, he's done so many miles on the highway back and forth.

I thought I had an easy solution for the career manager. First of all, his first mandate is service requirement. I'm sure Petawawa is looking for a weapons technician. They need weapons technicians down there. Secondly, I'm a low-cost move. I live in the barracks. I can put all my stuff in the trunk of my car and move to Petawawa with low cost. With every explanation that I came up with the career manager had a counter-explanation on why he couldn't do it. At the end of my interview with the career manager he said, “Corporal Feaver, I can't post you. Point blank. You've been here for a year and that's it. You have to spend some time here.”

Even now we have a united front that we both want to get posted to Petawawa. We're not asking for Chilliwack, we're not asking for Trenton or a cushy posting, as some people might call it. We're asking for a field unit. I'm prepared to accept the challenge of an overseas tour. I accept the challenge of the field. I excel in the field.

There are some people who don't want to go to Petawawa, but I would more than willingly go to Petawawa just for the military challenge and to take part in my son's life. Right now it's very difficult.

I have a low-stress job here. The job is not bad, and I really enjoy the job, but it's really stressful being away from my son. It's the military that decides where you go. I don't have a course of redress; I can't put in for a compassionate posting. It's not a good enough reason for a compassionate posting. So I'm just stuck waiting for the wheels to turn.

• 2135

It's so long before any action gets taken. I hear guys talking about fighting with career managers because the process is so slow. They don't have the time. I believe they are overworked.

A lot of people stood up here with suggestions. I don't have any suggestions, because I don't know how to change it. You can't please everybody all the time, and I'm probably one of those people who is in a unique situation.

One suggestion I do have is perhaps to lighten the career manager's load, because a lot of the conversations about career managers is about postings. That's just a part of their jobs. So if the career managers had another member of personnel, probably called a posting representative, who would handle postings and let the career manager get on with his other business, that's something I can suggest. I don't know if it would work or not.

To the military, I don't have a son, I don't have a dependant. It's not on my documents. It's not entitled to be on my documents because he lives with my ex-wife, and it's frustrating and it's tough.

Voices: Hear, hear.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): I'll be very honest. First, I think career managers have to change their priorities. The military is changing and career managers aren't. I think that's the problem. When you tell me that a family's priority, or your priority because you're separated...that happens every day. Perhaps it didn't a while ago, but as you've said, it's a common occurrence these days. To have the priorities down at the bottom is not being realistic about what the military is all about these days. So I think they have to change.

In a conversation I had with General Baril he certainly said he might have made a mistake in cutting the service personnel where he did. He took perhaps a few too many career managers out of that particular area, whereas he should have perhaps left them there. He'll be coming before our committee again before we wrap up, and we also have the career managers coming before us on Wednesday. So it should be an interesting day, and we certainly would bring along your concerns and other people's concerns.

I don't think there's much we can do right now, but we might be able to change the way the whole process is perhaps worked. That's what needs to be changed.

Cpl Colin Feaver: Sir, when you say the career managers' priorities should be changed, I don't think it's the career managers' priorities. I think it's dictated from above.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): That's true. That's what I'm saying. Their orders have to be changed, and it's perhaps not their fault; perhaps it's higher up. They have to realize, as everybody else, that the military has changed significantly in the last five or ten years. In a lot of cases these people haven't realized that yet.

Cpl Colin Feaver: Thank you, sir.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Next we have Dan Duesling.

Private Dan Duesling (Individual Presentation): I just have a few general points that I want to touch on from my personal experience. I'm a private. I've only been in a couple of years.

First of all, recruiting is where it all started. When I went to the recruiting centre I was a civilian. I had never been in the military; I hadn't any military experience whatsoever. I went in and filled out their little sheet and what not. I hunt and fish, and they said you enjoy that, you want to be in the infantry.

Voices: Oh, oh.

Private Dan Duesling: Honest to God, that's what they told me. They said you get to go camping and hunting all the time.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): You're serious, right?

Private Dan Duesling: I'm completely serious.

• 2140

Voices: Oh, oh!

Private Dan Duesling: I think they need to lay out a little clearer exactly what you're getting yourself into.

Voices: Oh, oh!

Private Dan Duesling: I've heard a lot of people talk about the inadequate housing. My housing is adequate. The outside of my house is terrible. I went into Housing and said, “Look, just give me some paint. I will take a long weekend and my neighbour and I will paint my house.” They told me basically, “We can't afford to give you paint.” I was going to do the work myself and save them the trouble of doing it, and they'd have a nice-looking Q on the base. They couldn't even be bothered to do that.

The salary, again.... I have a wife and three children. If I were to be posted somewhere such as Esquimalt or Toronto or someplace where the cost of living is higher, I would literally starve. There's no way we could do it. I'm lucky I'm where I'm at, because if it were someplace else, we couldn't do it.

The other problem I have is with the hospital. If one of my children is run over in the street, I have to wait for an ambulance to come from Barrie or Alliston, rather than even having a guy with a first aid kit who has medical knowledge come and take care of him until an ambulance gets there. But they can't even do that.

If they want to integrate families into the military, they should do it when it's not just in their best interest.

Voices: Hear, hear!

Private Dan Duesling: The only other thing I have is a letter my wife wrote that she wanted you to have. I'm not going to read it, because it has some personal information in it, but I'd like to pass it on to you.

Thanks.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thank you.

Voices: Hear, hear!

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Dan, can you explain the hospital thing again? They have a hospital here, right? Do they not have an ambulance service? I should know that, but I don't.

Private Dan Duesling: For the members, sir, not the dependants. I can go there anytime of the day, 24-7. If one of my kids gets sick, too bad.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Yes, I keep forgetting how that works.

Private Dan Duesling: Again, it's not in their best interest. It shouldn't be the way it is, but I'm the one they care about. Why shouldn't they care about my kids if they want to integrate the families and have it all be one big military family, as they say it's supposed to be?

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Yes. Thank you.

