Bill C-66

Military Justice System Modernization Act

An Act to amend the National Defence Act and other Acts

This enactment amends provisions of the National Defence Act that relate to the military justice system in response to the Report of the Third Independent Review Authority to the Minister of National Defence and the Report of the Independent External Comprehensive Review of the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces.
In response to those reports, the enactment amends that Act to, among other things,
(a) modify the process for appointing the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal, the Director of Military Prosecutions and the Director of Defence Counsel Services with a view to enhancing their independence;
(b) affirm the Judge Advocate General’s respect for the independence of authorities in the military justice system in the exercise of the Judge Advocate General’s superintendence of the administration of military justice;
(c) remove the court martial’s jurisdiction to try a person in relation to an offence under the Criminal Code that is alleged to have been committed in Canada and that is of a sexual nature or committed for a sexual purpose;
(d) remove the Canadian Armed Forces’ authority to investigate an offence under the Criminal Code that is alleged to have been committed in Canada and that is of a sexual nature or committed for a sexual purpose;
(e) expand the class of persons who are eligible to be appointed as a military judge;
(f) expand the class of persons who may make an interference complaint and provide that a member of the military police or person performing policing duties or functions under the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal’s supervision must make such a complaint in certain circumstances; and
(g) change the title of the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal to the Provost Marshal General.
In addition, the enactment amends the National Defence Act to remove military judges from the summary hearing system and to provide that, in the context of a service offence, an individual acting on behalf of a victim may request that a victim’s liaison officer be appointed to assist them.
It further amends that Act to harmonize the sex offender information and publication ban provisions with the amendments made to the Criminal Code in An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Sex Offender Information Registration Act and the International Transfer of Offenders Act .
Finally, it amends the Criminal Code to, among other things, provide superior courts of criminal jurisdiction with the jurisdiction to hear applications for an exemption in respect of orders to comply with the Sex Offender Information Registration Act made under the National Defence Act and applications to vary the duration of such orders.

Women in the Canadian Armed Forces

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Mr. Speaker, now, more than ever, the Canadian Armed Forces need women. Not only do we need to recruit more talented, dedicated women to serve our country, but we also need to retain those we already have.

Unfortunately, thousands of CAF members experience sexual assault in the military each year, and women are at the highest risk. Of the sexual assaults in our military, 80% go unreported because the survivors do not believe speaking up will make a difference.

We must call out the underlying rape culture and act urgently to change it. Bill C-66 introduces changes to the National Defence Act and places investigations of sexual misconduct outside the chain of command and into the public system. It is a start, but it is not enough. Survivors have felt invisible for far too long. I will keep fighting for their voices to be heard.

I will end with an excerpt of a poem written by my constituent, a survivor and a veteran, describing her experience of living with this trauma. It reads:

It was only one night. Move on, let it go. Forgive and heal is what you say, but for me it has been 10,220 days
10,220 days of losing my career, my ability to hold a job, my health, my self-esteem, my hope
10,220 days stolen
But yes, you're right, it was only one night.

This has to stop.

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the King’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Emergency Preparedness]

Madam Speaker, I was listening very intently to the member opposite. He mentioned 11 days ago, and I have a number for him. In seven days, my daughter-in-law is deploying to the Middle East for the next six months. I have two sons in the military and a daughter-in-law in the military.

I agree with the Speaker's ruling that what happened needs to be looked at. I sit on the procedure and House affairs committee, and I want to find out what happened. I think the member opposite knows that I am a pretty straight shooter on files with respect to Veterans Affairs and the military, and I want to know. However, there is also a very important piece of legislation that is stalled right now and that all members in this House support, Bill C-66, on our military justice system, which would protect members of the Canadian Armed Forces. We all agree with this, but it cannot move forward because we are continuing to debate a privilege motion, which is important, and I do not disagree, but the Speaker just ruled that he is urging the parties to come together and move forward. I am asking the member, who cares so much about military and veterans: Can we agree to get this piece of legislation back in front of the House? Can we come together for veterans, for the military and for families like mine?

Business of the House

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, as my hon. colleague well knows, it is him and his party members who are keeping Parliament paralyzed because they are obstructing their own motion of instruction. The Speaker very clearly ruled that this matter should be sent to the procedure and House affairs committee for further study. We agree with that. We are just waiting for the Conservative Party of Canada members of Parliament to do the same. In the interim, they continue to filibuster their own filibuster, and we have seen that, because they continue to amend their amendments on this matter, but when they are ready to get back to work, we are here to work for Canadians, and we look forward to that.

As I mentioned last week, we look forward to the Conservatives putting an end to their political games so that the House can move on to studying Bill C-71 on citizenship, Bill C‑66 on military justice, Bill C‑63 on online harms, the ways and means motion on capital gains and the ways and means motion on charities.

I also want to inform the House of our government's announcement regarding upcoming legislation to put more money in the pockets of Canadians through a tax break and a working Canadians rebate. We would be giving a tax break to all Canadians and putting more money directly into the pockets of the middle class. These are important measures to help Canadians pay their bills. We encourage Parliament and all parties to get this legislation passed quickly and unanimously, so workers and working families can get more money in their pockets. We are committed to getting things done for Canadians in Parliament. Important legislation is before the House, and we believe the Conservatives should stop playing obstructionist, partisan games so that MPs can debate those bills.

I would also like to inform the House that the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth will deliver a ministerial statement on Monday, November 25, which is the first day of the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence.

Request for Witness to Attend at the Bar of the House

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one member across the way said “yay”, but there are other issues, and not just government issues.

The Conservatives have opposition day motions, and when they bring them forward, they like to say the motions are confidence motions. However, I think Canadians would love to see an opposition day motion that deals with the housing accelerator fund. We have 17 Conservative members across the way who are scared because the leader of the Conservative Party is saying the party opposes it. The party is going to kill that particular fund. Therefore, we have Conservative MPs who are having a difficult time trying to justify their very existence on such an important issue. We should have a vote on that particular issue, but we cannot do so. The Conservatives know full well that all they have to do is continue to put up speaker after speaker on matters of privilege, and then nothing else can take place on the floor for debate.

The housing accelerator fund is providing thousands of housing units, or homes, in every region of our country, but we have the official opposition opposing it. Actually, that is not fair to say. We have the leader of the official opposition saying that the program is bad and needs to be cut. However, a dozen or more Conservative members are saying they like the program. They are writing to the Minister of Housing to say that they want this program to be applied in our communities. We have mayors in different areas of the country saying that this is a good program. However, there is this division within the Conservative Party. In order to avoid that sort of a division, why not continue to talk about privilege? It is a privilege motion for which everyone is saying yes to having the member come before the bar, but the Conservatives have no interest in voting on it. As I have indicated very clearly, it is a fairly straightforward motion that Mr. Anderson be called before the bar to answer questions. If everyone believes that, fine, we will accept that and allow it to come to a vote. However, what is the purpose of the Conservative Party not only continuing to debate the motion but now also actually moving an amendment to the motion, which means that we could see dozens speak to it?

What happened on the previous motion? We saw over 100 Conservatives speak to it. Weeks and weeks of potential debate on other issues were left to the wayside and never dealt with, such as Bill C-71, an act to amend the Citizenship Act; Bill C-66, which would transfer issues related to sexual abuse from military courts to civil courts; Bill C-33, strengthening the port system and railway safety in Canada act, which deals with our supply lines; and Bill C-63, the proposed online harms act to protect children on the Internet. This is not to mention the fall economic statement or the many opposition days that are being lost because the Conservatives are filling the time on issues of privilege, even though the very motions they are bringing forward are ones that we are okay with actually seeing pass. The reason, as I started off by saying, is that it is a multi-million dollar game, and it is all about character assassination. This is why I posed the question to the member opposite: What is the issue?

The issue is that we have a minister representing an Edmonton riding, and there have been concerns in regard to some text messaging and how that could have had an impact on the issue at hand. As I have pointed out, the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner has looked at this issue not once, not twice, but three times and cleared the minister responsible each time.

When I posed that particular question to the member, his response was that it is not true. It is true. Members of the Conservative Party know it is true, but they continue to push. Why is that? It is because, as I pointed out in my question, even when the Prime Minister was the leader of the Liberal Party in third party, the Conservative Party continued to attack the individual. Nothing has changed. The wonderful thing about Hansard is that everything said inside the chamber is actually recorded and there for people to read. People do not have to believe me; they can just read the Hansards. We can go back to the time when the leader of the Liberal Party was in third party. We will find personal attacks on the leader, especially in member statements.

We have witnessed it of other ministers inside the chamber. It is the type of thing where I could enter into that same field, talk about personalities and start to look at the leader of the Conservative Party. I referred to an interesting document. By the way, the relevance of this is in regard to the issue of attacking the character of an individual. It is some sort of a report that was published. The title is “Stephen Harper, Serial Abuser of Power: The Evidence Compiled”. Actually, not all the evidence is compiled, because there are a number of things I am aware of that are not actually included in this document. However, it is about abuse of power, scandals and corruption.

There are 70 of them listed, for anyone who is interested, but one of them that is really interesting is that Stephen Harper was actually found in contempt of Parliament. We can think about that. He is the only prime minister in the British Commonwealth, which includes Canada, to ever be found in contempt of Parliament. Can we guess who his parliamentary secretary was? It was the leader of the Conservative Party.

That is one, but I am a little off topic there. I go through this article, and the leader of the Conservative Party's name comes up on more than one occasion. Let us go to page 9, to something called the vanity video; the article reads, “The Globe and Mail revealed that Harper’s chosen Minister for Democratic Reform [the now leader of the Conservative Party] commissioned a team of public servants for overtime work on a Sunday to film him glad-handing constituents.”

It goes on, but he was promoting using civil servants and wearing his Conservative Party uniform, and of course, we cannot do that. If the Ethics Commissioner was to look into that, I suspect maybe they would have found some sort of fine or a penalty, or he would have been found offside.

However, one of the ones Harper is really well known for is the “Elections bill [that] strips power from Elections Canada”. The story says, “The Fair Elections Act also makes it harder for Canadians to vote as more ID is required. Nationwide protests in which more than 400 academics took part forced [the leader of the Conservative Party] to withdraw some measures in the bill because of their alleged anti-democratic bent.”

Anti-democratic: I think there could be some relevancy here. It goes on to say, the “Democratic Reform Minister [the leader of the Conservative Party] accused the Elections Canada CEO Marc Mayrand of being a power monger and wearing a team jersey.”

Here we have the Conservative Party now calling into question the Ethics Commissioner, but when the leader of the Conservative Party was the minister responsible for democratic reform, he labelled the chief of our electoral system, Elections Canada. That is why I do not say it lightly. We have a leader of the Conservative Party who is in borderline contempt, in terms of what we are witnessing in Parliament today. He has no qualms doing that. It is demonstrated.

Not only that, but if we take a look at the issue of security clearance, I do not know how many times I have asked the question of Conservative MP after Conservative MP: Why does the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada not get the security clearance so that he can better understand foreign interference? That is a very real issue. We have all sorts of things that are taking place in our community. An individual has been murdered; individuals are being held in many different ways for financial purposes. We have all sorts of interference in political parties, in the leader of the Conservative Party's own leadership.

When he was elected as leader, there were issues related to foreign interference and how that influenced the leadership that he ultimately won. The Bloc, the Green, the NDP and the Prime Minister all have the security clearance. He is the only leader who does not. Why will the leader of the Conservative Party not do likewise? The arguments he uses are bogus. He knows that. We have experts clearly indicating that the leader of the Conservative Party has nothing to worry about in terms of being able to get the security clearance, from a perspective of being able to listen and talk about the issue of the day. That is not the concern. However, it does raise an issue. What is in the background of the leader of the Conservative Party regarding which, ultimately, he is scared to get that security clearance? I believe there is something there.

There is something that the leader of the Conservative Party does not want Canadians to know. I think we should find that out. That is why, whether it is me or other members of the government, we will continue to call upon the leader of the Conservative Party to get that security clearance.

Instead of playing this multi-million dollar game, let us start dealing with the issues that are important to Canadians. Let us talk about the fall economic statement and the legislation before the House that the Conservatives do not want to have discussions on. Let us have opposition days and private members' bills. We should allow the chamber to do the work that Canadians want us to do.

As the Conservative Party, and the leader of the Conservative Party in particular, is so focused on them, I can assure people following the debate that the Government of Canada and the Prime Minister will always continue to be focused on Canadians first and foremost. Unfortunately, we have to participate in this game; however, at the end of the day, we will continue to push a Canadian agenda, an agenda that reflects what we believe Canadians want.

