Roles and responsibilities of L1 Ethics Coordinators
The Defence Ethics Programme (DEP) is a de-centralized comprehensive values based ethics program that relies on each Level One (L1) organization to conduct ethics training and awareness across the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces.
Each L1 organization has an L1 Ethics Coordinator (L1 EC) and an Ethics Advisory Board (EAB) member.
The L1 EC’s roles and responsibilities include:
- Understanding the intent, processes and resources of the Defence Ethics Programme.
- Acquiring knowledge of the Department of National Defence and Canadian Forces Code of Values and Ethics, the Statement of Defence Ethics, DEP’s One Year Strategy and the Defence Administration Orders and Directives (DAOD) 7021 and 7023 series.
- Completing the L1 Ethics Coordinator Certification course.
- Participating in L1 Ethics Coordinator Working Groups to share common issues, convey L1 leadership views and advise L1 leadership on issues and views from other L1 and DEP perspectives.
- Providing ongoing advice on ethical questions and concerns to DND employees and CAF members.
- Developing, managing implementation and obtaining EAB member approval of an Ethics Plan for their organization. This includes developing a network of (L2), (L3) and other supporting coordinators in response to ethics needs and identified ethics risks related to their L1.
- Fostering support and understanding of the plan with the EAB member and making adjustments as necessary.
- Reporting annually on the ethics plan to DEP while briefing the EAB member on any challenges. The ethics plans are a key component in the annual ethics report to the Deputy Minister and the Chief of the Defence Staff.
- Designing and implementing appropriate ethics based activities and processes within their L1 organization related to education, assessment, advice, collaboration, outreach and communications. Some examples include ethics briefs, leadership messaging, small group dialogues, special events and working groups.
- Engaging the EAB member on any issues ahead of the annual EAB meeting.
- Ensuring continuity of defence ethics programming within their L1 by ensuring continuity of coordinators and advocating for resources as needed.