Mr. Leon Benoit: About the medical attention, I understand that's something that's changed over the last years, and maybe it hasn't always been like that—that certainly if a family member were injured on the base or near the base, they would take care of that person.

Voices: No.

Mr. Leon Benoit: It's never changed? It's always been like that? Okay.

Private Dan Duesling: I know personally of one case where a fellow was taken to the MIR from the mess. The circumstances matter not; his head was cut open. They gave him a piece of gauze and said, “Wait outside. We'll call you an ambulance.”

If they're doctors, by law are they not bound to take care of that person? And if not by law, then morally?

Mr. Leon Benoit: Yes.

Okay. Thank you.

Private Dan Duesling: Have a good night.

Voices: Hear, hear!

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Nancy Beardsall.

Private Nancy Beardsall (Individual Presentation): Hi. I'm posted with Petawawa, but I come down here every weekend and every time off I have, because I'm one of those statistics: my partner is here. Because I haven't claimed common law in front of an officer and I haven't actually gotten married, there are some distinctions. I cannot get a PMQ in Petawawa. I've been trying.

• 2145

I was a reservist beforehand and was in an apartment and very self-sufficient. Being in Petawawa, you're ordered into barracks, being a QL3 private situation, and you have to write memos in order to get out of that situation. Of course this is very degrading.

I'm one of the older privates, so with these rules and regulations, I'm getting into trouble up to ying-yang. Even my fellow cohorts.... There's a troop of us who keep travelling back and forth from Petawawa to Borden every weekend. We have a car pool going. It's very stressful. We're having a hard time getting back on Sunday nights. We're all trying to boost our morale in order to go back. It's almost as if we're imprisoned in this situation.

We can't even have a joint facility. If you have a family here in Petawawa and you want to use the swimming facilities or any of the gym facilities, you're not able to, because your spouse or your partner is at another base. That's something that should be looked at. Maybe for economic reasons, they can't move or the children have to finish school. That type of thing is involved.

I just want to make these points known. We're all feeling as though we want to remain loyal to the military, and yet, when you're feeling as if you're such a child that you have to be in trouble for trying to get your rights and to establish yourself, that's very difficult.

Are there any questions?

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Nancy, were you and your friend always together before? Were you together at Petawawa or here?

Private Nancy Beardsall: No, we've been together here, and it was before my training actually began. We just hadn't had the actual opportunities, and we're still trying to make it so it's not a forced issue that we have to claim common law or get married. We want to make sure the financial end is all set. We're very responsible between each other, not to have it where we maybe get the fringe benefits of the military situation.

I'm finding right now, being up in Petawawa, I'm ending up spending $500 a month, which is almost equivalent to a rental, because I'm paying rations and quarters and storage of my furniture and effects. But I don't eat at the mess every single day of the month, and that's $200 of food. I don't eat $200 worth of food in a month, and I could use that for paying bills. And it's another $200 for storing some of my furniture and effects. I can't store them at his place, because the place is not big enough.

I'm finding that I'm wasting a lot of extra money and energy with just becoming established and remaining a couple and having some independence.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Your friend lives here on base? Does he have a PMQ downtown, or how does it work?

Private Nancy Beardsall: He has a PMQ here, sir.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): So the only way you could do that is to go in front of this guy and confess your souls. Is that basically it?

Private Nancy Beardsall: In front of an officer, you do have to state your common-law status.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Oh, you do? That's interesting. I didn't realize you had to do that. And you're not willing to do that obviously—at the moment you're not ready to do that.

Private Nancy Beardsall: We're not, sir. We want to make sure we're actually prepared, since both of us have been in situations where we've had a rough turn and there's been damage and that type of thing. We're wanting the human side of things to come out, and not to be forced into certain situations.

• 2150

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thanks very much, Nancy. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Private Nancy Beardsall: Thank you.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Taimara Brulé.

Ms. Taimara Brulé (Individual Presentation): I just wanted to touch on a few issues that have been brought forth tonight, one of them being the PMQs.

Last Monday, returning home from the hospital with my daughter, who just recently had a tonsillectomy, I got a call from the CFHA telling me to please keep my dog in and to carefully watch my children in my backyard, because we have a rat problem. Now, this concerns me greatly, because rats bring a great deal of disease. If there are rats, there are going to be other vermin. I am very upset by this.

For the most part, I have been able to get CFHA to move on a lot of issues, because I'm very persistent with them. Hearing tonight how people have to fight tooth and nail, I can understand that, because for the last year I have been fighting tooth and nail just for them to complete the trim around the front door and my back door so that the cold air won't come in all winter long. But hey, the winter bills are already here, right?

Another issue is the hospital situation, which a gentleman previously spoke about. The hospital situation on base is that we do have 911. It does not come from our base. Unfortunately, Alliston hospital is scheduled to be closed in the future, so the nearest hospital will be 25 minutes away, in Barrie. Unless the ambulance service is prepared to come from our base, the closest call will be 10 to 15 minutes, and a lot can happen in 10 and 15 minutes, for hospital services.

This is a great concern to a lot of the residents in the area because, again, we are in an open base policy. We don't only have military members living in this base. We have people from other federal agencies living on this base. We have members of MPF who live on this base, who would get service faster than military members themselves.

It concerns me greatly. We are treated differently because we are military. We have RCMP residents who live in our PMQs. Why do we have RCMP residents, when we have people in Downsview who are living in an area with the highest crime rate? If they're willing to commute, why don't we put the RCMP members, who make more money than our members, out, and say, “Listen, find a house. Get some rent. Pay what you can afford. Don't be living off the backs of others.” That's essentially what they're doing here, and that's not fair.

If we can have a single person such as this lady here living in a PMQ, where there are other MPF workers who possibly.... Granted, they don't make a lot of money being public service workers, but most people do have joint incomes in their homes. If we can give another person in the military a residence to live in, before we give another federal or public service person a residence to live in, I think that's fair. Essentially all they're getting is cheap rent. It has come to the point where people in my own family are saying to me that living in PMQs is like living on welfare, and that's really very sad.