That is something we will continue to advocate for. I would ask that, if Conservatives across the way understand the cost of the game they are playing, they stop with the character assassination they began back in 2011. Let us get down to business and do some good things for Canadians. We can do so much more if we start working together. Not only were all the other parties given a responsibility to do some good things inside the chamber, but the Conservative Party was too.

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, that does not take away from the behaviour we have seen from the leader of the Conservative Party. At the end of the day, we have a Conservative motion on the floor indicating that the Conservatives would like to push the issue at hand to the procedure and House affairs committee. I would suggest that is the right way to deal with the issue. In fact, all members of all political parties except for the Conservatives, who have proposed the motion, want the motion to be accepted so the matter can go to the procedure and House affairs committee.

The Conservatives have not only moved a motion, but moved an amendment to the motion and a subamendment. Then after they had 100 members speak to the subamendment, they allowed the subamendment to drop and moved another subamendment. The purpose of this is to paralyze the House, as they continue to stand up for speech after speech while not necessarily being relevant to the motion. Rather, they focus on what I would suggest is the ongoing issue of character assassination. They started with the Prime Minister back when he was elected leader of the Liberal Party when we were the third party inside this chamber, and nothing has changed.

The Conservatives today are saying they want unredacted information, and they believe they have an entitlement to it because they say that a majority of members of the House argued for that and voted in favour of it. There are two quotes that I would like to bring forward to the Conservative Party, particularly the leader of the Conservative Party.

First and foremost, what the Conservative Party is asking for is inappropriate. It is a Conservative game. It is a multi-million dollar political game that serves the personal interests of the leader of the Conservative Party and the Conservative Party as a whole. The Conservatives are asking us to give out unredacted documents from a collection, handing them not only to opposition members but directly to the RCMP. This is what the RCMP commissioner has said regarding that: “There is significant risk that the Motion could be interpreted as a circumvention of normal investigative processes and Charter protections.”

The Conservative Party does not give a darn about that. The Conservatives do not care about charter protections. They are not listening to what the RCMP is saying, and the RCMP is not alone. The Auditor General has also been critical of the tactic being used by the Conservative Party. The former law clerk is critical of the tactic being used by the Conservative Party as well.

The Conservative Party is saying to wait a minute; it wants people to believe the Conservative Party over the RCMP, the Auditor General of Canada and other professionals and experts out there. The Conservatives know full well that we are not going to do that, as well we should not. That is why the Speaker's ruling tells us to send this matter to committee and allow the committee to review it. However, the Conservatives do not like that, and that is where, in my opinion, they are borderline in contempt of Parliament. I would articulate that to whomever. The Conservative Party is saying that they are not going to allow the House to deal with any issue until this matter has been resolved to their liking.

I would like to quote a story from The Hill Times. We have a one-week break, and I would like every Conservative member, because we are going to hear from another 100 of them no doubt, to say they read The Hill Times story from October 31 that Steven Chaplin wrote and say they disagree with that individual. If they are not prepared to say that, then they should look at themselves in a mirror and recognize the reality of the type of abuse the leader of the Conservative Party has been putting into the House of Commons for weeks now.

I will not read the whole article, but for those following the debate, Steven Chaplin is the former senior legal counsel in the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel. He is someone who truly understands this. He is apolitical. I could not even identify him on the street or the sidewalk. Here is what he says as an expert: “It is time for the House of Commons to admit it was wrong, and to move on. There has now been three weeks of debate on a questionable matter of privilege based on the misuse of the House’ power”. He wrote this story last week.

The article goes on, and here is what members really need to appreciate. A member could think of themselves as a parliamentarian first, believing that serving their constituents is the most important role they have to play, but they should also recognize they are a parliamentarian. Every parliamentarian of the House of Commons needs to listen carefully to this statement. Again, this comes from Steven Chaplin: “It is time for the House to admit its overreach before the matter inevitably finds it way to the courts which do have the ability to determine and limit the House’s powers, often beyond what the House may like.” That is a warning to all parliamentarians about the abuse of power that the leader of the Conservative Party is imposing on his Conservative caucus, which none of them is taking seriously based on the discussions and debates we are hearing.

I am not surprised that the leader of the Conservative Party continues to push this issue. I am not surprised because we see that in his history and his pattern of behaviour. Stephen Harper was the only prime minister in Canada in the British Commonwealth to be held in contempt of Parliament. Guess who his parliamentary secretary was. It was none other than the leader of the Conservative Party.

The leader of the Conservative Party is the only leader in the House of Commons without a security clearance. Leaders of the Bloc, the Greens and the NDP, as well as the Prime Minister, all have a security clearance. Outside the Hill, there is a serious concern in regard to foreign interference. We have seen the killing and murdering of individuals and extortion. We have seen the influencing of parliamentarians, both past and present, of different political parties. That means the Conservatives also. We have seen serious allegations that the leadership convention in which the Conservative leader was elected had foreign interference.

Every leader in the House of Commons today is saying they recognize the seriousness of this, and they got the security clearance necessary to be informed by Canada's agencies, including the RCMP, about the personalities and information that are vital to know as a leader, except for one. The only leader who refuses to get a security clearance is the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Does that surprise people? It should, actually. Yes, the Conservative leader was the parliamentary secretary to the prime minister who was held in contempt. Yes, he continues to play an abuse of power on the floor of the House of Commons, which is ultimately leading to challenges for all of us as parliamentarians. Yes, he has been manipulating the floor and concurrence reports to take control over standing committees in the last week. We have witnessed that on at least two occasions.

Now, we even get Conservatives who stand up on points of order to try to censor the types of things I am saying in the House, because they do not like to hear the truth. The truth is that the leader of the Conservative Party owes it to Canadians to get that security clearance, and if he is not going to get that security clearance, then he had better tell Canadians why not and tell Canadians what he is hiding. I believe that he is hiding something from Canadians, and that is the reason he does not want to get that security clearance, yet Canadians have a right to know.

What is it about the Conservative leader's past, or is it strictly in regard to the leadership? Is it some of the Conservatives? Is he one of the Conservatives dealing with foreign interference? Instead, he says, “I am not going to get it. I will wait until we are after the next election”. It is highly irresponsible.

I go back in terms of the motion itself, because the leader of the Conservative Party has chosen to play this multi-million dollar game. As a direct result of his behaviour, we are not able to deal with important issues that are affecting Canadians throughout the country. The leader of the Conservative Party has made the decision to put his self-interest and the interests of the Conservative Party of Canada ahead of Canadians, and that is the reality.

I think collectively the Conservatives need to start listening to what the experts are saying, in terms of what their expectation is as an opposition party, not just as Conservatives, and think of their roles as parliamentarians. They should recognize the abuse that we are witnessing every day, for weeks, and start holding their own leader accountable to their own caucus, if not all Canadians. If the Conservatives are not prepared to do that, at the very least, let us get the leader sharing with Canadians why he refuses to get security clearance and why he has chosen to be held, from my perspective, in borderline contempt of the House of Commons by not allowing work on issues like the Citizenship Act; the military court and the civilian court for sexual complaints, which would be dealt with through Bill C-66; the online harms act to protect our children; the rail and marine safety legislation to support supply lines; or the fall fiscal statement.

All of these are being put off to the side because of the self-interest of one individual who is the leader of the Conservative Party. I think he needs to get off the rock, recognize that the House can work, start co-operating and stop the filibuster.

Business of the House

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, as my hon. colleague knows, the motion that the Speaker presented actually said to refer this matter to the procedure and House affairs committee. That is exactly what we support.

We look forward to the Conservatives ending their silly games, starting to respect the charter rights of Canadians and the independence of the police, and moving this to committee to make sure that we respect the independence of powers in this country. I will also note that thousands of pages have indeed been tabled. They have just been done so in a way that respects the charter rights of Canadians.

We are looking forward to debating, once the Conservatives stop freezing the work of this place, important legislation, such as Bill C-71, concerning citizenship; Bill C-66 on military justice; Bill C-63, the online harms legislation; and two ways and means motions, one related to capital gains and one that would require more transparency from charities that use deceptive tactics to push women away from making their own reproductive decisions.

On this side of the House, we will continue to work for Canadians and represent their interests. I wish all members would do the same.

As it is Remembrance Week, and we are coming up to Remembrance Day, I would like to take a moment to thank every service member and every veteran who has served our country, both in times of conflict and in times of peace. I know that every member in the House will be taking a moment on Remembrance Day to remember the sacrifices of our veterans and of those who continue to serve in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Lest we forget.

Industry and Technology

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, it has been an interesting process over the last number of weeks. For those who are trying to follow what is taking place, allow me to attempt to summarize it. What they are really witnessing is what I would suggest is a multi-million dollar political game that is being led by the leader of the Conservative Party because he has determined that it is in his self-interest and the interests of the Conservative Party of Canada to continue playing this silly, expensive game at a substantial cost. As opposed to participating in this filibuster, what we are actually witnessing is an opposition party that, I would ultimately argue, is in contempt, or nearing contempt, of the House of Commons today.

It should not surprise people because the leader of the Conservative Party was the parliamentary secretary to former prime minister Stephen Harper, who was held in contempt of Parliament, the first prime minister in the history of the Commonwealth and the only one to this very day to have been held in contempt. It speaks volumes, in terms of the character and the personality of the leader of the Conservative Party today.

Let us look at what the Conservatives are doing, and I do not say it lightly. In fact, I have recommended that every member of the Conservative caucus read the Hill Times story that was published on October 31. It was written by Steven Chaplin. Steven Chaplin is the former senior legal counsel in the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel. Let me just quote two very important things that should be highlighted because that is why we have the debate that we are having today, and I am going to get into that very shortly. Here is what Steven Chaplin has to say about the multi-million dollar game that the leader of the Conservative Party is playing:

It’s time for the House [of Commons] to admit it was wrong, and to move on....

There has now been three weeks of debate on a questionable matter of privilege based on the misuse of the House’ power to order producing documents....

The article goes on, and here is where people really need to understand this point because we get Conservative after Conservative talking, whether about this motion or the matter of privilege that the Conservatives introduced over four weeks ago. The Conservative Party says, “just produce the papers and then the issue will end.” We cannot produce the papers. The Conservatives know that. Here is what Steven Chaplin has to say on the issue, in terms of the game that the Conservatives are playing:

It is time for the House to admit its overreach before the matter inevitably finds it[s] way to the courts which do have the ability to determine and limit the House’s powers, often beyond what the House may like.

This is not me. This is a professional; someone who understands what is taking place in the House of Commons. It is the leader of the Conservative Party today who is using his opposition powers to prevent important things from taking place in the House because it is his self-interest and the interests of the Conservative Party and not the interests of Canadians that are being served by this tactic; not to mention the millions of dollars being thrown away.

The deputy House leader, earlier today, talked about legislation. Take a look at what is on the Order Paper and has been on the Order Paper for days now: the Canadian Citizenship Act. Citizenship is important to Canadians. By not passing this legislation, some individuals are being denied their citizenship.

There is Bill C-66, the military court reforms, which would take sexual abuse issues out of military courts and put them into the civil courts. Also, we have Bill C-33, on the rail and marine safety issue, which is talking about economic supply lines. If we want to talk about improving the economy, this is one of the things that we should be discussing. My colleague emphasized Bill C-63, the online harms act. We can think of pictures being posted on the Internet without consent from individuals over 18, as well as the harm that is being caused to children. These are the types of substantial issues that we should be talking about and voting on to see them go to committee, but instead, we are playing this game.

Fast-forward to today, when we have a motion about banking and banking fees. I can assure members that banking fees are a very serious issue. My constituents are concerned about banking fees, whether they are for using an ATM machine or the monthly charges. There is also the interest that is applied in many different ways. There is a litany of issues with banking fees. I would love the opportunity to talk for 20-plus minutes on that issue.

The problem is that this feeds into what the Conservatives are wanting us to do. The Conservatives, and this is coming from the leader of the Conservative's office, are not only saying that they want to take control of what is taking place on the floor of the House of Commons, but also wanting to start dipping more and more into instructing standing committees on what they should be doing. They have the Bloc completely fooled on this. It will be interesting to see who votes in favour of it.

Members can think about this: The Conservatives, not once but twice, as Mark Carney was brought up late last week, have brought in an amendment to a concurrence motion to send the report back to committee for it to be further studied while calling for certain witnesses, and they have each had a deadline to get back to the House. However, these standing committees can determine their own agendas and who they want to call before them. They do not have to be instructed by the leader of the Conservative Party on what they should be doing. This is a very disturbing pattern, which we have now seen with two concurrence motions that were brought forward by the Conservative Party.

