Departmental Results Report 2021-2022

The Hon. Anita Anand, PC, MP
Minister of National Defence

Catalogue No: DG2-7E-PDF
ISSN: 2560-9521

© His Majesty the King in Right of Canada, as represented by the Minister of National Defence, 2022

Table of contents

• Message from the Part-time Vice-Chairperson
• Results at a glance
• Results: what we achieved
  • Core responsibilities
  • Internal services
• Spending and human resources
  • Spending
  • Human resources
  • Expenditures by vote
  • Government of Canada spending and activities
  • Financial statements and financial statements highlights
• Corporate information
  • Organizational profile
  • Raison d'être, mandate and role: who we are and what we do
  • Operation context
  • Reporting framework
• Supporting information on the program inventory
• Supplementary information tables
• Federal tax expenditures
• Organizational contact information
• Appendix: definitions
• Endnotes

Message from the Part-time Vice-Chairperson

The Operations Team’s main effort was to reduce the backlog of grievance files, which resulted in issuing 304 Findings and Recommendations reports. Concurrently, the team completed the assessment and optimization of our grievance review process and both hired and trained a full complement of grievance officers. Corporate Services completed our transition to a digital administrative tribunal, rendering our workforce completely mobile, and ensured senior management engaged regularly with employees to support mental health and wellness.

Adopting an agile, flexible approach to our work and the workplace was essential, but the key, without a doubt, was the extraordinary dedication, attention to detail and simple hard work, day in and day out, of our employees, managers and Committee Members.

This reporting period represents the kind of success organizations aspire to. Our working culture evolved and our work ethic deepened in resolve. It is fair to say that the next few years will see us benefit immensely from this foundation.

(original signed by)

François Malo
Part-time Vice-Chairperson

Results at a glance

Despite persistent human resource challenges, year two of the pandemic, the backlog of grievance files and the ever-growing number of grievance files being referred from the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), the Committee can sum up this reporting period in one word: success.

We managed to issue 304 Findings and Recommendations (F&R) reports through a strategic, flexible, triaged approach to the management of grievance files. A collaboration between Committee Members and the Operations Branch resulted in an optimized grievance review process. Corporate Services transitioned the organization to a digital, green administrative tribunal and initiated our migration to the cloud. We joined the Government of Canada’s (GC) evolution to a hybrid workplace and created a mobile workforce by equipping our employees with all the tools, skills and equipment needed to work anywhere in Canada.

The significance of internal communications multiplied, evolving into a thriving and engaging connector. Apart from expanding the sharing of standard GC-wide and key internal news, it was widely used to support employee mental health and wellness in a variety of ways and to increase awareness and understanding of the many aspects around diversity and inclusion.

For more information on the Military Grievances External Review Committee’s plans, priorities and results achieved, see the “Results: what we achieved” section of this report.

Results: what we achieved

Core responsibilities

Description

The raison d’être of the Military Grievances External Review Committee (Committee) is to provide an independent and external review of military grievances. Section 29 of the National Defence Act (NDA) provides a statutory right for an officer or a non-commissioned member who has been aggrieved, to grieve a decision, an act or an omission in the administration of the affairs of the CAF. The importance of this broad right cannot be overstated since it is, with certain narrow exceptions, the only formal complaint process available to CAF members.

Results

Gender-based analysis plus

The Committee included Gender-based analysis plus (GBA Plus) training in its mandatory training curriculum for all its employees. By the end of 2021-2022, 75% of Committee employees had successfully completed training.

Results achieved

Despite staff absences and the ensuing continuity challenges due to COVID-19, grievance review teams and Committee Members succeeded in issuing 304 F&R reports in 2021-2022. This ranks as the second highest number of reports issued by the Committee in the last 10 fiscal years. The Committee surpassed last year's productivity, delivering 5% more F&R reports. For each new grievance file received from the CAF, the Committee was successful in delivering an F&R report. The principle of one file in, one file out was met.

The Committee implemented a number of strategies to achieve this success. Through innovative staffing, the majority of key positions in the grievance review team were filled and fully trained in 2021-2022. This included several people, with military backgrounds, who transferred from other GC organizations. The Committee continued to triage grievance files, identifying those that could be assigned to the special team that was created on a temporary basis to help reduce the backlog. The Committee also sought to specialize teams by subject matter in order to gain efficiencies. Lastly, the Committee adopted a flexible approach by establishing ad hoc teams to deal with specific issues. The combination of these approaches leveraged the talent of our people and delivered solid results. From the Committee’s perspective, this is what an agile organization looks like.