I know a lot of residents spend a lot of money on fixing up the PMQs themselves, to make them somewhat suitable for their family environment. When we first moved here from Nova Scotia, my husband and I were both in tears because of the house we were moving into. We were terrified of what we had left and what we had come to. I'd lost a $28,000-a-year job. Because they couldn't post us fast enough down here, I didn't have the opportunity to seek out other employment opportunities, which I could obviously have gotten, and they have now gone by the wayside. I am forced to take on a job where I make a lot less money, working for minimum wage, and paying child care expenses that are so exorbitant it's not even worth working. Everybody feels this.

Wives are staying home now because child care is just too damned expensive. In Ontario, the average family with two children pays $800 a month in child care.

• 2155

Recently I saw documentation on the military about a situation in wartime. I'm not saying this is what it should be, but maybe something the committee should consider is putting forth to the federal government that a subsidy for child care be implemented for at least a one-year period for members who move from province to province. God knows it's hard enough to start over again. When you have to find appropriate child care and pay $800 a month out of your own pocket, it's not worth working, because you're actually paying out more than you're bringing in.

The pay raises are a very big point of contention with me. You're robbing from Peter, the military members, to pay Paul, the federal government. You give us a raise, but then you jack up our CPP, you jack up the UIC. The new raises are coming out in June or July, and they're jacking up our rent.

What's the point of giving us a raise if you're going to take it from us right away? You can't get ahead. Every time we turn around, we can't get ahead. Then you wonder why the people here are very upset. You hear about people in Ottawa getting a 17% increase, or a $4,000 bonus. You hear about pilots getting a $50,000 pay incentive to stay in. Where's my $50,000 pay incentive? I'd really like to see it. It would be one reason for me to say to my husband not to look for another job, stay in.

The only reason I tell him to stay is that being in the military has a certain sense of dignity. He enjoys the dignity he gets from doing his job. He's an MP, and they're not the most welcome people on base, let's face it. They're on every block.

When they talked about bringing the OPP on base and having one police officer until 2 a.m., I was the first person in there fighting to keep the MPs on the base. If we had turned our MPs into security guards, we wouldn't have had people out looking for the two lost children who were here tonight. They spent several hours diligently looking for these two lost children. They had the bike patrol, they had police cars going through the bushes, everything. This is of great concern to the community.

When we bought in Oakland base, we brought in more problems than we can think of. When we brought in the opportunity for other residents from the federal government to live in our PMQ area, we brought in more problems.

Granted, these people can't go into CFHA and get a can of paint for their door. They can't do that. They have to go through channels. But so do we. It takes a year to get anything done, or it takes a really crappy tenant like me.

I'm really upset about the fact that the government is willing to give us a raise, but then they're willing to take it back. This is a big concern. How are we supposed to get ahead?

My husband has been in the military for nine years now. He was a cadet before that, which gives him a total of eleven years. The man is making barely $36,000 a year.

When we were living in Nova Scotia, we were living pretty well. We were still living in PMQs and still had our rough times. We still had our debt load, because before I got my great job, we accrued debt we couldn't handle. Now that we're back here, we're back to square one again.

I just hope the committee sees it within themselves to help the government understand that giving us a raise is great. Taking it away and giving it to CPP or UIC, which it has just been announced has a surplus, is a big no-no. How are we going to get ahead? That's what it's all about.

Everybody is out for themselves. Everybody wants their bonus and their raises. We're just like everybody else.

If any one of these people who have been highly trained by the military walk out of the military tomorrow and find a job on Civvy Street, chances are they will be making double what they make today for the military. It's their loyalty that keeps them here. If they're so loyal to stay, why can't the military or the federal government be loyal to them and pay them what they deserve? That's all I have to say.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thank you, Taimara.

Rae Joseph, please.

Ms. Rae Joseph (Individual Presentation): Hi. I just wanted to say I've been here for six years. This is our first posting. I've got to admit that so far it's been a pretty good posting for us.

• 2200

We've encountered our own problems, but I think the support we've got—well, the base has a lot of support groups now. They're coming around. They're getting more support groups for spouses, but a lot of it has been through the friends I've made here on the base. We support each other. We tell our problems. When my husband was away, members of his unit came and shovelled my driveway. We get the help that way. I have no complaints there.

I do have a few complaints. I just read in The Borden Citizen that now we're an open base, they're going to increase our speed limits along Dieppe Road where our new bike path crosses. They're planning on raising it to 70 kilometres, which technically means 80, because people do speed. I've never heard of a town raising its speed limit. This is what Borden is to us. It's a town. Our children play here. We live here. We work here. The bike path is a walking path. I can't believe they're raising our speed limits.

Borden shouldn't be considered a bypass. It's a town. You're coming through our town. Don't raise our speed limits. They'll say they'll get the MPs out cruising more and what not. They've got a lot more to do than just watch for speeders.

My second point, and it's been brought up a few times, is the water system. When we first moved here, we had a water softener from the people who lived there before us. We put in the salt or whatever it was. It still wasn't working, because it was connected only to a few pipes in the house. The piping in the house is another story, but I won't get into that. We just got rid of it, because it was a waste of money for us.

One gentleman mentioned his shirts yellowed. We get that. For drinking, we've now resorted to buying our water. Before we thought we'd suffer through it, but now that we have a two-year-old daughter, we're buying our water.

They put in the new tower. That's great. Our pressure is better and it has gotten rid of the smell, but we do have to drain our water heater probably once every three months or so. The bathroom, the tiling, everything is yellow. We've got to constantly keep it up.

It's not just in Borden. The surrounding municipalities, Tecumseth and Innisfil, have been fighting their water problems for a long time. Now Tecumseth council is trying to get a pipeline for some sort of car manufacturing that just expanded, so they're trying to pump in more water and they're looking at getting it from the Georgian Bay. They want people in the towns to help cover the cost. I don't know if it's a solution to get into the pipeline.