I would argue that, ultimately, the leader of the Conservative Party is not only trying to dictate what we can and cannot talk about on the floor of the House of Commons, but also starting to reach into the different standing committees. He could have just advised, and said, “Well, look, send this back to the committee”. We could also do what we usually do, which is to vote concurrence on a report, so it would go on its way, and just allow the standing committee to do what it wants. However, there is an agenda there. It is a very selfish agenda that is being driven by the leader of the Conservative Party and the Conservative House leadership team, at a substantial cost. As I said, it is a multi-million dollar game that is being played.

The Conservative leader needs to start putting the interests of Canadians ahead of his own self-serving interests and the interests of the Conservative Party. There is a lot more work that we can be doing on the floor of the House of Commons.

We need to respect that standing committees do have the ability to do what is being proposed here. We need the leader of the Conservative Party to stop abusing his authority as the leader of the opposition and reflect on when he was a parliamentary secretary and his prime minister was held in contempt of Parliament.

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the King’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Emergency Preparedness]

Madam Speaker, I had a chance to work with the member on the industry committee, and we had a good opportunity to work together there. I actually sit on the procedure and House affairs committee, which is the committee that would be tasked to look into this.

We have a lot of legislation before us, including Bill C-66, the military justice bill, which I think is incredibly important for getting justice for victims of assault in the military.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague if the Conservatives would be willing to allow this motion to go to PROC, so the committee could get to the bottom of what happened and make recommendations to the House.

Business of the House

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, as I have shared many times in this chamber, the government supports the motion that the Conservatives moved, and that they continue to filibuster, to refer the matter to committee.

Let us be clear that the Conservatives have decided that they want to grind the House to a halt rather than work for Canadians, which is preventing the House from debating and voting on important business that we would like to get back to, including Bill C-71 relating to citizenship, Bill C-66 on military justice, Bill C-63 concerning online harms, the ways and means motion related to capital gains, and the ways and means motion tabled this week, which contains our plan to require more transparency from charities that use deceptive tactics to push women away from making their own reproductive decisions.

In conclusion, while the Conservatives shake their fists saying that they are holding the government to account, what they are showing Canadians is just how reckless they can be in their relentless pursuit of power.

We, on this side, will continue to work for Canadians.

Medical Assistance in Dying

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, before I get under way, I would like to comment on the member's last statement. He pointed out the Conservative Party's resistance to the issue. I believe it is Bill C-390 that the Bloc is advocating for and advancing, which attempts to deal with the issue. This is the first time I am hearing it on the floor of the House. I would have thought Bloc members would have raised the issue with the leadership teams in the hope that we might be able to work together on Bill C-390 and, at the very least, how it might be incorporated into some of the consultations.

There is absolutely no doubt this is a very important issue. Since 2015, when the Supreme Court decided on the issue, it has been a hot topic for parliamentarians on all sides of the House. We have seen a great deal of compassion and emotion, and understandably so.

Before I get into the substance of the report, I want to refer to why we find ourselves again talking about this concurrence report. For issues of the day that are really important to caucus strategies, or the desire to have a public discussion, we have what we call opposition days. We need to contrast concurrence reports, including the one today that the Bloc has brought forward, with opposition day motions that are brought forward. We will find there is a stark difference. The Bloc is not alone. It will bring forward a motion or a concurrence report and say how important it is that we debate it, yet it is never given any attention on opposition days, when not only could the concurrence report be debated, but the opposition day motion could instruct an action of some form or another.

Why are we debating it today? I would suggest it is because of an action taken a number of weeks ago. We need to ask ourselves why there has been no discussion on Bill C-71, the Citizenship Act, which we started the session with. Everyone but the Conservatives supports that act. There is Bill C-66, where sexual abuses taking place within the military could be shifted over to the civil courts. My understanding is that every political party supports that legislation.

There is Bill C-33 regarding rail and marine safety and supply lines, which is very important to Canada's economy. There is Bill C-63, the online harms bill. Last night, members talked about the importance of protecting children from the Internet, and yet the government introduced Bill C-63, the online harms act. We are trying to have debates in the House of Commons on the legislation I just listed. It does not take away from the importance of many other issues, such as the one today regarding MAID. MAID is an important issue, and I know that. We all know that.

Yesterday, a concurrence report on housing was debated. Housing is also a very important issue, I do not question that, but we have well over 100 reports in committees at report stage. If we were to deal with every one of those reports, not only would we not have time for government legislation, but we would not have time for opposition days either, not to mention confidence votes. I am okay with that, as long as we get the budget passed through. We have to ask why we are preventing the House of Commons from being able to do the things that are important to Canadians. That can be easily amplified by looking at the behaviour of the Conservative Party.

The Conservatives will stand up today and talk about MAID, as well they should; I will too. However, there is no doubt that they are happy to talk about that issue today only because it feeds into their desire to prevent the government from having any sort of debate on legislation, let alone attempting to see legislation pass to committee. The Conservative Party is more concerned about its leader and the Conservative Party agenda than the agenda of Canadians and the types of things we could be doing if the official opposition party would, for example, allow its motion to actually come to a vote.

We are debating this concurrence motion because the Conservatives have frustrated the other opposition parties to the degree that we are sick and tired of hearing Conservatives stand up repeatedly, over 100 of them now, on the privilege issue, preventing any and all types of debate. So, as opposed to listening to Conservatives speak on something that is absolutely useless, we are ensuring that at least there is some debate taking place on important issues, such as MAID and housing.

Members of all political stripes need to realize the games the Conservatives are playing come at great expense to Canadians. The motion of privilege is to send the issue to PROC. Every member in the House supports that except for the Conservatives, yet it is a Conservative motion. They are filibustering and bringing the House to standstill, unless we are prepared to think outside the box and bring in a motion for concurrence. The concurrence motion, no doubt, is better than listening to the Conservatives continue to repeat speeches.

I attempted to address their speeches in great detail weeks ago. It is time we change the channel. It is time the Leader of the Opposition started putting Canadians and the nation's best interests ahead of his own personal interests and the Conservative Party of Canada's interests. We need to start talking about issues that Canadians want to hear about.

I was pleased when the member from the Bloc made reference to indications that the Province of Quebec wants to move forward on this issue. My understanding is that the province is even taking substantial actions towards it. Advance requests for MAID have been on the table and been discussed. We need to recognize it is not only Ottawa that plays a role in regard to MAID and its implementation. Our primary role is with the Criminal Code and how we might be able to make changes to it.

Members, no matter what region they come from, have to appreciate that Canada is a vast country in which there is an obligation to consult with the different provinces, territories, indigenous leaders, community advocates, health care professionals and Canadians. There is an obligation to do that, especially around the type of legislation the member of the Bloc is trying to change.

I was hoping to get a second question from the member, because he made reference to Bill C-390. I am not familiar with its background. It is probably completely related to the advance requests for MAID. The member, in his question to me, could maybe expand on what exactly the bill is proposing. I would ask, in regard to it, to what degree the member has done his homework. Doing the homework means going outside the province of Quebec. All provinces have something to say about the issue. Many people who were born in Quebec live in other jurisdictions, just as many people who were born in other parts of the country now call Quebec home.

We have an obligation to not take legislation dealing with issues like MAID lightly. Just because one jurisdiction is advancing it more quickly than another jurisdiction, or because one jurisdiction is demanding it, it does not necessarily mean Ottawa can buy into it at the snap of its fingers. That is not to take anything away from Quebec. On a number of fronts, Quebec has led the nation. I could talk about issues like $10-a-day child care, a national program that the Prime Minister and government, with solid support from the Liberal caucus, have advanced and put into place, and every province has now agreed to it. The MAID file is a good example where Quebec is probably leading, in pushing the envelope, more than any other province, as it did with child care. Other jurisdictions take a look at other aspects.

Health care, today, is a national program that was implemented by a national Liberal government, but the idea that predated it came from Tommy Douglas. Its practical implementation was demonstrated in the province of Saskatchewan. As a government, we continue to support health care in a very real and tangible way. By contrast, we can take a look at the Conservatives on health care and the concerns we have in terms of a threat to health care. We have invested $198 billion in health care. That ensures future generations can feel comfortable in knowing the federal government will continue to play a strong role in health care. Why is that relevant to the debate today? For many of the individuals who are, ultimately, recipients of MAID, it is an issue of long-term care, hospice care.

When my grandmother passed away in the 1990s, in St. Boniface Hospital, it was a very difficult situation. We would have loved to have had hospice care provided for her, but it did not happen. That does not take anything away from the fantastic work that health care workers provide in our system, but there she sat in a hospital setting, which was was questionable in terms of dying with dignity.

Health care and long-term care matter. With respect to my father's passing, it was Riverview and it was a totally different atmosphere because it provided hospice care. Health care matters when we talk about MAID. What the Government of Canada is bringing forward is recognition that we cannot change things overnight, but at least we are moving forward.

Back in 2015, when the Supreme Court made a decision, former prime minister Stephen Harper did absolutely nothing in terms of dealing with the issue of MAID, and the current leader of the Conservative Party was a major player during that whole Stephen Harper era. It put us into a position where, virtually immediately after the federal election, we had to take action, and we did. I remember vividly when members of Parliament shared stories in Centre Block. I remember the emotions. I remember many of my colleagues sitting on the committee that listened to Canadians from across the country with respect to the issue. We all talked to constituents and conveyed their thoughts in Ottawa. We were able to bring in and pass legislation, the first ever for Canada, that dealt with the issue.

In 2021, we actually updated the legislation that dealt with persons whose death was not reasonably foreseeable. We are making changes, but it has to be done in a fashion that is fair, reasonable and responsible.

We want to hear from Canadians. We want to hear what the different provinces, territories, indigenous leaders, stakeholders, doctors, nurses, those who are providing that direct care and the families have to say. This is a very personal decision that people have to make at very difficult times in their lives. We should not be taking it for granted in any fashion whatsoever.

That is the reason, once again, we have another special joint standing committee that hopefully will be starting its work in November, with the idea of doing something tangible over six or eight weeks, whatever it takes, so it can bring something back to the House to deal with advance requests for MAID. That seems to be the focal point of what the Bloc is talking about today.

I want to come back to some of my other comments in regard to the government's recognition of the importance of the issue of MAID. We have done that since 2015. We continue to recognize it and work with Canadians and the many different stakeholders, and we are committed to continuing to do that. It is unfortunate that because of the games being played by the leader of the Conservative Party and by members of the Conservative Party of Canada, the government is not able to continue to have important legislation debated, legislation like the Citizenship Act, the issue of military court to civil court with respect to sexual abuse, online harms act and the rail and marine safety act. All of these are so important.

I am asking the Conservative Party of Canada to stop focusing on its leader's best interests and to start thinking of Canadians' best interests. I am asking it to stop the filibuster and allow legislation, at the very least, to get to committee so Canadians can have their say.

Business of the House

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, as my colleague is well aware, we are complying with the ruling of the Speaker of the House, which indicated that this matter must be referred to committee. As the Speaker said, the Conservatives are obstructing their own obstruction. I cannot help but think that that is because they do not want to know the truth. Doing what they are asking would be an abuse of the House's power. We will always stand up for Canadians' rights and freedoms.

I also want to illustrate the fact that his question is totally fake, much like the tacky slogans Conservatives hide behind because they have no actual ideas or policies for the country. That is probably why they continue to filibuster their own motion: to distract Canadians from the fact that they are nothing more than an empty shell. It must be pretty embarrassing for Conservative MPs, having to filibuster their own motion day after day to protect their leader from any real accountability. It must also be kind of embarrassing for Conservative MPs to sit in a caucus with a leader who refuses to get a security clearance, because he clearly has something to hide. It is expected of a leader of a political party to do this, but beyond his little performances in the House, their leader does very little that comes close to leadership.

Despite the games being played by the Conservatives, on this side of the House, we are going to continue to work hard for Canadians. When the House does get back to debating legislation, the priorities will be Bill C-71 on citizenship, Bill C-66 on military justice, Bill C-63 on online harms and the ways and means motion related to capital gains.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you so much.

I want to thank my colleague for those excellent recommendations.

In addition to that, I would include in the current policy a reference to harassment between members of Parliament so it is specific about this being unacceptable behaviour. The appendix already has examples of behaviours that are considered unacceptable.

I like the recommendation about training. I agree about bystander training. In addition to the pledges, we need stronger mechanisms here in the House for that.

I agree with the idea that the Speaker shouldn't be the arbitrator of complaints with respect to sexual harassment. The reason, as my colleague mentioned, is that whoever is in the chair is also a member of a political party.

We already have a chief human resources officer who looks at complaints of sexual harassment or harassment between MPs and employees or among employees. This person is already trained and an expert in the field, in terms of human resources and in going through an EFAP process, a mediation process, and so on and so forth. I would say that it's similar to what we're trying to do with Bill C-66 for the military justice system in taking complaints outside. We don't want the military to investigate itself in terms of cases. Similar to that, I don't think political parties should be investigating themselves.

