Third Status Report of the External Monitor

We're back to our old segment: CDL gets Sunday Scaries, even on long weekends

On May 16, 2024, the Minister of National Defence’s Office put out a press release announcing the publication of the External Monitor’s Third Status Report. To someone like me, this is always exciting news. But, for the third time in a row, it took me a good memory and a trip to my good ol’ friend Google to know that the latest External Monitor Report came out.

This is the most extensive report so far, with the report even echoing some of its findings from its last report. It makes for an easy read that is self-referential.

I will keep commentary at a minimum, as a lot of it stems from my views on the Arbour recommendations. This is not the purpose here – the focus is solely on the report and how it views the implementation of the recommendations.

But first: Un petit coup de gueule.

Let me be quite upfront here: I am frustrated. As a stakeholder who gets invited to technical briefings, has advised Chief Professional Conduct and Culture, and has had private meetings with the previous and current Minister of National Defence, I am disappointed to see yet another report’s publication not being announced directly to us folks. To me, being told about this sort of release is part of the trust relationship that I am supposed to have established with senior leaders of the Department and the Canadian Armed Forces. Additionally, the Department of National Defence, the Minister’s office, and the Canadian Armed Forces have all doubled down on the importance of implementing the Arbour Report and pursuing culture change. Even Our North, Strong and Free (ONSAF) puts culture change at the top of its “strengthening the organization” objective.

Why are the release of the External Monitor’s reports never announced more broadly? As I said when the first report was published last year, the CAF should toot its horn and parade this report – it is painting a positive light on the efforts to pursue culture change.

I do not believe this is an issue of privacy. I received notification for any announcements made related to culture change; I was able to read Bill C-66 shortly after it was tabled (and before it was publicized), and I was told about the publication of ONSAF the Saturday before it came out.

I do not want to nor will I speculate. Assuming intent is not on my to-do list for this evening. But it does give the impression that those reports are not treated as seriously as they should be, when in fact they are the only form of public monitoring we have in place for the advancement of culture change. The efforts here are not demanding – circulating the press release to the relevant stakeholders would have been more than welcome and enough.

Cool. What about the thing we came for, CDL?

I hear you, and there it is. As usual, the size of this document is modest, sitting at 18 pages from cover to cover. Madame Therrien has proven herself to be a clear, to the point author with these reports.

For a quick read, here is Mme Therrien’s broad assessment:

“Once again, I would state that there is a strong desire to bring about the change that will reestablish trust in the CAF as a professional, inclusive workplace. But there is still a lot of work to accomplish, including the alignment of data sets that will support a better analysis of the situation and performance reporting.” (p. 2)

Here is the table of content, which shows what areas the report focuses on

1. Clarifying definitions and related policies

This section refers to the recommendations 1 to 4 of the Arbour report. The CAF has advanced quite a bit on the implementation of these recommendations; they are currently revising the Defence Administrative Orders and Directives (DAOD) 9005-1 and is creating a new Sexual Misconduct Spectrum.¹ We can expect these changes to be announced this summer.

Additionally, the DAOD on personal relationships is being revised and is undergoing consultations before being endorsed by committees.²

The policy alignment with the Canadian Labour Code will be concluded in the fall.

2. Military Justice: Eliminating concurrent jurisdiction for criminal code sexual offences

If you read this Stackie, you know that this refers to Bill C-66 (which directly responds to Arbour recommendation #5). However, the bill includes itself in a series of efforts that has been started by Anita Anand in the fall of 2021, shortly after she took the helm of the defence portfolio. It looks like that quite a bit of advancement in terms of fully transferring the jurisdiction over offences of a sexual nature from the military to the justice system of Ontario have taken place.

3. Administrative reviews related to the release of members for misconduct

The assessment as laid out in recommendation #6 has yet to take place, although a Statement of Work has been drafted and a contracting process is under way. The expected timeline for the conclusion of this review is 2025 (which Therrien views as “missed opportunity,” as the CAF is missing out on an important set of lessons; Therrien cites a similar assessment done by the RCMP, which chose a systemic “reluctance” to administratively address cases of sexual violence).

4. Complaints about sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination

In 2023-24, the Canadian Human Rights Commission received 25 complaints; and the CHRC is currently meeting with the Conflict and Complaints Management Services staff from across units and bases to present how the institution works.

Friend of the stackie Karen Breeck, M.D. also drew my attention to a join statement from 15 May 2024 of the CHRC with the CAF on the latter’s commitment “to measures to address and prevent sexual assault and discrimination.”³

5. Grievances regarding sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination

The grievance system has evolved; now, service members are able to submit a digital form. This form now includes a “misconduct” category, which allows Chief Professional Conduct and Culture to keep a database of the misconduct-related grievances.