Another concern is with the PMQs. Someone mentioned maintenance. It does take a long time. Someone came in and said he had a work order to fix the thing above the oven, and I hadn't put it in. When he asked if we were so and so, it turned out to be for the two people who were living there before us. They put in this work order. Then a month later there was a work order to change our carpet on our stairs. That was fine, because I didn't like the brown colour anyway. I said, though, that I hadn't put it in. Again it was for someone who had previously lived in the house. They're a little slow in coming to fix your stuff.

We have dogs, and they do scratch up the wooden floors. We asked if they could come and they said the only way to get new floors would be to put in for an inner-base move. So we played the game. But then it was, “Oh sorry, you can't move yet, because we've changed the company.” We waited. We put in another memo. Then it was almost posting season, so they said we couldn't do an inner-base move. Yet seven other people I heard about from other friends had just moved. We played the game, but they hadn't. I think it was who they knew or who they liked best that got the move.

That's all I have to say.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Woods): Thank you, Rae.

• 2205

Sergeant Bob Snider.

Sergeant Bob Snider (Individual Presentation): Good evening. I'd like to thank you for this opportunity to speak.

What I'd like to talk about tonight is the famous little office, the group of people in Ottawa commonly referred to as the Career Medical Review Board. That's the group of people nobody really cares to hear about until they're personally affected, as I am now, at the 17-year mark of my career.

I'm sure you're both aware of the two reports that came out recently on the care and treatment of injured members and those who have been released for medical reasons from the forces. I hope the committee has reviewed them already.

Without getting into the specifics of my personal situation, perhaps you can picture receiving a message that states you're in breech, or likely in breech, of the universality of service principle. You accept that. There's something wrong with you, you don't quite fit the military rules at the time, so you're going to go under review. You go to the hospital. At the hospital you see a doctor and you complete universality of service, generic terms, task principle forms, and parts one and two of the medical in about a two-week period. That's no problem. You expect that in a reasonable time your paperwork will be processed through the board room at the hospital, sent to the director of medical services or health services, or whatever they call themselves from one week to another, and from there to the CMRB.

Well, you find out three and a half weeks later that your paper is still sitting on the doctor's desk and hasn't been typed. Why? I don't know. I'm a clerk. I could have gone over and typed it myself. As a matter of fact, I even offered that. The paper finally gets sent out and you assume that all the paperwork gets sent out at the same time to the director of medical services. Wrong. They've sent only part of it. Why? I don't know.

Because I have an inside informant, I guess we'll call it, on the Career Medical Review Board staff—mind you, this person can make no decisions in the career process, but is a clerk—I'm in touch with this person on a regular basis, usually every two weeks or so. I've been doing that since about January 16. On April 20 I phoned this person—this was probably the fourth or fifth time I'd phoned her—and I asked her if she had received anything on me at the Career Medical Review Board office to enable them to decide my fate. She said no.

Through a series of discussions and a couple of phone calls over a number of days, she phoned the order room here at the base hospital, and lo and behold, they hadn't sent out all the paperwork. From January 16 to April 20 I assumed everything was in the works. They finally mailed out to the director of medical services all the paperwork, which I believe was signed on April 24.

In the medical services section, from what I understand, there are two doctors: one is training to go Bosnia, which is a military requirement. Fine, he's gone. That leaves one doctor to deal with things. I'm told there are approximately 350 files and one clerk to log in all the paperwork. Each file has to be copied three times for this paper bureaucracy.

There's apparently no money to hire another doctor, heaven forbid. We all know there's no money, even to put somebody there temporarily for a couple of months to get these files cleaned up. These are people's careers you're talking about.

As for my own situation, I spoke to this lady again today. She said she will personally phone over, pull a few strings, and talk to the people at health services. She'll have my file taken and put in front of the only remaining doctor. Hopefully it will be looked at within the next week or so and then forwarded to the CMRB, where it could sit. I think they have 300 or 400 files, so I don't know how many they look at in the run of a week. It used to be they sat once a year. Now I think it's once or twice a month.

In the meantime, my wife, who has never been sick a day in her life, is going to see the third heart specialist, once in Toronto. I have an eight-year-old daughter, who cries every night, asking whether we're going to move. I think the bullshit has gone on long enough. I would like the decision made. That's it.

• 2210

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): No, just back up a little bit, Sergeant. Did you say you have 17 years in?

Sgt Bob Snider: Yes, I do.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Did you ask to be released, or is this something they decided? How does it work?

Sgt Bob Snider: I was a construction engineer procedure technician. My trade and two others, administration and finance, amalgamated in the fall. I'm led to believe all our files were laid out on the table for amalgamation. Anybody who had anything medically wrong with them was apparently likely in breach of the universality of service principle.

I understand there are conditions, so I initiated the medical side probably a week or so before they requested it, to get the decision made to see what was going on with my career.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Do you want to get out? Are you looking forward to it? Do you want to stay?

Sgt Bob Snider: I'm kind of confused now.

Some of the members on the base have been given an option. Because they've invested so much time in the military and the military has invested so much time in them, if they decide to stay they can stay. If not, they can get out with a medical release prior to.

Whatever the CMRB decides, I'm willing to accept. It will be no problem.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): You just want a decision, is that right?

Sgt Bob Snider: I'm sure the other 350 people would like one too.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Yes, okay.

Do you know who you've talked to over there? Is there a name?

Sgt Bob Snider: Well, I do, but I don't really want to get that person into trouble.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): No, I understand, that's fine.

Thank you.

Sgt Bob Snider: Thank you.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Laurie Harrison, please.

Master Corporal Laurie Harrison (Individual Presentation): Good evening.

I wasn't going to speak tonight. I've been jotting down notes as people have been coming up here, so I do have a few things I'd like to say briefly.

Basically this committee is set up to try to find out what's wrong with the military, where we can improve, why our morale is so low. I can sum it up, from my own point of view, in two short sentences.

When they started this reduction process, they said they wanted us to do more with less. I feel we're doing too much with too little reward. And I think I speak on behalf of many of the people in the military where that's concerned.