It's been 10 long years since a report came out saying that we need to get this loophole closed. Do you have any additional recommendations for us to make sure that this gets done once and for all?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, here we are again. We will remember, at this time last week, I stood in this place and listed the following business for the upcoming week: Bill C-71, on citizenship; Bill C-66, on military justice; Bill C-63, on online harms; and the ways and means motion related to capital gains. I am sorry to say that all we saw this week was more Conservative procedural games. I can only imagine that this is because they do not want to debate this important legislation as they are opposed to it for Canadians. Again, for a second week in a row, they have offered nothing constructive and have instead focused on bringing dysfunction to the chamber.

As I have said many time, the government is supportive of the Speaker's ruling and of the Conservative motion, actually, to refer the privilege matter to the Standing Committee on Procedures and House Affairs. Why can they not take yes for an answer?

The Conservatives are effectively spinning their own obstruction because they do not want this matter to be referred to committee. The funniest part about it is that they not only amended their own motion, but also, today, amended their own amendment. They are trying really hard to avoid this going to committee for further study. Perhaps that is because they will hear expert after expert talking about the egregious abuse of power being displayed by the official opposition, their interference in police work, their obstruction of police investigation and the fact that this shows complete disregard for democracy and the rights of Canadian citizens.

They clearly do not want to debate government legislation. All they want to do is serve themselves and their own partisan interests. We will continue to be here to work for Canadians.

Let me take this opportunity, as I know this weekend Canadian families will be together giving thanks for what they have, to wish all members in the House, as well as all Canadians, a very happy Thanksgiving.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Okay. I would appreciate your providing that information to the committee.

Beyond culture change, there's this feeling amongst survivors that there's this rotten apple theory: that if we can get through a handful of bad actors on this stage, the problem will go away. They certainly believe that cannot happen and that the problem is a permissive culture that allows perpetrators to use their power and test how far they will go.

Beyond Bill C-66, what are the government's next steps in combatting sexual misconduct?

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Currently in the House, we have Bill C-66. I'm hoping that we can get past some shenanigans in the House in order to bring this bill to committee. A lot of people have been waiting a long time for it to be brought forward.

I know that there are a lot of concerns. We have a lot of work to do in this committee on that piece of legislation, but I'm concerned, too, about ensuring that more cases aren't stayed due to the transferring of cases between jurisdictions. Can you provide any updates on how many cases have been successfully transferred and how many cases have successfully reached a verdict in the civilian courts? Also, have we seen any more cases stayed?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

You and I have had an opportunity to speak about some of these issues before. As I've acknowledged to you, a great deal of work has been done, but more needs to be done. I appreciate your acknowledging that, I think, we've made some real progress on the SMSRC and on the work that has been done in support of victims following this report. We are coming up, in February 2025, on the fifth anniversary, and there is a commitment there to that work.

I can share with you that we're currently pursuing a court appointment for the external review team lead. We think that's an important initiative. I think we've also been able to demonstrate our commitment to greater judicial independence of military justice actors by removing some of these conditions under Bill C-66 so that these matters are dealt with in the civilian system, rather than people having to go to their boss.

I also very strongly believe that the decision to pursue an investigation and a criminal prosecution is entirely the agency of the victim. At the same time, we have a responsibility to provide them with victim support services, no matter what is taking place.

We've also talked about some of the important work that's gone on with Justice Arbour's recommendations, with our implementation plan and with the appointment of the external monitor, who, by the way, every two months, produces a very comprehensive report, which I hope that you all have access to, that explains the progress of the work and the implementation of Justice Arbour's recommendations. We're moving on a number of other recommendations, including the Fish report. All of that needs to be coordinated and brought together in a meaningful way. Restoring trust for all of those people who have experienced this is our priority.

I'm very happy to continue, if you would like.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Yes, very quickly, just in response to Justice Arbour's recommendations, a little more than half of them have been fully implemented. We have also just recently published, in the spring of this year, our comprehensive implementation plan for the remaining recommendations, which schedules their full implementation by the end of 2025. That work is well under way.

The recommendation that did require changes to the National Defence Act was brought forward in Bill C-66, which hopefully will come to this committee for its important work very shortly.

We're also, as I mentioned, investing in housing because that's what members have told us is a challenge for them. We're investing in child care because that's important. We're working with the provinces on making sure, for Service Canada, that shared services are available to our members so that they can get access to a family doctor or that people can get assistance for their spouses to have employment. There are many things that we need to do on behalf of the Canadian Armed Forces, and we are working on them—

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you very much.

I think you already mentioned a few of the obstacles and how to overcome them or mentioned that there are plans in the works, so I'll avoid that question.

Another really important point here is the issue of retention, making sure once they are there—and for those who are already there—that they want to stay because it's a positive and healthy workplace culture. You have spoken a little about that as well. You spoke about Bill C-66. You spoke about Justice Arbour's recommendations.

Can you tell us where we are on those, how many of them we've actually accomplished or implemented and what your view is on how we can rebuild trust in the Canadian Armed Forces for future generations?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

First of all, let me assure you I'm not beyond excited, but I've come right up to the line.

Second, if I may, just as a point of clarification, you said I was here with an entourage and that's not entirely true. I'm here with my team and I'm delighted to have these fine people with me here today.

I'm joined this morning by Deputy Minister Stefanie Beck. I'm also joined by the vice chief of the defence staff, Lieutenant-General Stephen Kelsey. Our ADM of materiel, Nancy Tremblay, has joined us this morning. Also, from CSE, we have our ADM, Wendy Hadwen.

These are important members of our team and I'm sure they'll be able to provide information and insight over the course of my appearance here and later on in their own appearances later this morning.

Mr. Chair and members of the Standing Committee on National Defence, good morning and thank you for the kind invitation to appear before you to discuss my priorities as Minister of National Defence and to endeavour to answer any questions that you may have.

I believe very sincerely that it's good to check in regularly, given the volatility and rapid evolution of the threat environment that Canada and the rest of the world are facing. As the security landscape is shifting, so too must our priorities. We must do whatever is required to defend our nation and to keep Canadians safe. The job that we ask of our CAF members is a difficult and challenging one. We are doing everything we can to support them in that mission.

The world has changed considerably since the mandate letter was issued in 2021. As you'll recall, that was well before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It was before an emboldened China ramped up its assertive, subversive and coercive behaviours and it was before the conflict in the Middle East began spilling over, at great risk to regional and global security.

While we've made considerable progress advancing our 2021 mandate, we've also had to reprioritize and adapt in response to this changing context.

My greatest priority will always be our people and that is a constant that must never change. We remain focused on making sure that they have the support and the resources they need to continue their excellent work that they do on behalf of our country.

For example, we know that CAF families are often at the bottom of local child care wait-lists when relocated or redeployed on short notice. That's why Canada's renewed defence policy, “Our North, Strong and Free”, commits $100 million over five years to enhance child care services for CAF personnel and their families.

We also know that frequent relocations and deployment create unique challenges for our military families when it comes to housing. Our Canadian Forces housing differential came into effect in July 2023 to help CAF members who are living off base adjust to housing costs when relocating in Canada. We are also going to invest in significant new housing for our members. We need to increase housing availability on bases to make sure CAF members and their families have safe, affordable housing.

We're putting forward vital initiatives to ensure that our defence team members have the resources and infrastructure that they need to thrive in their important roles. Serving one's country can be a difficult and challenging occupation. It should not be made more challenging by the conditions under which they serve.

We are also addressing a significant priority of culture change. We have to make sure that all of our CAF members feel well supported by the organization and their nation that they have sworn to protect. Since 2021, we've made some significant progress on Justice Arbour's 48 recommendations in her independent external comprehensive review of the Canadian Armed Forces to implement meaningful and long-lasting cultural change for the Canadian Armed Forces.

I think one of our best examples for that happened just a few weeks ago when Parliament began its second reading of Bill C-66, which will ensure the Criminal Code sexual assault cases in the CAF will be tried in the civilian justice system instead of in military court.

I want to take the opportunity to thank all members present here for their support of that legislation. I very much look forward to us completing second reading and bringing this bill before this committee to allow the committee to do its important work to make sure it is the best bill for the members of the Canadian Armed Forces. I believe that all the changes we're working on together will lead to durable military justice reform and it's going to help CAF members and the Canadian public regain trust in our system.

We're also very focused on making new investment. In response to an evolving global threat environment, we're also investing significantly in new platforms, equipment and capabilities.

The war in Ukraine has taught us a lot about our own strengths and vulnerabilities, as a country, a partner and an ally in our global security network. These lessons informed our updated defence policy, which places a new emphasis and sharp focus on defending our continent and Canada's Arctic, investing in advanced capabilities to better detect, deter and defeat threats, and building up our defence industrial base.

We must demonstrate to our allies that we remain a reliable and valuable partner. At the NATO summit in July, we announced that we will reach NATO's 2% target by 2032.

We're equipping our military with 21st-century capabilities that are going to allow us to operate across all domains, in all environments and alongside our allies and partners, starting with new ships, submarines, vehicles and planes that contribute to our Canadian Armed Forces' operational readiness. We are also modernizing command and control systems.

In order to do this effectively, we know that we must usher in new capabilities in a new era, and we need to find a new approach to modernizing defence procurement. We're actively reviewing our procurement processes to find inefficiencies and build better relationships with industry.

I would also note that we are making the largest investment in our navy and our air force since the Second World War. In “Our North, Strong and Free”, we've outlined how we'll invest in industry to create new production lines and secure supply chains that will allow us to increase production at home. This is going to be good for our military, but it will also be good for our workers, our industry and our economy.

Protecting national security is job one, and I want to acknowledge that we have a great deal to do. Since I got this job, I have tried to make it very clear that Canada must do more, and Canada will do more. We have to live up to our obligations to defend our country and to our international partners.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll happily submit to any questions members may have.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, that was cute, and I saw that the Conservative House leader was having a hard time not laughing at how ridiculous his statement was.

As the fourth week of fall in the House of Commons approaches, we have made good progress. For one thing, we passed Bill C‑76 to give Jasper the tools it needs to rebuild.

We also debated bills that are important to Canadians, such as Bill C‑71, which extends citizenship by descent beyond the first generation in an inclusive way, protects the value of Canadian citizenship and restores citizenship to Canadians who lost or never acquired it because of outdated provisions under a previous citizenship act.

We debated Bill C‑66, which recognizes that members of the Canadian Armed Forces are always there to protect Canada's security and that we have a duty to protect them from harassment and inappropriate behaviour. This landmark legislation would transform military justice in Canada and respond to outside recommendations by former justices Arbour and Fish of the Supreme Court of Canada.

We also debated Bill C‑63 on online harms, which seeks to provide stronger protection to children online and better protect Canadians from online hate and other types of harmful content.

I would like to thank members of Parliament who have been working constructively to advance these bills. The Conservatives, on the other hand, continue to do everything they can to block the important work of the House and prevent debate on legislation that will help Canadians. They have offered nothing constructive and instead have focused on cheap political stunts and obstruction for the sake of obstruction. They have lost two confidence votes already and continue to paralyze the business of the House.

The government supports debates on the privilege motions concluding quickly so that we can get back to the important work of the House. I extend my hand to any party that wants to work constructively to advance legislation that will help Canadians. Once debate has concluded on both privilege motions, our priority will be resuming debate on the bills I have listed.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We can pursue that.

Next week, right off the top, is the report on housing. Presumably, that week we might also do the report on transparency, if we're efficient. We have commitments from Minister Blair to appear the following week, along with his officials, and Minister Sajjan and Minister Duclos following Thanksgiving. I think we have kind of a path forward. When Bill C-66 lands, it lands, and we'll make some adjustments accordingly.

Again, thank you so much. I appreciate this.

Finance

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

One of them is saying, “Hear, hear!”

Madam Speaker, now the Conservatives are saying that they do not want to be accountable through media like the CTVs or the CBCs of Canada because they do not have confidence in those national news broadcasters. It is because they do not want to answer the questions that are being posed to them. Instead, they want to rely on social media.

There is a reference to the leader of the Conservative Party being very similar to Trump. That might be a bit of a disservice to Donald Trump. Quite frankly, I am very disappointed in the direction the far-right Conservative Party is going today. There is also no sign of its members changing their attitudes. Look at the attitude of hate that Conservatives are promoting and the information they are providing to people.

Today, Conservatives brought forward a motion, and that motion is in keeping with their slogans. I will give them that much. Darn, they are good at slogans. They have slogans; they have bumper stickers. They are ready and itching to get them out there. The problem is that everything is based on a foundation of sand. At the end of the day, there is nothing to it but slogans and bumper stickers, which are supported by misinformation.