Harnessing human capital and embracing innovative approaches to work are the keys to our success. The Committee has a rigorous staffing process that successfully recruited talented team players to fill key vacancies that align with our succession planning and professional development strategies. To continue providing the Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) and the grievors with F&R reports quickly, the Committee launched additional staffing processes to ensure a continuity in operations and to have a pool of talented candidates for positions that cannot be staffed internally. Simultaneously, we looked at succession planning for those experienced employees who will be retiring in the near future or could be absent for a determinate period. During this time, some employees were able to benefit from career development opportunities and the addition of a management position in the Operations Branch has effectively enabled the grievance teams to focus on reviewing grievances and producing F&R reports.

The Committee completed the evaluation of its grievance review process, validating that it is sound, well-established and reliant on the collaboration of all team members to produce high quality F&R reports. Working with the part-time Vice-Chair, the Operations team did highlight certain adjustments were needed in the areas of holding case conferences, making enquiries for additional information and issuing Committee Member instructions. The changes were trialed with success, properly documented and incorporated into the process. Noting the lack of documented triage principles, the Operations Branch developed an updated step-by-step guidance document to ensure that grievance files are dealt with in a consistent and expeditious fashion. It will be implemented in the coming year.

Resolute in producing high quality F&R reports, Committee Members and the Operations Branch also collaborated to develop and implement a new guidance document for drafting F&R reports. A few refinements to the Committee’s case management system were also made, adding new reporting features to better assess its operational efficiency for decision-making.

Given the lack of resources and other pressures facing the organization since 2018, the Committee had not been able to produce or publish its case summaries, a valuable resource, to the organization’s website. However, this fiscal year, the Operations Branch worked with Communications to re-initiate the publishing of case summaries. This gives the CAF, its members and Canadians ready access to the Committee’s findings and recommendations and both supports and reflects the GC’s open government principle.

Despite best efforts to keep pace with the grievance referrals, the Committee did see an 18% increase in the number of referrals received (302) from the CAF this reporting period. This is significantly more than the average number received each year (228) over the past 10 years. The Committee will continue to capitalize on the business process improvements made and strategies implemented in 2021-2022 in order to deal with what appears to be an upward trend in the number of referrals.

Although the Committee had one of its best production years ever and completed more F&R reports within four months of receipt than the previous two fiscal years, the Committee is still unable to meet its service standard of delivering 75% of F&R reports within four months of receipt. An increase in the number of grievance files referred by the CAF and the backlog of files, which occurred when the Committee was short of Committee Members, are the main contributing factors.

Without increasing the number of Committee Members and staff in Operations, it is unlikely that the Committee will ever meet its performance target related to timeliness. This consideration will be subject to additional review over the next several years.  

The following table shows, for Independent Review of military grievances, the results achieved, the performance indicators, the targets and the target dates for 2021–22, and the actual results for the three most recent fiscal years for which actual results are available.

Note: The Committee has received a high number of referrals. As a result, the average age of a file, before it is assessed, is more often in excess of four months. This working reality is reflected in the table above. Notwithstanding the current challenges, it should be noted that the CDS finds the Committee’s F&R reports offer vital value to the CAF.

The Operations Branch was able to process grievances within an average of 4.3 months from the time the file is assigned to a team until it is completed. The Committee continued to triage files with a view to identifying those that could be assigned to the special team and to specialize teams by subject matter. Lastly, the Committee adopted a flexible approach by establishing ad hoc teams to deal with specific issues.

Financial, human resources and performance information for the Military Grievances External Review Committee’s Program Inventory is available in GC InfoBase^{Footnote i} .

Budgetary financial resources (dollars)

The following table shows, for Independent review of military grievances, budgetary spending for 2021–22, as well as actual spending for that year.

Financial, human resources and performance information for the Military Grievances External Review Committee’s Program Inventory is available in GC InfoBase^{Footnote ii} .

Human resources (full-time equivalents)

The following table shows, in full‑time equivalents, the human resources the department needed to fulfill this core responsibility for 2021–22.

Financial, human resources and performance information for Military Grievances External Review Committee’s Program Inventory is available in GC InfoBase^{Footnote iii} .