I have 14 years in the military. I was a master corporal in six years and I've sat there since. My trade is amalgamated with another that shows no chance for promotion for another six, so I will retire as a master corporal.

Out of a promising six-year career I'll spend 14 at the same rank because of what's happening today. It's happening with everyone. That's fine. However, there has to be some incentive or some reward in order for me to do my job to the level that the military wants from me.

Why should I work 12 or 14 hours a day? Why should I put my life on the line and go and peacekeep? Why should I do these things when my pay is at a poverty level, when I have no chance for promotion, when I can't be posted anywhere I want to be? Basically, you've given me no reward system and asked me for top performance.

If I sit on the top of a merit list for the last four years, as I have, why do I not just do an average performance and go home for the same pay? Why am I putting in 12 and 14 hours a day to sit at the top of a list and say I'm number one, I'm number ten? However, there are no promotions, so it's too bad, so sad. People need rewards.

There are a few things I'd like to say about what I noticed when I was listening today. There is a need for more incentive pay levels. Master corporal is a very bad rank. If you were four years as a corporal and you become a master corporal, you go to the fourth incentive of the master corporal and you sit there. I have not had a pay incentive raise in 14 years. That's sad when a captain has ten at his rank level. There should be five, six, eight, ten levels. Even if you make $20 a year, you feel impressed because you've done something.

• 2215

I spent four years in Ottawa in the National Defence Operations Centre. My job was to brief the ministers every day, Parliament, and the CDS on what was happening in the military. We've reduced by 20,000 people, but we've increased peacekeeping. We don't have people to do these jobs any more. We have people who are burning out. They're tired, and their families are breaking down because they're never home. They're six months here and six months there.

My brother-in-law, who is 24 years old, attempted suicide on his third tour to Bosnia because he can't handle it any more. That's a 24-year-old kid. What's his reward?

I also think that because we're at a flat salary, it's time for the military to look at decent pay. We can't be paid overtime, so at least pay us a half-decent wage so that when we're putting in 12 and 14 hours a day, there's something for it in the end.

Voices: Hear, hear.

MCpl Laurie Harrison: One final thing I would like to say is that I am a military spouse of a military member, and I do believe that all military members should do their part in an operational capacity. However, I do not feel that both spouses should be in an operational appointment at the same time, especially when you have children. I don't think that's fair for the military to do that.

Voices: Hear, hear.

MCpl Laurie Harrison: They can both be on the same base, but one can be operational, while the other can be static. Then they can switch after two or three years, or whatever, but don't put both people in a operational capacity.

We went through this in Chatham with the Gulf War. We were both deployed. I flew my son to Toronto to be with his grandparents for however long that might be. It disrupts the family household. It would be decent of the military to keep one static and one operational.

That's all I have to say. Thank you.

Voices: Hear, hear.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): I think we have some questions for you, Laurie.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Master Corporal, you talked at some length about the problem of not being rewarded because of the situation with promotions. You're not moving up to a new pay scale or being recognized for getting better at what you're doing and having experience in your area.

Earlier on today, I asked about the possibility of a lateral trade progression. That would just really mean that people who are specialized and getting new training or more expertise in the area they're in would be rewarded in some way without having to move up in rank, because there is such a problem with that when you look at the demographics in the forces. Would that help with giving the recognition and the pay increases that you're talking about?

MCpl Laurie Harrison: I would rather have the $4,000 bonus the generals got.

Voices: Hear, hear.

MCpl Laurie Harrison: It's a start. Any type of a reward system is definitely a start.

Right now, you're looking at people competing in competitions to sit on a merit list, and that is assessed by your performance. So you have the average guy who can put in his six or seven hours, and if the work gets done, great, if it doesn't get done, okay, he earns his wage and he goes home. Then you have the superior guy who does a little more than that. Then you have the outstanding person who just flys. He gives you 12 and 14 hours, takes work home, and does this and does that. Well, it's all for the same pay and it's all for the same end result.

So what's happening now that I've noticed as a supervisor is that people don't care any more. There's no incentive or motivation. How can you reward them? You can't reward them with time off, there isn't any. You can't reward them with pay. You can't reward them with anything.

You say that's a good job, so thanks a lot. I'm going to write you up and you're going to sit on the top of the list. Maybe by the time you retire, you might be a master or a sergeant. It's sad that our system has caved in. That's basically what I feel has happened: it has just caved in.

Now you have the corporals, masters, and sergeants who are your workers and supervisors and who don't care any more. How does your whole system stay together if people are just doing the average job and going home? Everybody is taking up second careers and second jobs. You have to look somewhere else when you don't get the reward that you need where you are.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Okay, thank you.

• 2220

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): I was just going to ask you this: in your mind, what is a good reward as far as the pay level is concerned? There's a loaded question for you.

MCpl Laurie Harrison: Well, look at my husband, for example. He's in the military police. He puts in a lot of hours. He does a lot of specialized work. The people in the OPP and RCMP, the civilian departments, who do the same job he does make $25,000 to $30,000 a year more, and that's not even including overtime. So when I look at something like that I ask him what he's doing in the military. I tell him to get out and find that job on Civvy Street. Then I'll retire and stay home.

I think everybody needs $10,000 a year more right now. I'm not really being outrageous about that, because $5,000 of that is going to go back to you guys in taxes.

Voices: Hear, hear.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thank you.

Corporal Blair Meadows, please.

Corporal Blair Meadows (Individual Presentation): Thank you for allowing me to view my concerns.

Like the rest of these people, my concern is about the pay. It's a never-ending story. I've spent 16 years in the military, and I've been forced to support my family of five on what I make.

Due to the lack of cost-of-living raises for the past seven years and the wage freezes, I was forced to go out and get a second job as a taxi driver, which I have done for the last four years. I have to plan for the future of my family and myself, and the only way I was ever to get ahead and keep my head above water was to go and do something like taxi driving, which is a very dangerous job.