One of the examples I could give is related to what Conservative members have been talking a lot about already today. If someone were to do a Hansard search, how many Conservative members of Parliament would we find who have actually said anything about cutting the carbon rebates? I suspect we would not find any. How many have said, “cut the carbon tax”? I suspect, on average, each one has said it 10 times. Some have said it a couple hundred times, and others have not said it because they have not spoken.

I can suggest to members that, when Conservatives go to Canadians and say that they are going to save Canadians money, as they have said inside the chamber, by cutting the carbon tax, that is not true. More than 80% of the constituents that I represent get a carbon rebate. That rebate amount is more than the carbon tax that they pay. That means that their net income, their disposable income, is increased. That is the reality. Members do not have to believe me. The Parliamentary Budget Officer, who is independent, will tell us that.

Conservatives will spread misinformation because it sounds good. Some provinces do not even have the carbon tax, yet they will go to those provinces and say that they are going to cut the carbon tax, giving a false impression. The other day in debate, there was one member in the Conservative Party who stood up and said that a 34% cost increase on food is a direct result of the carbon tax. What a bunch of garbage. That is absolutely ridiculous. I challenged the member on that statement, and then I challenged a couple of other members on the statement this particular member made. They do not change their opinions on it, even if they are confronted with facts.

They do not change their opinions because they are so focused on that thirst for power. At the end of the day, they are not concerned about what is happening for Canadians, the day-to-day living that Canadians have to put up with, let alone the important issues that the House of Commons deals with on a daily basis.

Today, we were supposed to debate Bill C-71. Bill C-71 is a bill to ensure that individuals who should have never have lost their citizenship will be given their Canadian citizenship. Every political party, except for the Conservatives, supports that legislation. Conservatives do not even want to debate it now. They will not allow it to be debated. They do not want it to go to committee.

Members will say that the Conservatives do not support that one, but they do support Bill C-66. They say that they support it. That bill takes sexual harassment and rape victims who are going through military courts and transfers them into civil courts. Every member of the House of Commons, the Conservatives, the Bloc, New Democrats, Greens and, of course, Liberals, supports that legislation. Members would think that the Conservatives would allow that bill to go to committee, but no. Instead, they want to filibuster. They brought forward another concurrence report.

They say that they are concerned about the economy. Members can take a look at Bill C-33, which we were supposed to be debating last week, to enhance our trading opportunities. What did the Conservative members do? They did not want to debate that either, so they brought in another concurrence report, which prevented the government from being able to debate that legislation.

The members opposite, in criticizing the government today, were talking about issues of crime. They say that this is what they want to talk about. I will remind them of Bill C-63, the online harms act. That is to protect children being extorted, being bullied. The whole issue of exploitation of our young children, we were supposed to debate that last week, but no, the Conservatives said no to that too, and they brought forward a concurrence report. The Conservative Party is going out of its way to prevent any legislation from going to committee.

Prior to getting up, I had a member of one of the opposition parties approach me, asking why we do not just move to orders of the day. I think there was a great deal of effort and thought to move towards orders of the day because then maybe we could get on with actually providing movement on some of this legislation. The problem is that we are a minority government. In a minority government, we cannot go to orders of the day unless we get an opposition party that says it will support the government moving to orders of the day so that we can get rid of the games that the Conservative party has been playing.

Let there be no doubt that, no matter how critical the Conservative Party is, how much of a roadblock the Conservatives want to present or how much of a character assassination that they are after for those in the government, the Prime Minister and the government will continue to be focused on the interests of Canadians in all regions of our country. That is something we will continue to focus on day in and day out. That means that, whether the Conservatives want it or not, we will continue to develop policy ideas that will transform into budgetary measures and legislative measures. There will come a time when Canadians will, in fact, evaluate and take a look at what the Conservative Party has been doing between now and whenever the next election is, and what other political entities have done.

I think there is a sense of responsibility for all of us to be able to accomplish good things for Canadians. That is what I liked about the agreement that was achieved between the Liberals and the New Democrats. I have always been a big fan of the pharmacare plan. I have always been a very strong advocate for a national health care system that supports our provinces, which administer health care. For over 30 years as a parliamentarian, those are the types of issues that have been important for me. As a government, those issues have been important for us.

We were able to get support from the New Democrats to advance a number of wonderful health care initiatives. That is what it means to put people first, putting the constituents of Canada ahead of partisan politics. By doing that, the government has invested $198 billion over 10 years in health care. That is for future generations. We have developed a dental care program. To date, over 700,000 people have had access to it. Members can think of diabetes, or of contraceptives, and how, as a government working with an opposition party, we are, in fact, making a difference. In fact, I have suggested that one of the other things we should possibly be looking at is shingles and how pharmacare might be able to deal with that particular issue.

These are the types of ideas that we are talking about within the Liberal Party to build a stronger, healthier health care system, while the Conservative Party wants to tear it down. That is a part of the Conservative far-right hidden agenda. People need to be aware of that. By the time we get to the election, I believe that throughout that election, we will see the Conservative sand fade away. There is no foundation to what they are saying. It is just bumper stickers and slogans. That is all they have. We can contrast that to the many progressive measures we have taken as a government, in good part because of the cooperation of opposition parties.

I ask the Conservatives to stop playing the games, stop bringing in Conservative motions of concurrence and allow debate on government legislation. A responsible Conservative opposition could still bring in the motions it wants, while at least allowing debates to occur on legislation. Allow these important pieces of legislation to go to committee where they can be studied, where they can come back and where they can provide hope for many. That is the very least that Conservatives can do: put Canadians ahead of their own political party.

Agriculture and Agri-Food

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, in the last federal election, a mandate was given to each political party in this chamber, not just the governing party. Members of the official opposition have a responsibility to Canadians too, not only to their leader and the far right of this country, and they are not living up to that responsibility. Why? Because of their thirst for power and nothing else. I say shame on them for that attitude.

There has been other legislation, even legislation they support. I am thinking of Bill C-66 last week, when the Conservatives brought in a concurrence motion to prevent debate on that legislation. That is not to say the food issue is not important. We know it is. That is why we have taken legislative and budgetary action to support Canadians, all of which the Conservative Party has voted against and filibustered. Imagine the hypocrisy from the other side when they try to say they have the interests of farmers in mind. Any objective person can see through the misinformation that is constantly spewed from the Conservative Party, the Conservative-Reform party. It is never-ending.

We can take a look at it. Conservatives talk about grocery prices and lobbyists. Need I remind them of Jenni Byrne's name? Of course not, because the Conservatives know her well. She sits in a part of their caucus. She is someone who had a very close relationship with their current leader when he was in a former government. She was a lobbyist and an adviser to Harper. Why is that important? Because she is a lobbyist to her firm for the grocery—

Public Accounts

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I thought I would take this opportunity to highlight a few points that are absolutely relevant to the type of debate we are having here today and why we are having a debate on an issue that the Conservatives actually selected.

First and foremost, the issue of homelessness is one with which the government of the day has been seized for a good period of time now. As strong as the will is from the Prime Minister, cabinet and my colleagues as a collective to push this file forward, one of the things that we need to recognize is that the federal government cannot do it alone. It requires a high sense of co-operation from a wide spectrum of stakeholders. This is not a new issue to us, but apparently it is a relatively new issue to the Conservative Party of Canada.

The question I asked the member for Perth—Wellington was, in all sincerity, about why the Conservatives have chosen to raise this issue today, given that they have not demonstrated any interest in the subject matter itself. I asked the member to give one example of something that the leader of the Conservative Party had done when he was minister of housing. When we talk about the housing issues, Canadians and individuals following this debate, whether today, yesterday or going into the next election, need to know that the individual who was an absolute disaster on the housing file is today's leader of the Conservative Party.

I posed a question to the member for Perth—Wellington, who, no doubt, would have done his homework in presenting the motion that he presented today, asking him to give me one example of what the leader of the Conservative Party did when he was the minister of housing to deal with the issue of homelessness. What did he say? He said that taxes were low. That was the response about the minister of housing responsible for the development of any form of national housing, including dealing with the issue of homelessness.

The member could have given another example because, in fairness, the former minister did actually build six houses when he was the minister of housing. I know it is not an impressive number. There might have been some that was left over from a previous minister. I do not know for sure. However, I do know that, on the issue of housing and homelessness, the leader of the Conservative Party was found wanting, and that is to put it nicely and in parliamentary language.

Today, the member for Perth—Wellington has been instructed by the leader's office to continue to filibuster. The member for Perth—Wellington has been the one chosen to bring forward this report, for which there was a 20-page response from the minister dealing with the report that provides all sorts of details. However, the Conservative Party, in its hunger for power, in its thirst to do nothing but focus on trying to gain power and ignore the needs of Canadians, has decided once again to use a particular issue to justify filibustering to prevent legislation from passing in the House of Commons.

This is our first week back. We just had summer. We all met with constituents. What do our constituents want? They want members of Parliament to be working together to receive good, tangible results for Canadians. They know it is a minority government, but there is an expectation that the official opposition will at least have some interest in taking actions that would also support Canadians.

On Monday, we talked about the Citizenship Act. There are people in Canada who should be Canadian citizens. We thought this was non-controversial legislation until the Conservatives started debate on it. They made it clear they are not going to support it, and then they brought in a concurrence motion to prevent that debate from taking place. What happened the following day, on Tuesday? The Conservative Party brought forward motions to prevent debate, just like they did again yesterday.

The example from yesterday is really good. The Conservative Party supports Bill C-66 for military court reform. In essence, it is for women who have been harassed or raped within the military. As opposed to going through a military court, they would go through a civilian court. That is the essence of it. Everyone in the House supports it. We all do, but the Conservatives brought in yet another motion of concurrence. That one, by the way, deals with housing. We have actually had that debate. We will see a lot of repetition of that today, but that is the concurrence report that they brought forward, even on a day when we were debating legislation that every member of the House of Commons supports.

In fact, late yesterday, when we were able to get onto the legislation, the Minister of National Defence, who was present and listening to the debate, at the conclusion of it, asked if there would be unanimous consent to let the legislation go to committee, but no. The Conservatives said no to that.

That is what today's debate is about—

Military Justice System Modernization Act

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, given that all members in the House have spoken in favour of the legislation before us, would there be unanimous consent to allow Bill C-66 to be sent to committee?

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Madam Speaker, in my previous role, I had the great privilege of sitting on the national defence committee, and I dealt with a great many issues related to our Canadian Armed Forces, from housing to procurement, access to medical care and supports, recruitment retention and closing the commitment capability gap. I was honoured to get a near first-hand account of many of the issues the DND and the CAF were facing every single day.

While these are all incredibly important issues, they desperately need the immediate and full attention of the government. There was one in particular that stuck with me, an issue that my colleague on the status of women committee has seen and studied far too often: violence against women.

In this session alone, the committee has studied violence against indigenous women in the context of resource development and inter-partner violence, and we are currently in the middle of a study on coercive behaviour. In fact, in the last Parliament, I studied the very issue that led to today's legislation, which is sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Having sat on these two committees at length, so far the intersection of national defence and violence against women is an issue that I, along with my colleagues, am acutely aware of and uniquely positioned to speak to. Sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces is particularly close to my heart, as I have the honour of representing the brave woman who first brought the issue into the public sphere 26 long years ago by appearing on the front cover of Maclean's magazine.

Dawn McIlmoyle appeared with the words “Rape in the military” emblazoned on the front page beside her photo. I honestly believe that the discourse we are having at several committees at the highest level in the Canadian political process would not be happening today if it were not for individuals such as Dawn, as well as the litany of other survivors who have courageously chosen to come forward with their stories.

To each and every single one of them, I am so sorry that their government has failed them time and time again, but now we thank them for bravely sharing their experiences with us. We as legislators need to hear it. We as legislators need to act on it. There is so much we need to do.

While Bill C-66 is a start that I look forward to perhaps studying in that committee, if they will have me, it is a very limited start, and there is a Herculean amount of legislative and cultural changes in the CAF, particularly in leadership, that need to happen to properly address this crisis. On this last point, I want to make something very clear. It will take years to change this culture.

I have had the pleasure of speaking with General Eyre on many occasions, as well as many other members of the CAF, from flag officers to privates, and I have received nothing but the utmost assurances that they are taking the issue very seriously. I have never doubted any of them for a second, but all of us sitting in this room are not fools. They are not going to allow a CAF member who could be a liability to the matter to speak to someone sitting on the national defence committee. This is why the entire public relations branch exists.

I trust the new chief of the defence staff, General Carignan, will take this matter extremely seriously. It is up to us to ensure that she and her team, as well as the Department of National Defence, have the tools at their disposal to get the job done.