Internal services

Description

Internal services are those groups of related activities and resources that the federal government considers to be services in support of programs and/or required to meet corporate obligations of an organization. Internal services refers to the activities and resources of the 10 distinct service categories that support program delivery in the organization, regardless of the internal services delivery model in a department. The 10 service categories are:

• acquisition management services
• communication services
• financial management services
• human resources management services
• information management services
• information technology services
• legal services
• material management services
• management and oversight services
• real property management services

Given the Committee will have to secure a new office space in 2026, senior management seized this as the opportunity to reduce office space post-2026, but also to reduce its current office footprint in order to generate funds for alternate uses. A working group was created to oversee the future workplace project and the eventual return to the office. They drafted return to the office guidelines, implemented preparations for a safe return to the workplace in September 2022, conducted an office depersonalization exercise in order to create neutral workspaces, and made minor investments in equipment and furniture to ensure a proper reconfiguration of the current office layout.

At the beginning of the year, we developed a four-year road map that will see the Committee’s Information Technology infrastructure 100% in the cloud by 2025. The first key step was to configure our cloud environment to meet the GC security control profile. In addition, we continued to capitalize on the opportunities that digital technology provides by implementing automated solutions such as an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) of Portable Document Format (PDF) files, which can save an employee several hours.

Effective and constant internal communications is the new essential to fully supporting employees in the workplace of the future. With the new intranet up and running, blogs — one a news headline blog and the other a Chairperson blog — were specifically used to keep employees up to date on COVID-19 protocols, GC news, internal and external events and priorities, and key internal business endeavours. It was also an excellent avenue to connect with employees about challenges related to physical activity and mental health while working at home.

The Committee continued to foster a safe and healthy work environment by, among other things, resuming 10-minute virtual meditation Mondays and conducting surveys that gauged employees' needs and their mental health and wellness. The organization also underlined the importance of a healthy work environment by ensuring all employees and managers completed the mandatory Workplace Harassment and Violence prevention courses by the end of September 2022. The Chairperson led a Healthy Workplace Challenge throughout the month of October and hosted a Health Canada information session on mental health support services.

To inform employees on the issues faced by employment equity groups, the Committee published a series of internal blog posts that both challenged and encouraged employees to reflect and examine their personal beliefs and biases. The goal was to humanize the challenges faced by ostracized groups, including employment equity groups and the LGBTQ2 community, and to sensitize employees on how we can each contribute to alleviating these challenges. A Federal Speaker, who suffered mental health issues due to racism, shared her life experience and journey as a member of an employment equity group at a virtual session hosted by the Human Resources Directorate. To further the process, employees later came together to share their introspections, questions and observations on the society around us and about themselves.

Senior management applied an inclusive approach when looking for champions on Equity and Inclusion, Mental health and well-being, Official Languages and Beyond 2020. While GC organizational champions’ roles are usually assigned to senior management positions, the invitation to be a champion at the Committee was offered to any interested employee. The idea was simple: attract passionate, dedicated individuals from all groups and levels and let them drive these GC initiatives. The champions are able to network outside the organization, gain meaningful experiences through substantial inter-departmental conversations and advise senior management.

The Committee initiated the review of its Staffing system to identify barriers for members of Employment Equity groups. The goal is to eliminate those barriers so to continue to improve and support inclusiveness within the organization.

Budgetary financial resources (dollars)

The following table shows, for internal services, budgetary spending for 2021–22, as well as spending for that year.

Human resources (full-time equivalents)

The following table shows, in full‑time equivalents, the human resources the department needed to carry out its internal services for 2021–22.

Spending and human resources

Spending

Spending 2019–20 to 2024–25

The following graph presents planned (voted and statutory spending) over time.

For more information on these results, please refer to the budgetary performance summary for core responsibilities and internal services table below.

Budgetary performance summary for core responsibilities and internal services (dollars)

The “Budgetary performance summary for core responsibilities and internal services” table presents the budgetary financial resources allocated for the Military Grievances External Review Committee’s core responsibilities and for internal services.

The actual spending of $7.025 million for 2021-22 is lower than the actual spending of $7.195 million for 2020-21, representing a decrease of $170.0 thousand. The variance is mostly explained by the retro and in-year adjustments for the ratification of the collective agreements for the Program and Administrative Services (PA) and Computer Systems (CS) groups, incurred in 2020-21. The decrease in salary expenditures was offset by an increase in professional services, due to investments made in 2021-22 for the development of a cloud strategy and development of a cloud infrastructure.  Planned spending for 2021-22 represents the Committee’s Main Estimates, while 2022-23 and 2023-24 are based on the Annual Reference Level Updates (ARLU).