I'm not the only member in the Canadian Forces to tell this story. I know that. The people I feel sorry for are the poor people who aren't on a base like this, where they can go out and find a second job. Look at the people in Petawawa and Esquimalt. They're out on manoeuvres and field exercises for two or three weeks at a time during the month and can't hold down a second job to be able to afford to give their family the extra things. These are the people who are going onto welfare. I feel very lucky that I was able to land here in Borden and go out and find a second job so I can give my family a few extra things, like Christmas presents.

The only way we're going to make money in the military is to get promoted. I'm part of the 836 RMS third trade. We just amalgamated. Sergeant Bob Snider is part of the family now, and he feels the same way I do. There are not going to be any promotions in our trade probably for the next five years, especially at the corporal rank, because we're so heavy. With all the cutbacks and downsizing, chances are I'll never move to the next level because I've got four years left.

That's about it. Thank you.

Voices: Hear, hear.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thank you.

The next one is Candy Nitschkie.

Ms. Candy Nitschkie (Individual Presentation): Hello. I've been a military wife for 15 years now.

Let's go back to the water. This is the worst base I've been on in 15 years in terms of the water. We have to bathe our kids in rust. We have to put bubble bath in the water so it looks decent. When we do our laundry, most times, our laundry gets destroyed. I phoned base housing to see if they would reimburse me for the damages. They said no, because that's Borden's water.

We moved here from Halifax. In those PMQs, we had our fridges and stoves supplied there; here we had to buy them.

We also had to buy a water softener and Culligan water so we can stay healthy. I think that the military should reimburse us for the money we spend on our water softener, our salt that we have to provide, and our Culligan water.

• 2225

The military can go to the base hospital. They get a choice of a few doctors. You guys say that you care about us, about dependants and the children, but we are forced to have the choice of one doctor on base. There's one in Angus, who is never there, or he's always two or three hours late.

As for the one on base, some of us do not go to him, because I myself cannot understand him. My 16-year-old does not understand him. But because we have to go to Barrie to find a doctor, that means travelling all that distance. My son takes a bus to the high school, so by the time he gets back all the doctors' offices are closed. So there's no doctor to take our kids to.

If our kids get really sick, you can't take them to the base hospital because they're only thinking of the military. They're not thinking of their wives.

In Shilo we were allowed to go to the base hospital if an emergency happened with the wives or the kids, because they thought of everyone else. In Shilo we also had more than one doctor, because with all the wives and the children on this base there were too many for one doctor. I think another doctor should come on base to give this other guy a smaller load.

That's it.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Just a second, Candy. You mentioned that when you were in Shilo dependants could go to the hospital.

Ms. Candy Nitschkie: Yes.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): And they can't do it here?

Ms. Candy Nitschkie: Here the hospitals are military only; they're not for us. If I had a heart attack right now—

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): You would have to go to Barrie?

Ms. Candy Nitschkie: I would have to go to Barrie, or I can go to Alliston hospital. But in Alliston hospital, if it's after around 8 p.m., if you get into a car accident, and if they take you to Alliston, they have no X-rays after 8 p.m.

So then you go from Alliston hospital all the way to Barrie hospital, where they can get X-rays. I've been to Alliston hospital a few times, and they don't do any X-rays after a certain hour. I'm not sure what hour it is. So you have to go all the way to Barrie to a new one instead of this one here fixing us.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Is the hospital in Shilo on the base?

Ms. Candy Nitschkie: Yes, and so are the doctors' offices. In Shilo we had about four different doctors we all went to.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Can you just...? Is there a different rule in a different province? I was under the impression that you couldn't do it here, you couldn't do it in Shilo, you couldn't do it in other places, but obviously I'm wrong.

So you didn't have a problem in Shilo. If something happened, you could go to the base hospital and you were looked after.

Ms. Candy Nitschkie: Yes, especially here—

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Well....

Ms. Candy Nitschkie: —we're so far from the hospital that nobody has taken into consideration the length of time it takes for an ambulance to get here, the length of time it takes to get to the hospital, get in.... You know, you're looking at an hour altogether for them to come and pick you up, and then take you back.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): This is the first time we've heard that. I was just curious if that's a provincial rule or a base rule.

Ms. Candy Nitschkie: I don't know, maybe it's just at Shilo.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Yes, maybe it was at Shilo. It's interesting.

Thank you very much.

Voices: Hear, hear.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): We'll try to find out what the ruling is.

Dawn Thompson.

Ms. Dawn Thompson (Individual Presentation): I'd just like to stress the educational sacrifices that the family members make. It's difficult to achieve post-secondary degrees when you move every few years and when there's no university close by.

• 2230

Correspondence is very difficult, and you're continually changing universities. The closest university is in Toronto.

Personally, I've lived apart from my family to continue my own education. We had to provide for my own living accommodation, transportation home occasionally on weekends, and that sort of thing.

Just as a solution I would just like to see some assistance for family members, spouses and children, so that they can go away to a university, and make it affordable for a family when there isn't a university close by that they can attend.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): So for you to continue your education, you have to stay with friends or friends of the family? Is that how it works?

Ms. Dawn Thompson: Yes, I made accommodations with a cousin of the family, and paid her rent while I was there.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): And you're able to continue on your education here in this area?

Ms. Dawn Thompson: No, I've stopped. I was actually at a university, and I was pursuing a degree in business administration. However, I left two years into the program.

It's very difficult to transfer credits to a different university. You're always having to redo them, or they don't consider all of them. You have to do a majority at one institution. It's a difficult process.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Yes, it is. We've heard that before. Thank you.

Voices: Hear, hear.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Bruce Stubbs.

Mr. Bruce Stubbs (Individual Presentation): I just have one point to mention. Another thing to do with postings is that in the last two years the government has ceased to pay the interest differential penalty, which is very substantial at times.

I have 14 years in. This is my ninth posting. Within a three-year period of a five-year mortgage, if you're locked into it.... One couple was nailed with $14,000. It came out of their own pocket.

That's something that has to be looked at. If the military is going to be posting us every two or three years in some cases, or after a year and a half or six months, that's putting us further and further in debt than most people in the military already are. That's the only point I had.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thank you.