I would like to highlight exactly what I mean when I say Bill C-66 is limited in scope. I think the best way to do this is to read into the record the testimony that someone far more knowledgeable on this matter than I had to say on April 17 of this year at the national defence committee.

On that day, Patrick White, a witness who came forward to committee, shared his own sexual harassment story within the CAF as it related to access to information, a key point of contention in properly addressing misconduct in the armed forces. He spoke of the grievance process, the very method through which this entire process starts. It is massively flawed. One of his many salient points is as follows:

The grievance system, as it stands, requires individuals like me and others to spend our limited part-time, our free time, to fight a system that is paid and employed full-time to fight back. That's the challenge I have. I am not an expert on military regulation, military law, etc., but they have access to all of those resources. They also have access to legal advice on those issues. Members don't. What annoys me more than anything is when senior members who have never been affected in the way some of us have flippantly say, “If you don't like it, grieve it,” knowing full well that they've never had to go through those processes, or maybe they did in a minor way and had success.

Unfortunately, Bill C-66 would not amend the grievance section of the National Defence Act in any way, shape or form. It addresses a very specific element of a crisis that is caked in generations of institutional rot, flippant indifference and outright arrogance in the Canadian Armed Forces, National Defence and Parliament. In that same committee meeting was Gary Walbourne, a former national defence ombudsman. He actually had to go to war with the government, so to speak, to get the information he needed to do his job. He said this:

We're talking about people who have been put in positions of authority. There are guidelines on what they're supposed to do. They're well written.... However, it is funny that the farther you get up the ladder, the thinner the air gets—I'm sure that's what happens—and the blood rushes to their heads or their egos.

We have a system in place.... It's circumvented by people in the system.

How do we change the culture? I'll go back to this again: We have to start rewarding proper behaviour and punishing bad behaviour. Why do we promote people when they do the wrong thing? Others come forward and offer themselves up, saying, “Listen, guys, this is what's going wrong. Can we get a little help here?” These people are turned on.

You absolutely have a fundamental flaw here, but it's not with your policies. Your policies need updating, sure they do, and you need to adjust a few, add a few things to them and bring in a few more nuances and codicils there, but what we have to get at is the behaviour of the people currently sitting in the seats.

Mr. Walbourne is extremely clear: We do not have a policy problem; we have a people problem. We cannot fix our policy problem if we do not fix the people problem. Any framework set up by any legislation will just fall victim to the same institutional cancer. Every single policy framework in DND and CAF related to justice for victims and survivors has fallen victim to it since women first entered our armed forces, and, quite frankly, this cancer festered for decades beforehand.

Again, to quote committee witness Patrick White:

If I could leave the committee with one final point to think about, it's that if you really want to get to culture change and solve these issues, you need to look at every single aspect of the system and understand how it feeds back in. That includes the honours and recognition system, the promotion system, the grievance system and the military police system—all of it—but with a central view of what the effect would be on these sorts of things that we get to.

Correcting the colossal problem starts with us. It comes through our willingness to, first, actually address the change and, second, strengthen, entrench and enforce legislation and policy that holds public officials accountable, including people in the Canadian Armed Forces, public servants and us, as legislators. While Bill C-66 does address some very specific issues in the CAF, there is still no single 35-page bill that will solve a crisis that was 50 years in the making. Bill C-66 needs to be the first of a suite of legislation brought forward in this place to fix this crisis in the CAF, and it needs to continue past the Liberal government, whenever that may be, into the next, whatever it may be. It also needs continued support from all parties involved. Without that willingness to move forward, men, women and marginalized Canadians will continue to be victimized, not only in our armed forces but also in our public service and society at large.

I would like to end by addressing the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces, both current and former.

To those who are victims, to those who are survivors, we have failed them. We know we have, but change is coming because of what they have told us. The vast majority of armed forces members recognize there is a problem, but they feel helpless because of a broken system that punishes speaking out or drawing attention to inappropriate behaviour. To them, I say to stay strong. I am not here to admonish them.

Finally, to those who are a part of this problem, they are complicit. This goes for everyone from the new recruit right up to the flag officer, those who think they are entitled to another person's agency because “that is just how it goes here” and those who continuously look away because they believe the individual is a really good guy. If what I have said today upsets them, good. I want them to be upset. I want them to lie awake every night and worry that the system that has enabled and protected their behaviour for generations will collapse and expose them for what they are. They have no place in the Canadian Armed Forces, and they never have.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague rambled a bit at times, but he kept coming back to the subject at hand, which is Bill C-66. That is better than nothing.

I would like to draw his attention to one aspect. I understand that the Conservatives are prepared to support the bill so that it can at least go to committee. That is more or less our position as well. We will take a closer look and see how we can work together to improve it.

In the current version of the act, subsection 18.5(4) states that, “[t]he Provost Marshal shall ensure that instructions and guidelines...are available to the public.” Apparently, that is no longer included in this bill.

Does my colleague agree that this opens the door to potential abuses?

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to speak in the House.

I am going to split my time with the member for Hastings—Lennox and Addington.

I support Bill C-66. I support the principle of the bill. This is a legislative change that is needed to implement a recommendation that was made to the previous government in March 2015, which was only a few months before the House rose in 2015. The present government was elected in the election that followed. This government came into office with the Deschamps report freshly in hand, and did absolutely nothing to make this legislative change happen until this year. Last March, six months ago, the Liberals tabled the bill before us, and here we are this week, finally attempting to make the legislative change needed to implement this important recommendation.

The approach on this legislative change for moving the investigation and prosecution of sexual misconduct from military justice to civilian justice is exactly the same approach as everything else that this government does when it comes to the Canadian Armed Forces. Just like everything else, we see delay in the implementation.

We have, right now, ships resting out at sea. We also have fighter jets that have still not been delivered, which is another thing that, nine years ago, the Liberals could have made a decision on. We would have the fighter jets by now, but after years and years of delay, we do not have them.

We are lucky to have one submarine in the water for maybe a few dozen days of the year. The submarines we have were cast-offs from the British navy from decades ago. This government has been in power for nine years and has done nothing to procure new submarines. Yes, the government has the word “submarines” in its defence policy update, but that is not the same as actually taking concrete actions to procure and build submarines, and have submarines delivered. We also had testimony at the defence committee about the incredibly small number of tanks that are available, even for training, never mind deployment.

On offshore patrol aircraft, the government recently, finally, signed a contract to replace the 40-year-old aircraft that are very close to the end of their operational lives. Also, we do not possess air defence systems. The previous minister of defence did announce, and accepted extraordinary credit for promising, an air defence system to be sent to Ukraine almost two years ago now. It was actually announced to a television audience that it was en route to Ukraine. However, we subsequently learned that not only was it not en route to Ukraine, but there was not even a contract signed to procure it. In fact, it has not even been produced. This is, again, the culture of delay and neglect of this government.

We hear at defence committee that information technology lacking. As well, base housing is in deplorable condition with houses falling apart and a 7,000-unit backlog for people wanting to access base housing. The barracks are in horrific, unsanitary conditions. Health care is also lacking for military families.

New transport and refuelling aircraft are beginning to be procured without a hangar to place them or even a commitment for where they will be based. Howitzers and artillery pieces are entirely lacking, as well as shells. This government let a production line mothball in the threat environment that was emerging, and now Canada and its allies desperately need artillery shells. We do not have the production. The Liberals have, for a year and a half, been dithering without firm contracts to industry or being able to send a firm enough signal to industry for industry to make the investments necessary to get our production lines up and running for artillery shells, and 2,500 a month is nothing. It is less than the Ukrainian army would fire before lunchtime on a given day, if they had the equipment ready.

That is the nature of contemporary threats that we have. Artillery matters. If the present conflicts in the world have taught us anything, it is that these equipment pieces and their ammunition supplies are critical.

With respect to training, 10,000 members of the Canadian Armed Forces do not have adequate training to be deployed. These men and women want to be trained. They want to be up to deployable levels. They want to do missions. Ten thousand members are under-trained and there are 16,000 vacancies. Even the defence committee chair, earlier in this debate, talked about the inability of the Canadian Armed Forces to adequately take in people. Thousands of people are applying to join the forces, and it does not have the capacity to take people in. There are 16,000 vacant positions in the Canadian Armed Forces.

This bill is addressing the well-known and well-documented problem with sexual misconduct in the military, which is a factor in recruitment and retention and certainly a factor in morale. I travelled this past summer to Latvia with the defence committee, where I met some of our troops who are deployed on a critically important mission. These people are the best. I met a 19-year-old private who has more responsibility than I can imagine any young person being given. This very young man was responsible for training and for helping allied soldiers improve and get up to the best of their ability to execute their roles in Latvia. He is a 19-year-old man from northern British Columbia. I met a young lieutenant. She was a platoon commander there. Again, she was a very young woman with extraordinary responsibility for the defence of allied territory. These people are the best and they deserve protection. They deserve access to justice when sexual misconduct happens.

We have talked a lot about culture and culture change in the military. Part of the culture change that needs to happen is overcoming the culture of secrecy, the culture of cover-up. That culture has permeated to the very top levels. We saw the former minister of defence covering up the sexual misconduct of the former chief of the defence staff. We have seen this type of behaviour at the highest levels. We have heard testimony at the defence committee from victims of sexual assault who say that they cannot access justice; not just because of the issue around the lack of access to civilian systems, which this bill would ultimately change, but the inability to get information that they need to file a complaint. The reflexive secrecy around even members of the Canadian Armed Forces accessing their own information is a big part of the problem, and this bill would not fix that, so there is a long way to go in ensuring justice for members of the Canadian Armed Force who are victims of sexual misconduct.

As has been pointed out in this debate as well, it is not like civilian access to justice for sexual assault victims is assured, and far from it. We have seen under the current government an erosion of effective law enforcement and justice for victims. We see crime levels that we have not seen in decades. We have seen an acceleration of crime. We have seen a lack of urgency in appointing judges so that assault victims can access justice and this bill would not change that. Yes, this bill is important. Yes, it should go to committee. However, it should not skip any of the legislative steps.

We need a robust committee study on this. We need to make sure we get it right, that all the victims are heard from and the details of this bill are correct.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth]

Madam Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to explain why I heartily support Bill C-66, the military justice system modernization act. The legislation now before us aims to advance culture change within the Canadian Armed Forces, the CAF, and the Department of National Defence, or DND. In particular, the legislation aims to foster a culture free from sexual misconduct, sexual abuse and misogyny, all of which are forms of gender-based violence.

Bill C-66 envisions a safe work environment for all CAF and DND employees, with supports for victims and survivors of sexual misconduct, including ready access to mechanisms of justice that are currently available to all other Canadians. The vision of Bill C-66 is aligned with “It's Time: Canada's Strategy to Prevent and Address Gender-Based Violence” and the “National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence”, which guide the Government of Canada in preventing and addressing gender-based violence.

Through my work as parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth, I have travelled the country and heard from survivors about the work that still needs to be done to ensure women veterans are heard and are represented and visible in this strategy. The whole of government must address the issue of gender-based violence, not only through the national action plan to end gender-based violence but through all departments. This is why Bill C-66 is so important. All federal departments must be part of the strategy.

In recent years, Canadians have come to understand the gravity of sexual misconduct and the effect it has on victims, survivors and their families, and on our wider society. The #MeToo movement inspired thousands of victims and survivors to tell their stories, often for the first time, and we started to see some real change.

Women were not allowed to serve in combat roles in the Canadian military until a Human Rights Tribunal decision in 1989. That was the year Heather R. Erxleben became the first woman to join an infantry unit. I have learned that at the time there was little thought or effort to accommodate the needs of women who joined the armed forces, like properly fitted uniforms and safety equipment, and an appropriate military culture.

Recently, as part of my role on the Standing Committee for Veterans Affairs, I participated in a study that led to the report “Invisible No More. The Experiences of Canadian Women Veterans”. I am going to share some of the things we heard at that committee, but I want to start with a warning, because these are stories of sexual violence. They are difficult to hear, and I imagine some of the people watching will want a moment to turn away. They might be triggered by what I am about to share.

One witness told us:

I was drugged, kidnapped and gang-raped while attending mandatory training. The last thing I remember is dozing off in class after our lunch break in the cafeteria, and waking in complete fear in an unknown location, with motel staff waking me. I was completely naked, with no identification, covered in blood and bruises, and I couldn't walk. While the military government covered up a crime, the criminals climbed the ranks.

Another witness said:

I have seen it over and over again. I have seen, on basic training, warrant officers sleeping with cadets and using it as a tool to get sex—convincing a cadet that, if they do this, they'll pass basic training....

Sexual abuse was used as a way of almost controlling...women. I spent a year, at one time, in my career as a commander hiding from senior officers. I mean that literally.