Following recommendation #10, the misconduct-related grievances (7 so far since the new system has been introduced) have been sent to the Military Grievances external Review Committee (MGERC).

Currently, the relevant Queen’s Regulation and Orders (QR&O) article is being reviewed; and a re-design of the grievance process (informed by the Fish recommendation as well) is underway.

6. Duty to report as a barrier to reporting

This one is a bit complex and has let to some arguments (both online and in person). When discussing with Chief Professional Conduct and Culture and a couple of general officers, my understanding is that, since October 2023, the duty to report has de facto been repealed – and that service members are therefore no longer required to follow it.

Two issues arise: (1) as the Canadian military has become increasingly rules-based, I have sense a reluctance to follow rules that have not been put in writing; and a communiqué is not a policy document; (2) the repeal of the duty to report will not be universally applicable, leading to nebulous rules-based dilemmas for a challenge that is ethical in nature. I quickly talked about it with David Perry on an episode of Defence Deconstructed.⁴

7. Victims’ rights and services

Now Mme Therrien is turning our attention to Bill C-77, which included the Declaration of Victims; Rights. Since the law has come into effect in June 2022, we see the provisions being implemented (e.g., Victim Liaison Officer) and Bill C-66 is includes paragraphs related to the improvement of that implementation.

We see the Sexual Misconduct Support and Resource Centre (SMSRC) working with the Military Police Group in providing assistance and resources to victims.

8. The Sexual Misconduct Support and Resource Centre

The SMSRC was the topic of quite a few of Arbour’s recommendations:

Since before the implementation of the Arbour report, the SMSRC has expanded its geographical presence and is working on expanding its client base (now including veterans, former and current DND civilians, and family members of victims and survivors).

According to Therrien, recommendations #12 to #18 have all been implemented. However, it does not mean that there are no issues for the Centre. Funding is a challenge, and the SMSRC will not get additional funding before fiscal year 2025-26 – given the current expansion of services offered, this creates financial tensions for its core programs.

9. A shorter recruitment process, and assessment and early release of unsuitable candidates

Given the current recruitment and retention challenge for the military, the implementation of those recommendations are part of a larger process under way within Chief Military Personnel (CMP). In fact, most of this section discusses non-Arbour report related changes to the recruitment process, e.g., opening of the military to permanent residents and the ensuing memorandum of understanding between the military with Immigration Refugee and Citizenship Canada, changes to who needs to sit the aptitude tests.

Now, a probationary period is being examined by a working group within CMP, and it seems that it would apply to “professional conduct and ethical expectations.” Changes to the relevant policy suite will be necessary, but the military is expecting to be able to roll this new system out next year.

10. Military training and professional education

The Canadian Defence Academy is working with Chief Professional Conduct and Culture to change curricula and insert character-based leadership courses within the education suite.

The CAF has also been working on the staffing to the Canadian Forces Leadership and Recruit Training School (CFLRS). In her second report, Therrien underlined that posting to the CFLRS are now considered at the same level as deployments in performance evaluation and promotion considerations, and the CAF committed to full staff the school – a commitment that is reiterated in this report.

Reading secondments of general and flat officers, work is underway to put the proper processes in place to make it happen, and in fact make junior officers eligible as well.

11. Royal military colleges

The Canadian Military Colleges Review Board has been put in place, and has met with Defence Team officials – including the leaders of the colleges – and the authors of past reports on the colleges, as well as visited the colleges twice since January 2024. The Board’s report is expected to come out in 2025.

The CAF is looking to administer a survey to all students of the colleges, which was administered last year – results were analyzed and discussed in town halls, as well as presented to the board.

Additionally, there are efforts underway to increase representation at the college, and an assessment of the physical test is being done as part of those efforts.

12. Performance appraisals, promotions and succession planning

Two forms will be introduced this summer to check due diligence has been done on disciplinary matters when promotion is being considered, and once certifying that a commanding officer has reviewed unit personnel files and conduct sheets.

For general and flag officers, new assessment tools will be fully introduced in 2025.

A new set of instructions for succession planning is also bound to be promulgated by end of 2024, which includes guidance on harm reduction. Now, succession boards include members from another command from the board members and a Defence civilians. A CANFORGEN also came out advising that board should “plan for meaningful representation from designated groups.”

In terms of representation of women in the general/ flag officer ranks, the CAF is working on representation goals “with each military occupational group” and each designated group, and is developing a tool to self declare as a member of a designated group. The Armed Forces Council has also been working on a 10-year outlook for women’s career development and identify and remove barriers for progression. This included the creation of new Captain (Navy) and Colonel “positions in specified support and specialist occupations with structural disadvantages to promotions.”