Voices: Hear, hear.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): George Burke.

Master Warrant Officer George Burke (Individual Presentation): Thank you. I'm here with regard to some of the CFAOs, the way they were handled, and how they they've been interpreted by different people.

I was in CFB Esquimalt, posted here. I went through a divorce out there. Two of my kids stayed with my wife out there, and one came here with me.

Prior to coming out I asked the administration people how this would work as far as the LTA, the leave travel allowance, was concerned. They said that I wouldn't have any problem as long as I made sure that the next of kin was somebody out in that area, one of my family. So I picked my sister who lives out there.

Two years ago, when I applied for the LTA, I was denied the LTA due to the fact that the military moved my oldest daughter here, and they considered the other two children not to be my dependants. They informed me at that point that the information I got from the administration branch out there was wrong.

I questioned it again last year. I got two different interpretations within about a 48-hour period. When it was all finished, said and done with, they said I could use the military flight to bring out the two kids.

When I applied for the military flights they told me there was no room for them, and that I would be lucky if they would be able to get on a flight.

So this year somebody gave me another approach, which was to use my priority points. Upon checking on the priority points, I was given two different answers, again within about a 24-hour period. The first answer I got was that I could fly them out as long as I sent somebody out there to pick them up, an adult.

• 2235

Now, one is 14 and one is 11, and according to Air Canada, a 14-year-old can fly by himself or herself and he can also take the 11-year-old with him and there's no problem. According to the military, I couldn't do that, so traffic told me that I had to apply for two flights, using up ten points for myself to go out there, using another twenty points for my kids, to fly them back and forth.

I went ahead and did everything traffic told me. The flight people called me back informing me that I was not allowed to put two requests in at the same time, even though I was trying to get myself out there so I could be there to pick up my kids and bring them back as they want me to, and then fly back out with my kids and get myself back here to do my job.

As I was sitting there trying to find out exactly what I could do, the young fellow said “Why don't you just fly the two kids out on their own?” I said because I have an 11-year-old and the system says an 11-year-old can't fly alone, they need an adult. He said “No, that was changed yesterday.” So I said okay, I'll fly the two kids out. I gave him all the information and he said the chances are slim to get them out on a priority-4 flight.

My bottom line in all this is why are we making people find out things five different ways, and if the rules are changing that quickly, why can't somebody keep us abreast of it?

The other thing is our CFAO states “family”, but families are not the same as they used to be. It's no longer just a mom and a dad and kids. I have responsibilities to my children out there; I pay all the child support and all that kind of stuff. I also have joint custody. That was working fine while I was out there, but due to my job and my promotion, I was moved here.

I accept that. I'm in the military. I've been doing that for 24 years. The military says we go someplace, we go. But by the same token, joint custody, as a gentleman said earlier, means nothing to the military. They told me that those kids mean nothing to me, although I pay all their medical, all their dental, I look after child support, and they give me nothing in return.

I don't expect them to bend over backwards, but I expect a little bit of help somewhere. For two years I've had to fork out money, which meant I had to borrow from the bank and put myself further in the hole financially. As an MWO I should be sitting back, feeling pretty good about myself, and living not a great life but a pretty comfortable life. But when I have to scrape because I have a 17-year-old and 17-year-olds tend to demand a few extras.... They like to look nice, especially the girls; they want to get their hair done up. It costs you a little bit more money than a guy, because a guy might just let his hair grow a little longer.

What really turned my crank on all this was I got a newspaper, The Borden Citizen, I think it's called, and they were talking about the MP dating service. The military have to jump through 20,000 loops and they have to use up points that they've collected over the years. Some people don't even know they have any of these points, unless you get right into the books and you find out you have them. But I was reading this, and it says:

Every year each member of Parliament is allowed up to 64 return trips. Most are used for flights between Ottawa and the MP's constituency, but 20 of these trips can be designated for anywhere in Canada. As well, in order to help keep marriages intact, Ottawa allows spouses to use these tickets to join the MP in Ottawa.

Fair enough. But recently Ottawa decided to extend this privilege to girlfriends and boyfriends. Since the rule changed, over 30 MPs have jumped on the bandwagon and registered potential dates for rendezvous in Ottawa. Additionally, MPs can change the name in the registry at any time. One day it could be a little woman from Shawinigan and the next week Betsy or Bruce from Victoria. In fact, if we cut to the chase, it doesn't have to be a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Who is going to check?

“MP dating service” was the headline, but it was buried in the newspaper. I just happened to be wasting an evening sitting at home because I had no money to do anything else, and I read the whole paper.

• 2240

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Well, I'm a single guy. I should be taking advantage of it, but I didn't know about it. I knew about the flights and things like that, but I certainly didn't realize you could change them around. I was probably out of town that day, I guess; I don't know. But your point is?

MWO George Burke: Well, I would just like to see us get better treatment on flights and not have to fight so much for it. I'd like to be able to make a simple phone call and say, “Are there any vacancies?” I'd like to fly my kids out to see them for the summer and not have to spend $1,200 every summer on flights.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): It sounds like a reasonable request. My biggest question is, why is there so much discrepancy in the information you're getting? You were saying one minute it was okay to do it and two days later it wasn't. Why does that happen?

MWO George Burke: I think a lot of it comes from the fact that people interpret the CFAOs to their understanding. We have some people out there who couldn't care less about the individuals they're dealing with. If it says black and white, as far as they're concerned, they read it, and whatever they think that is, that's the rule they stick to.

A second individual I was talking to has a similar situation going on in their life, and they're understanding the interpretation a little bit differently. Or somebody says, “Who cares? The rule says no, you can't have it, because that is not considered your family.” I don't know how they can decide when somebody is not your family any more.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Yes.