Another veteran said:

How do I tell you what it's like to be in the middle of the ocean, with no land in sight for days, or in the Gulf of Oman, or off the coast of Panama, or even 12 nautical miles off the coast of Vancouver Island, and be told that if there was an “accident”, no one would hear my screams, or sailing with people who would grab my body, manipulate me, brainwash me and use me as a sex toy?

The final quote I will share is this:

From the beginning and throughout my career of 26 years, I was subjected to misconduct by men. In the beginning, it was to make me give up, but later on it was to appropriate my body—from verbal harassment to touching to forced kissing by superiors. It was also the invasion of my private life as a way to force me to accept the unacceptable. However, I consider myself lucky: I am not one of those who was raped.

Canadians are now more aware than ever that acts of sexual misconduct have occurred far too often and been tolerated far too readily, and that the impacts are deep, powerful and persistent. Bill C-66 is a step toward ensuring the goal that all CAF members are respected and safe while they serve. Canadians have also heard about policies and practices, formal and informal, that help create a culture of secrecy and tolerance and make perpetrators feel like they can get away with their actions without any consequences.

By eliminating some of these policies and practices, Bill C-66 would put an end to this sense of impunity and help CAF and DND establish and maintain more trauma-informed, progressive, respectful and positive organizational cultures.

The effective elements of Bill C-66 are rooted in studies led by two of Canada's former Supreme Court justices. The Hon. Morris Fish completed the third independent review of the National Defence Act three years ago, and the Hon. Louise Arbour published the independent external comprehensive review of DND and CAF two years ago. Both of these landmark documents come with recommendations for improving organizational culture, particularly when it comes to sexual misconduct.

One of the most effective recommendations can only be adopted through legislative change, and it is recommendation 5 from the hon. Louise Arbour. It calls for a complete overhaul of the way that sexual offences listed in the Criminal Code and involving CAF personnel are investigated and prosecuted. For sexual offences committed in Canada, Bill C-66 would assign exclusive jurisdiction to civilian authorities. This change would put a much-needed distance between the chain of command and the team of investigators and prosecutors. For victims and survivors, the current lack of distance makes it very difficult for them to pursue and achieve justice.

Bill C-66 would also implement several recommendations made by former Supreme Court justice Fish, making it easier to hold offenders to account. Furthermore, Bill C-66 proposes a series of amendments to other legislation to ensure that the military justice system remains constitutional and aligns with the Criminal Code and the civilian criminal justice system. Bill C-66 is just one important element of the government's larger strategy to advance culture change within the CAF and DND.

A few months ago, the third report of the external monitor documented recent progress made toward implementing Justice Arbour's 48 recommendations, including the following: transforming the complaint system, including grievances; making improvements to enrolment and recruitment processes; creating the Canadian military college review board; doing a comprehensive review of basic training in the CAF and creating a framework to enhance education related to conduct and culture; making a 10-year plan to identify promising candidates among women and other equity-deserving groups; and creating a stronger promotion process for senior leaders to better assess character, talent and competence. Each of these accomplishments is important. The external monitor's report notes that the CAF's commitment to change seems genuine.

As my hon. colleagues recognize, systemic change often lags behind social change, and this description certainly seems apt when it comes to sexual misconduct within CAF and DND. The justice report suggests that, for a long time, DND and CAF have failed to properly investigate allegations, prosecute legitimate offences or hold perpetrators accountable. Abhorrent behaviour has been tolerated for far too long, and the confidence and trust that Canadians once had in the CAF and DND has diminished as a result.

Canadians are no longer willing to look the other way. They expect organizations to prevent and address sexual misconduct and misogyny and for elected representatives to do their part. The legislation before us would help foster culture change and ensure a more trauma-informed and safer work environment for our CAF and DND members. It would ensure accountability and support victims and survivors by providing them with the mechanisms they need to pursue justice and hold offenders to account.

I encourage all of my hon. colleagues to join me and support Bill C-66.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-66, An Act to amend the National Defence Act and other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Small Business and to the Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario]

Madam Speaker, the Minister of National Defence has made it clear that he is committed to ensuring that the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces are workplaces where all members, military and civilian, feel supported, respected and included. While much has been accomplished toward this goal, there is still more to do.

Bill C-66 is another critical step toward lasting institutional reform, as well as toward strengthening trust and confidence in the military justice system. It is the next step in the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces' efforts to implement recommendations from the independent external comprehensive review and the third independent review of the National Defence Act.

Apart from the recommendations addressed in Bill C-66, the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces have also made progress on recommendations from the minister's advisory panel on systemic racism and discrimination report and the national apology advisory committee report.

Overall, these four reviews have helped define how DND and CAF are undertaking changes to the military justice system and culture change. That is why today I would like to provide the House with an overview of these independent external reviews and the progress the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces have made to implement their recommendations to date.

I will begin with the independent external comprehensive review, also known as the IECR. This review was launched in April 2021 and led by former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour to examine harassment and sexual misconduct in National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces, as well as policies, procedures, programs, practices and culture, including the military justice system.

I apologize; I should have mentioned at the outset that I need to split my time with the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain.

The final report was made public on May 30, 2022, and the minister at the time welcomed all 48 recommendations. When the final report was received, there were 17 recommendations for which implementation could actually be undertaken immediately. These included, but were not limited to, the implementation of recommendation 48, appointing an external monitor to oversee the implementation efforts of the IECR's recommendations.

The minister at the time appointed Madame Jocelyne Therrien as the external monitor, who provides monthly progress reports to the minister on the implementation of the IECR's recommendation. She also provides biannual progress reports that are made available publicly.

The minister also announced the implementation of recommendations 7 and 9, changes to the military grievance and harassment process, in August 2023. With the implementation of these recommendations, any CAF member who has experienced sexual harassment can now choose to direct their complaint directly to the Canadian Human Rights Commission without first exhausting the internal grievance and harassment process.

More recently, in June 2024, the minister announced that in response to recommendations 1 and 2, the CAF had issued interim policy guidance to abolish the definition of sexual misconduct for its policies and to include sexual assault as the stand-alone definition, referring to the Criminal Code as the applicable law.

In response to these recommendations, the term “sexual misconduct” has been replaced with three new terms: “conduct deficiencies of a sexual nature”, “harassment of a sexual nature” and “crimes of a sexual nature”. Sexual assault is also included as a distinct definition in relevant policies. These changes will provide better coherence and clarity, reduce confusion and better capture the range of inappropriate conduct.

The minister also announced the repeal of the duty to report regulations in response to recommendation 11. Madame Arbour found that these regulations, while well intended, took away the agency and control of survivors in the reporting process, potentially leading to the revictimization of those they were meant to protect.

The repeal of the duty to report came into effect on June 30, 2024. As we see with Bill C-66, the department is seeking to remove the CAF's investigative and prosecutorial jurisdiction over the Criminal Code sexual offences committed in Canada, which would address a part of recommendation 5 of the IECR. Since December 2021, all new Criminal Code sexual offence charges are now being laid at the civilian justice system and no new sexual offence charges are being adjudicated in the military justice system. Bill C-66 would also address recommendations from the third independent review of the National Defence Act.

In November 2020, the hon. Justice Fish was appointed to conduct an independent review of specified provisions of the National Defence Act and their operation. In June 2021, the minister tabled the report before Parliament. Justice Fish provided the minister with 107 wide-ranging recommendations that support the ongoing modernization of the military justice system, military policing, military police oversight and the grievance process. This is the most comprehensive independent review and far-reaching examination of the military justice system since the reviews led by former chief justice of Canada Brian Dickson in the late 1990s.

Bill C-66 would address eight recommendations from the review. The amendments would seek to, among other things, modify the process for the appointment of the Canadian Forces provost marshal, the director of military prosecutions and the director of defence counsel services. They would also expand the class of persons who are eligible to be appointed as a military judge to include non-commissioned members, and change the title of the Canadian Forces provost marshal to the provost marshal general, to align with the titles of other senior designations in the CAF. The amendments would seek to strengthen trust in the military justice authorities operating independently from the chain of command and to bolster the trust and confidence of Canadians in the military justice system.

DND and CAF are also building on previous external and internal reports and recommendations focused on racism and discrimination. The minister's advisory panel on systemic racism and discrimination was created to identify ways of eliminating racism, prejudice, discrimination and gender bias within the military. Through the report, DND and the CAF have established the director of anti-racism implementation, formerly the anti-racism secretariat, under chief professional conduct and culture to inform and focus our institutional efforts to address racism and discrimination. We are also collaborating with other government departments in the development of Canada's anti-racism strategy and expanding the availability of anti-racism resources.

There are many intersections between this report and the national apology advisory committee report, which included eight recommendations for the Government of Canada. These included an apology for the treatment of the No. 2 Construction Battalion, the largest all-Black military unit in Canada's history. The government made this historic apology in July 2022.

The Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces maintain an unwavering commitment to implementing the recommendations of former Supreme Court justices Arbour and Fish, as well as the recommendations from the minister's advisory panel on systemic racism and discrimination and the national apology advisory committee. The legislative changes proposed in Bill C-66 would play a critical role in helping us implement some of the recommendations from former justices Arbour and Fish and help rebuild trust in the military justice system.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise to speak in the House.

On behalf of the wonderful people of Calgary Midnapore, whom I continue to be so proud to represent, I am here today speaking to Bill C-66.

I will start by saying that as a Conservative and as a woman here in the House of Commons, I believe and Conservatives believe we need to continue to address sexual misconduct, discrimination, racism and other forms of harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces, because all military members deserve a safe and respectful workplace. I believe this as the shadow minister for the Treasury Board as well. I will also say, with a lot of pride, that Conservatives are proud of and support all of our men and women in uniform who serve Canada. Let us give a round of applause in the House of Commons right now for all the men and women who serve Canada.

The principle of this bill is to be respected and appreciated. However, we need to really consider two major factors when we consider Bill C-66. Number one is the results we have seen from the Liberal government so far. Is its money where its mouth is? Second is what is really important in our military and what is really going on with our armed forces at this time.

The Liberal government has had several reports it could have acted on, but instead, here we are in the last year of a parliamentary session for the current government and only now is it taking action. These reports include the 2015 Deschamps report; the 2018 Auditor General report on inappropriate sexual behaviour in the Canadian Armed Forces; the 2021 Justice Fish report; the 2021 DND-CAF ombudsman report on sexual misconduct; and the 2021 “Eliminating Sexual Misconduct Within the Canadian Armed Forces” report from the status of women committee, which my colleague the member for Sarnia—Lambton alluded to in her question to the previous Liberal speaker. There also would have been a report by the Standing Committee on National Defence, but the government instead chose to filibuster and keep the committee in the same meeting for three months and then prorogue Parliament for the Prime Minister's impromptu election. Instead of taking action, the Liberals asked for another report by another former justice and got the 2022 Arbour report.

Meanwhile, according to Statistics Canada, since 2015, total sexual assaults at all three levels were up 74.83% and increased 71% last year alone.

My point is that the current government has had the opportunity through several reports to take action and it has deferred taking action. Most insulting, which my colleague referred to, is how the government handled the sexual misconduct cases in 2021. For over six months, the Prime Minister and the then defence minister, now Minister of Emergency Preparedness, continually covered up information on sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces. We are not surprised on this side of the House to see that these concerns, pleas and issues of great importance would only be spoken to, be given platitudes, with no real action taken.

The Liberals then went to great lengths to block investigations and hide the truth from Canadians. Again, this is not only with regard to harm within the Canadian Armed Forces. As a result of soft-on-crime bills, like Bill C-75 and Bill C-5, Statistics Canada data since 2015 states that total sexual violations against children are up 118.85%, forcible confinement and kidnapping is up 10.63%, indecent harassing communications are up 86.41%, incidents of non-consensual distribution of intimate images are up 801.17% and trafficking in persons is up 83.68%. This is what we are seeing as a result of the inaction of the current government.

The Liberals put forward bills like Bill C-66, but they have done nothing. All of their previous platitudes and grandstanding were fake efforts to make real change, not only within Canadian society but within the Canadian Armed Forces. The annual number of reported incidents of sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces was 256 in 2018-19; it went up to 356 in 2019-20, to 431 in 2020-21, to 444 in 2021-22, and was 443 in 2022-23.

The Liberals talk a lot about things they want to do, reports they are doing and announcements they make, but the results speak for themselves. Nothing has changed. Nothing has improved in the Canadian Armed Forces. Our first point is that we are not seeing the results for the Liberals' efforts, because frankly, the Liberals are not doing anything.