13. Medical releases

There is now a policy drafting underway, and GBA Plus will be included at each step of the implementation. I hope Mme Therrien will follow this closely – to its own admissions in its Departmental Results and Plans, the Defence Team is behind in the inclusion of GBA Plus in its work. Does it have the capacity to include GBA Plus at each step of policy development and implementation? To watch.

14. Input and oversight

Quite a few of Justice Arbour’s recommendations were implemented here:

• A report aggregating data from the sexual misconduct tracking system and an ADM (Review Services) report assessing investigations under DAOD 7026-1 were presented to the Minister, and they will now become a yearly exercise.

• A Service Level Agreement between the SMSRC and ADM (Review Services) is now in place to allow the Chief Operating Officer of the SMSRC to direct ADM (Review Services) to do an administrative review of the SMSRC’s activities.

• There is a now a consent form to allow the Privy Council Office to access personnel records of Governor in Council appointment candidates.

• "An “internal CANFORGEN will be communicated soon to make CAF members aware that their full participation in research is supported, while the adjustment to formal policy documents is underway.”

• The Conduct and Culture Research and Policy Database is now operational, and will soon be included in a Conduct and Culture Data Centre. I find this database a fantastic idea, and they should be applicable for larger DND/ CAF related topics. Additionally, we do not know what are the criteria for inclusion of research in the database.

• In December 2022, the Minister of National Defence submitted a report to Parliament outlining how it would implement Arbour’s recommendations.

Conclusions of the Report: Yay, and ouch…?

This report outlines a lot of progress for the CAF. Only mentioned in the introduction and conclusions, but maybe the central aspect of the culture change endeavour, is that there are a culture change strategy and a Comprehensive Implementation Plan about to be released (which was the case back in November of 2023). This is a positive development, and even if these documents have yet to be released, as long at the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces are using them to pursue the change endeavour, it is all that matters.

Therrien expresses some reservations on other points however, and central to them is accountability. In her words:

The wording under the paragraph ‘Consequences of Non-Compliance’ in instructional directives and orders states that military leaders must take action and that action will depend on “the degree of risk based on the impact and likelihood of an adverse outcome resulting from the noncompliance and other circumstances of the case.” I cannot see how this type of wording can lead to enforceable accountability. That said, the portion of the policies that specify individual roles and responsibilities and authorities are in fact instructive.”

I find that this is emblematic of large transformation endeavour within the CAF, and this is why I think the term cultural evolution to be counterproductive. To be successful in its conduct-related culture change, the CAF has a lot of work to do in changing its culture around processes (I wrote a paper about that in the fall of 2023).

Where the ouch is:

“While I would agree that some discussion with specialists and other stakeholders may be required, in my view, at some point, these consultations become counterproductive, and they create significant delays.“

While it pinches a little – I am part of a number of consultations organized by Chief Professional Conduct and Culture – I tend to agree with this assessment. In her last report, Mme Therrien expressed the view that it is another manifestation of the military’s risk aversion (which I call low tolerance to mistakes). Not only do some of the consultations seem at times counterproductive, they also appear performative in many ways.

I think that many of the consultations I have participated in would have gained from having specific objectives or questions for participants to ask to ensure that the conversation is as valuable as possible to the Defence Team.

Further, I do not think that there is any issue with having these consultations become technical briefings or information session – keep stakeholders (especially victims/ survivors) appraised that progress is happening, and give them the ability to ask questions.

This is not to claim that my position as a stakeholder is more valuable than another. In fact, I have been reflecting a lot about how I have been part of a problem that may have contributed to policy paralysis and how I can be better part of the solution. In the current structure of consultations – as I told the Chief Professional Conduct and Culture last year – my participation has felt performative, almost like a check in the box. Also at times it felt that the consultations were meant to the team policy direction; but the range of people consulted led to contradictory conclusions.

I cannot speak for every one, but I would personally be OK with information session-type of engagements, and private meetings with the teams if they want my input on certain questions.

I think that we need to move our focus away from consultations to a more monitoring- and information-based system on this matter. Not to say that consultations are not warranted – they need to be narrower and better targeted.

Alright! This is it.

It is well past midnight now and my eyes are extremely heavy, but this report was worth the late evening.

If you want to read the report, here you go: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/reports-publications/report-of-the-independent-external-comprehensive-review.html

Signing off,

CDL

1. Note that while sexual misconduct will no longer be used as a policy term, the CAF recognizes that it is now part of its vernacular, and will continue to use it as such.

2. Committees are internal Canadian Armed Forces committees. A friend explained to be how they work last year over the phone, and I keep on regretting not taking notes.

3. Read the statement here: https://www.chrc-ccdp.gc.ca/en/resources/joint-statement-caf-commits-measures-address-and-prevent-sexual-assault-and

4. https://www.cgai.ca/leveraging_industrial_expertise_on_asw