MWO George Burke: My mom's dead and I'm still her son. My dad's dead; I'm still his son. My sisters are still my sisters, no matter where they are. My kids are my kids, and they're always going to be. The military says they want to give us quality of life. I'm not asking for them to pay the full flight, but I think some kind of help along the line.... An aircraft leaves there every weekend, and I'm sure it's not filled every weekend.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): No. We heard this earlier today. If there's an unfortunate incident in the family and they break up, it seems that all of a sudden, instead of being the father of three children, you're now the father of one, and the other two just fall off the boards.

MWO George Burke: That's correct.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): It's very strange, isn't it? It's hard for somebody like me to realize that happens.

MWO George Burke: And it happens a lot more than we know, and one of the things that will bring it out is a meeting like this.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Yes. I appreciate that. Thanks, Master Warrant Officer.

I think Mr. Benoit has some questions.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Actually you've asked them. Thank you.

MWO George Burke: Okay. Thank you.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thank you.

Voices: Hear, hear.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Diane Thorne, please.

Ms. Diane Thorne (Individual Presentation): Good evening. I just wanted to share a little bit of my experience as a new military wife.

I got married in Winnipeg 11 months ago, when my husband was stationed in Shilo, and two months after that he came out here. He was told in Shilo that he would have to wait until he got out here to sort out the housing for me to come out, because we hadn't been living together in Winnipeg. So for the first five months of my marriage, I didn't live with my husband. I stayed in Winnipeg while he came out here and tried to get us a house.

When he did get out here, they said to him, “Why isn't your wife with you? Shilo should have taken care of that. She should be here.” Then he was told to tell me to quit my job, because I would be coming in a few weeks, so to put in my two weeks' notice. I did so, and three months later I came here. I tried to get my job back; it was already filled.

Here the housing is actually nicer than the Winnipeg housing. My father is military as well, so I've been all across Canada. The only complaint I have about our house is that our box spring is in our living room, because it doesn't fit up the stairs.

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I came from the city. I don't drive and I've always taken the bus. So when I did get here I went on unemployment because I was told it wasn't going to be a problem; I had quit my job to follow my husband.

There's no transportation for me into anywhere but Borden. So I've been looking for a job here in Borden. Once a week I walk down to MPF and check out the binder they have there for all civilian jobs that are listed.

Unemployment seemed to be fine with this. They certainly didn't give me any reason to think they weren't until last week when I received a letter saying I'd been cut off. They didn't give me a notice or anything. They just said that I've had ample time to find a job in Borden. Since I had no transportation into Barrie or Alliston I was no longer getting unemployment. I had been trying to get transportation. I put an ad in our paper asking if anybody wanted to car pool. I hadn't had any luck there.

My question about unemployment is why, after my father paid over 30 years of unemployment and my husband is now paying unemployment, have I been cut off when it isn't my fault that I can't commute out of here? I feel like I'm trapped here, and there's nothing I can do about it. I am appealing it. Hopefully they will understand that.

I actually have found a job, thank goodness, with a cadet camp that comes here in the base. It's a six-week term position that starts at the end of the month. Perhaps somebody should look into the fact that the men pay unemployment but don't get anything back for it, and even their wives seem to be getting penalized for it.

Voices: Hear, hear!

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thank you, Diane.

Bonnie Bellerive.

Ms. Bonnie Bellerive (Individual Presentation): I've been a military wife for 26 years.

I want to bring up one thing that I haven't heard raised at all this evening or this afternoon—I was here then as well. It probably has been brought up in other meetings you've been at. We're looking to our retirement and finding out now, when it's almost time, that there are things we're not going to get that we thought we were. And the one thing I have the question about is the Canada Pension Plan.

My husband has been paying his military pension for 30-some years. He has also paid into the Canada Pension Plan. Now we find that when he does retire and he gets his pension, at the age of 65, when he'll be entitled to Canada Pension his military pension will be deducted in the amount of the Canada Pension Plan.

I have a paper here that explains their reasons why. And basically what they're saying is that they have raised the military pension. For an example, let's say it's $2,000. Their explanation is that really it's only $1,500 a month, but they're giving you $2,000 a month so that it will stay stable. So when the Canada Pension comes out, which would be $2,000 a month, they deduct the $500, if you understand what I'm trying to say. Instead of getting $2,500, they leave it even at $2,000 all the time.

I don't think it's a great explanation, but do you have an answer for this?

Mr. Leon Benoit: I have a question for you. Is it a dollar-for-dollar reduction? For every dollar of Canada Pension Plan that you will receive do you get a dollar deducted from your Canadian Forces pension?

Ms. Bonnie Bellerive: No, I don't think it is. There's a lengthy explanation here that tries to explain this. I can give you this paper.

It still comes down to the fact that he has paid into the Canada Pension Plan for 30-some years. It's the same as the unemployment insurance he never can collect. And now where we thought we possibly would get $2,500 a month pension that he's paid into, it won't be that way; it'll just be the $2,000.

Mr. Leon Benoit: It doesn't really help you, but apparently that's standard in the public service. It's not different for Canadian Forces members from what it is for anyone in the public service. That's what we were told. It doesn't help you, though.

Ms. Bonnie Bellerive: No, it doesn't.

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Mr. Leon Benoit: It also happens with old age security. Canada Pension Plan payments are partially lost due to a reduction in old age security. So it's a kind of clawback or an extra tax there as well.

Ms. Bonnie Bellerive: The old age security is based on your income, that I understand, but not the Canada Pension that he's paid into for all these years.

Okay, thank you.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bob Wood): Thank you, Bonnie.

That's the end of our presentations this evening. We'd like to thank everyone for coming. It's certainly been an enlightening day. We have heard a number of things we haven't heard in some of our other hearings.

On behalf of the entire committee and my colleague from the Reform Party, Mr. Benoit, we want to thank you very much for being here.

Our report should be ready for presentation sometime in September. Hopefully we'll be able to get some action on it a couple of months after that. So if you're wondering how that's going to work, that's basically how it will evolve. We should be wrapping up our hearings in the next week or so and then we will have the researchers write the report.

Once again, thank you very much for coming. We've enjoyed it. And thanks for your patience.

The meeting is adjourned.