Human resources

The “Human resources summary for core responsibilities and internal services” table presents the full-time equivalents (FTEs) allocated to each of the Military Grievances External Review Committee’s core responsibilities and to internal services.

Human resources summary for core responsibilities and internal services

The actual full-time equivalents (FTEs) in 2021-22 (47) are comparable with those in 2020-21 (48). The Committee has again prioritized staffing and employee retention in 2021-22 to mitigate the high level of employee turnover and fill vacant positions to ensure the Committee could keep up with the high volume of grievance cases being referred. 

Expenditures by vote

For information on the Military Grievances External Review Committee’s organizational voted and statutory expenditures, consult the Public Accounts of Canada 2021^{Footnote iv} .Footnote.

Government of Canada spending and activities

Information on the alignment of the Military Grievances External Review Committee’s spending with Government of Canada’s spending and activities is available in GC InfoBase^{Footnote v} .Footnote

Financial statements and financial statements highlights

Financial statements

The Military Grievances External Review Committee’s financial statements (unaudited) for the year ended March 31, 2022, are available on the departmental websiteFootnote vi .

Financial statement highlights

Condensed Statement of Operations (unaudited) for the year ended March 31, 2022 (dollars)

Condensed Statement of Financial Position (unaudited) as of March 31, 2022 (dollars)

The 2021–22 planned results information is provided in the Military Grievances External Review Committee’s Future-Oriented Statement of Operations and Notes 2021–22Footnote vii .

Corporate information

Organizational profile

Appropriate minister[s]: The Honourable Anita Anand, PC, MP

Institutional head: François Malo, Part-time Vice-Chairperson

Ministerial portfolio: National Defence

Enabling instrument[s]: National Defence Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. N-5 ^{Footnote viii}   Footnote

Year of incorporation / commencement: 2000

Other: About the Committee ^{Footnote ix}   Footnote

Raison d’être, mandate and role: who we are and what we do

“Raison d’être, mandate and role: who we are and what we do” is available on the Military Grievances External Review Committee’s website ^{Footnote x} . Footnote .

For more information on the department’s organizational mandate letter commitments, see the see the Minister’s mandate letter ^{Footnote xi} . FootnoteFootnote ix  .

Operating context

Information on the operating context is available on the Military Grievances External Review Committee’s website ^{Footnote xii}  .Footnote  .

Reporting framework

The Military Grievances External Review Committee's approved departmental results framework and program inventory for 2021–22 are as follows.

Supporting information on the program inventory

Financial, human resources and performance information for the Military Grievances External Review Committee’s Program Inventory is available in GC InfoBase ^{Footnote xiii}  . Footnote  .

Supplementary information tables

The following supplementary information tables are available on the Military Grievances External Review Committee’s website ^{Footnote xiv}  :Footnote  :

• Departmental Sustainable Development Strategy ^{Footnote xv}   Footnote
• Gender-based analysis plus ^{Footnote xvi}   Footnote

Federal tax expenditures

The tax system can be used to achieve public policy objectives through the application of special measures such as low tax rates, exemptions, deductions, deferrals and credits. The Department of Finance Canada publishes cost estimates and projections for these measures each year in the Report on Federal Tax Expenditures ^{Footnote xvii}  . This report also provides detailed background information on tax expenditures, including descriptions, objectives, historical information and references to related federal spending programs as well as evaluations and GBA Plus of tax expenditures.

Organizational contact information

60 Queen Street, 9^th Floor
Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5Y7
Canada
Telephone: (613) 996-8529
Toll-Free Telephone: 877-276-4193
Fax: (613) 996-6491
Email: mgerc-ceegm@mgerc-ceegm.gc.ca ^{Footnote xviii}     
Web: Military Grievances External Review Committee - Canada.ca ^{Footnote xix} 

Appendix: definitions

appropriation (crédit)
Any authority of Parliament to pay money out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

budgetary expenditures (dépenses budgétaires)
Operating and capital expenditures; transfer payments to other levels of government, organizations or individuals; and payments to Crown corporations.

core responsibility (responsabilité essentielle)
An enduring function or role performed by a department. The intentions of the department with respect to a core responsibility are reflected in one or more related departmental results that the department seeks to contribute to or influence.

Departmental Plan (plan ministériel)
A report on the plans and expected performance of an appropriated department over a 3‑year period. Departmental Plans are usually tabled in Parliament each spring.

departmental priority (priorité)
A plan or project that a department has chosen to focus and report on during the planning period. Priorities represent the things that are most important or what must be done first to support the achievement of the desired departmental results.

departmental result (résultat ministériel)
A consequence or outcome that a department seeks to achieve. A departmental result is often outside departments’ immediate control, but it should be influenced by program-level outcomes.

departmental result indicator (indicateur de résultat ministériel)
A quantitative measure of progress on a departmental result.

departmental results framework (cadre ministériel des résultats)
A framework that connects the department’s core responsibilities to its departmental results and departmental result indicators.

Departmental Results Report (rapport sur les résultats ministériels)
A report on a department’s actual accomplishments against the plans, priorities and expected results set out in the corresponding Departmental Plan.

experimentation (expérimentation)
The conducting of activities that seek to first explore, then test and compare the effects and impacts of policies and interventions in order to inform evidence-based decision-making, and improve outcomes for Canadians, by learning what works, for whom and in what circumstances. Experimentation is related to, but distinct from innovation (the trying of new things), because it involves a rigorous comparison of results. For example, using a new website to communicate with Canadians can be an innovation; systematically testing the new website against existing outreach tools or an old website to see which one leads to more engagement, is experimentation.

full‑time equivalent (équivalent temps plein)
A measure of the extent to which an employee represents a full person‑year charge against a departmental budget. For a particular position, the full‑time equivalent figure is the ratio of number of hours the person actually works divided by the standard number of hours set out in the person’s collective agreement.

gender-based analysis plus (GBA Plus) (analyse comparative entre les sexes plus [ACS Plus])
An analytical tool used to support the development of responsive and inclusive policies, programs and other initiatives; and understand how factors such as sex, race, national and ethnic origin, Indigenous origin or identity, age, sexual orientation, socio-economic conditions, geography, culture and disability, impact experiences and outcomes, and can affect access to and experience of government programs.

government-wide priorities (priorités pangouvernementales)
For the purpose of the 2021–22 Departmental Results Report, government-wide priorities refers to those high-level themes outlining the government’s agenda in the 2020 Speech from the Throne, namely: Protecting Canadians from COVID-19; Helping Canadians through the pandemic; Building back better – a resiliency agenda for the middle class; The Canada we’re fighting for. 

horizontal initiative (initiative horizontale)
An initiative where two or more federal organizations are given funding to pursue a shared outcome, often linked to a government priority.

non‑budgetary expenditures (dépenses non budgétaires)
Net outlays and receipts related to loans, investments and advances, which change the composition of the financial assets of the Government of Canada.

performance (rendement)
What an organization did with its resources to achieve its results, how well those results compare to what the organization intended to achieve, and how well lessons learned have been identified.

performance indicator (indicateur de rendement)
A qualitative or quantitative means of measuring an output or outcome, with the intention of gauging the performance of an organization, program, policy or initiative respecting expected results.

performance reporting (production de rapports sur le rendement)

The process of communicating evidence‑based performance information. Performance reporting supports decision making, accountability and transparency.

plan (plan)
The articulation of strategic choices, which provides information on how an organization intends to achieve its priorities and associated results. Generally, a plan will explain the logic behind the strategies chosen and tend to focus on actions that lead to the expected result.

planned spending (dépenses prévues)
For Departmental Plans and Departmental Results Reports, planned spending refers to those amounts presented in Main Estimates.

A department is expected to be aware of the authorities that it has sought and received. The determination of planned spending is a departmental responsibility, and departments must be able to defend the expenditure and accrual numbers presented in their Departmental Plans and Departmental Results Reports.

program (programme)
Individual or groups of services, activities or combinations thereof that are managed together within the department and focus on a specific set of outputs, outcomes or service levels.

program inventory (répertoire des programmes)
Identifies all the department’s programs and describes how resources are organized to contribute to the department’s core responsibilities and results.

result (résultat)
A consequence attributed, in part, to an organization, policy, program or initiative. Results are not within the control of a single organization, policy, program or initiative; instead they are within the area of the organization’s influence.

statutory expenditures (dépenses législatives)
Expenditures that Parliament has approved through legislation other than appropriation acts. The legislation sets out the purpose of the expenditures and the terms and conditions under which they may be made.

target (cible)
A measurable performance or success level that an organization, program or initiative plans to achieve within a specified time period. Targets can be either quantitative or qualitative.

voted expenditures (dépenses votées)
Expenditures that Parliament approves annually through an appropriation act. The vote wording becomes the governing conditions under which these expenditures may be made.

Endnotes