The second is that we need to admit to the serious status of our Canadian Armed Forces, and after nine years of the Liberal government, our military is in a state of disrepair. The government has failed our Canadian Armed Forces and the men and women who serve. Our troops are hurting at home and abroad. They have been sent overseas and forced to pay for their own meals and buy their own equipment. Military families are turning to charity because they cannot afford the basic necessities.

In 2017, the Prime Minister promised to invest more in our forces, but has instead let $10 billion lapse and is now cutting the defence budget by another billion dollars. This cut affects operational spending. This means the situation facing our troops is not getting better. It is getting worse after nine years of Liberal neglect. The Liberals have overspent in every department except our military. They have shown that they do not care about our troops or the Canadian Forces.

This is being noticed internationally. It is being noticed at NATO. It is being noticed by what is historically our greatest neighbour and ally to the south, the United States of America. It is the reason Canada was excluded from AUKUS, the Australia-U.K.-U.S. arrangement, as well as the quadrilateral security dialogue between Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. There are even discussions to exclude Canada from the G7, if members can believe it, as a result of our lack of commitment. We do not put our money where our mouth is.

Then again, this is not a surprise coming from a Prime Minister who told our heroes they are asking for more than we can give. We are not taken seriously abroad as a result of the constant lack of judgment, whether the Prime Minister is praising the Cuban regime or siding with Hamas over Israel and refusing to support the U.S. in moving its embassy to Israel. It is just a constant lack of making the decision to stand with our allies.

As I said on funding, the Prime Minister and the defence minister are cutting $1 billion per year over the next three years and allowed $10 billion to lapse in the defence budget over the last several years. In fact, according to the most recent public accounts, $1.2 billion lapsed in defence spending in 2021 alone.

In conclusion, the Liberals can say that they care, that they are doing these nice things. They have had the opportunity to do much. They have constantly kicked the ball down the field and not done anything. The results speak for themselves. The numbers show that crime and acts of violence have not improved in society with their legislation, nor within the Canadian Armed Forces. Most humiliating is the standing we have lost with our allies around the world, as kicking us out of the G7 is being considered. The numbers and the spending show it.

A Conservative government would commit the spending, stand with our allies and show our men and women in uniform that it supports them. I look forward to doing that along with the member for Carleton.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is talking about a previous government that allegedly did all sorts of great things for military justice reform. His party did nothing. It did nothing at all during the nine years it was in power, and yet my colleague comes here to criticize.

We all agreed that this bill is important. A number of measures have been taken in recent years. Twenty of Ms. Arbour's 48 recommendations have been implemented. We are going to keeping working until 2025 to implement them all.

However, today, we are here to talk about Bill C-66, because recommendation 5 provides for a change to the National Defence Act.

Will my colleague agree to send this bill to committee so it can be studied and moved forward?

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is good to be back after the summer break and have my first speech in the House and represent the good people of Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan. I would like to start off by saying that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Calgary Midnapore.

I am happy to have been given the opportunity today to speak to Bill C-66, a bill to introduce changes to national defence aimed at modernizing the military justice system, and responding to the recommendations made by two former justices of the Supreme Court of Canada. This is the government's long-overdue legislation to try and finally apply recommendations made in numerous reports regarding sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces.

We must continue to address sexual misconduct, discrimination, racism and other forms of harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces because all military members deserve a safe and respectful workplace. The previous Conservative government accepted all recommendations from the Deschamps report to eliminate all forms of sexual harassment from the Canadian Armed Forces. This important report was ignored by the government, and it is disappointing that the Liberal government has failed to act on this important report. Liberals cannot be trusted to stop sexual assault within the Canadian Armed Forces because of their soft-on-crime policies. After nine long years of the Liberal government and two more reports from former Supreme Court justices, victims of military sexual misconduct are still no closer to having their cases dealt with properly.

I support Bill C-66, but let me make this perfectly clear: it needs to be carefully studied at committee to ensure concerns from all stakeholders are taken into consideration and amended appropriately. There are also outstanding concerns about the ability of the civilian judicial system to handle these particular cases, given that the court system and courtrooms are already backlogged due to the Liberals' soft-on-crime policies and repeat offenders getting out of jail on bail and committing more crimes. It is a continual cycle that the Liberal government has created. Its present catch-and-release system is failing the people of Canada and, if implemented in the military, will fail both the military and the people of Canada.

The Liberals have had many reports that they could have already acted on, but instead we are in the last year of a parliamentary session, and only now are they taking any legislative action. The reports that I am speaking of include the 2015 Deschamps report, which I mentioned earlier; the 2018 Auditor General report on inappropriate sexual behaviour in the Canadian Armed Forces; the 2021 Justice Fish report; the 2021 DND Canadian Armed Forces ombudsman report on sexual misconduct; and the 2021 “Eliminating Sexual Misconduct Within the Canadian Armed Forces” report from the status of women committee. There would also have been a report by the Standing Committee on National Defence, but the Liberals instead chose to filibuster and keep the committee in the same meeting for three months, then prorogue Parliament for the Prime Minister's impromptu election in 2021. Instead of taking action, they asked for another report by another former justice and got the 2022 Arbour report.

I will add here that according to Statistics Canada data reported since 2015, disappointingly, total sexual assaults in Canada were up 74.83% and increased an additional 71% last year. These are horrific to hear. These are stats that we do not want to hear but we cannot ignore.

We did our own study in veterans affairs committee on women veterans, and spent a lot of time speaking with survivors of military sexual trauma. This study took the better part of a year. We heard several difficult stories, dating back to when women were first admitted into the Canadian Armed Forces. For me, personally, these were horrific to hear and have left a lasting impression on me that we need to act correctly and do better.

One of the issues we heard about was the Canadian Armed Forces' ability to investigate these claims. Jennifer Smith said in her testimony:

I've spoken about it in Federal Court. I've given this information to many, many high-ranking officials. I've even provided the names of some of my attackers as well as pictures. Again, I've never been offered the opportunity [to file a complaint]. I still don't know what avenue I have to go forward with this. I've been told to write it down on a claim form. I feel that this goes beyond that. This is criminal activity. I know who did it. I know some of the people who did it. I'm just wondering why no one has come to me or reached out to me. I've given the information. I haven't been asked if I want to go forward with that or been presented with some options. That has not happened.

Clearly, there is a need to have civilian courts investigate these cases outside the chain of command of military. Our committee made that recommendation. However, this same recommendation has been made several times before, going back to the Deschamps report of 2015, nearly a decade ago.

Just now, a year away from the next scheduled federal election, the government is finally going forward with legislation on this. It is instances like this that make it so difficult to take the Liberal government seriously, to reconcile horror stories I hear first-hand of pain and suffering and not acting.

On top of that, the Liberal government has spent the last decade pushing our courts to the breaking point. The Liberals' soft-on-crime bills, Bill C-75 and Bill C-5, have led to a skyrocketing crime rate in Canada. Statistics Canada lists total sexual assaults as increasing by 75% since 2015.

The Prime Minister has continuously shown that he does not take the safety and security of Canadians seriously. His Liberal government is watering down serious offences. These offences include date rape, drugs and human trafficking, which is on the rise. They once again prioritize the rights of criminals over the rights of victims. At a time when our courts are overworked and understaffed, this legislation aims to add more cases to their dockets. This is one of the serious issues that needs to be examined in committee.

I want to share that I have seen the military justice system work while I served. Whether it was summary trial, court martial, or dismissal of military personnel, I have seen it work. However, there has to be another level of oversight.

The next Conservative government would rebuild the Canadian Armed Forces by cutting down the bureaucracy and the consultants. We would make sure that the money is going to the Canadian Armed Forces. We would restore the honour and integrity of our military heroes that Canadians can be proud of. Finally, we would reverse the left-wing Liberal woke culture and return the war-fighting capabilities of the brave women and men in the Canadian Armed Forces.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-66, An Act to amend the National Defence Act and other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Business of the House

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Yes, Madam Speaker, by popular demand, I am back. I really missed these exchanges. Some of our great moments are on Thursdays, not just for CPAC viewers, but also for you and me personally, I know. Therefore it is wonderful to exchange and wonderful to be back. I want to wish members a good return. I hope everybody had a productive and happy time with their families and their constituents in their ridings.

This afternoon, we will resume second reading debate of Bill C-66, the military justice system modernization act.

Tomorrow, we will begin the report stage debate of Bill C-33, the strengthening the port system and railway safety in Canada act.

On Monday, we will begin second reading debate of Bill C-63, the online harms act.

Madam Speaker, you will be very happy to know that next Wednesday we will also be resuming second reading debate of Bill C-71, which would amend the Citizenship Act.

I would also like to take the opportunity to inform the House that both next Tuesday and next Thursday shall be allotted days.

Furthermore, on Monday, the Minister of Finance will table a ways and means motion on capital gains taxation that incorporates the feedback received during consultations over the summer. The vote will take place on Wednesday of next week during Government Orders.

Military Justice System Modernization Act

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Madam Speaker, before I begin, I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood.

It is truly an honour to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C‑66 and the important work that our government is doing to modernize the military justice system and the culture of our armed forces.

Members of the Canadian Armed Forces work tirelessly to defend Canadians, our way of life, and this magnificent country that we call home. Military members are deployed around the world to defend Canada's interests and support our international partners and allies. They also help communities across the country in times of natural disasters or other emergencies. As the minister said in his speech, supporting members of the Canadian Armed Forces is one of our top priorities.

The Canadian Armed Forces are the backbone of Canada's defence and we have their backs. For our military members to contribute their best work, it is our responsibility to ensure that they can show up every day as their true and authentic selves.

Our government is fully committed to ensuring that military members continue to have confidence in the military justice system. We are taking deliberate, coordinated action across the defence team to create this change in a sustainable and meaningful way.

The changes proposed in Bill C‑66 are designed to reform the military justice system, making it more transparent and more responsive to the needs of our constituents.

However, these crucial institutional changes are only one piece of the puzzle. For decades, the defence team has been grappling with the tough realities and experiences of military members and employees, including those who have been affected by misconduct, harassment and crimes of a sexual nature.

Since 2015, the Minister of National Defence has taken significant steps to prevent this behaviour and find solutions to the problem. One key step was the creation of the sexual misconduct response centre, which became the Sexual Misconduct Support and Resource Centre, an organization that provides support services to those directly and indirectly affected and is not subject to the military chain of command.

The sexual misconduct support and resource centre is available to current and former defence team members, as well as cadets and junior Canadian Rangers aged 16 and older and family members of the wider defence community.

Other efforts put forward at this time were steps in the right direction and laid some important groundwork, but they did not meet the need, nor did they go far enough to achieve enduring change. That is why in 2021, the department launched the chief professional conduct and culture, or CPCC, to redouble its efforts to create this lasting change.

The CPCC is the single functional authority for professional conduct and culture at National Defence. The CPCC is responsible for developing policy and programs to address systemic faults, enhancing tracking mechanisms for reporting professional misconduct and leading efforts to develop a professional conduct and culture framework that tackles discrimination, harmful behaviours, biases and systemic barriers.

By making this organization the focus of our efforts to change the culture, we ensure that all of our institutions can move forward in a unified and coherent manner. The CPCC has taken the time to listen to defence team members past and present at all levels, so that efforts to change the culture reflect the experiences and suggestions of our members.

The CPCC's work contributed to the publication of “The Canadian Armed Forces Ethos: Trusted to Serve”, which aims to ensure that military members carry out their duties professionally and with respect for the dignity of all persons.

The department's work is closely linked to the CPCC's efforts to respond to the recommendations outlined in four key external review reports related to culture change and the modernization of the military justice system.

The reports are the following: the independent external comprehensive review by Justice Arbour, which focuses mainly on the issue of harassment and sexual misconduct; the third independent review of the National Defence Act by Justice Fish, which includes recommendations for modernizing the military justice system; the report of the Minister of National Defence's advisory panel on systemic racism and discrimination, which aligns closely with the priorities of the Government of Canada; and the report of the national apology advisory committee board, which was developed to provide recommendations about the Government of Canada's apology to the descendants of No. 2 Construction Battalion.

We have already made significant progress on a number of these recommendations. We have taken measures to implement Justice Arbour's recommendation on how we define sexual offences in policies and how we talk about them. We have also repealed the duty to report in order to prioritize trust and safety, as well as the agency of victims, survivors and affected individuals. We also launched the Canadian Military Colleges Review Board, which is tasked with evaluating the quality of education, socialization and training at our two military colleges. Lastly, we published a new digital grievance submission form that allows armed forces members to access services and recourse options more easily, quickly and efficiently.

The department has also developed a plan to prioritize and sequence work across the defence team in a coordinated and collective effort to implement the remaining recommendations from all four reports. When the CPCC consulted with current and former defence team members from across the country, a common theme emerged: the need for the continuing evolution of the military justice system in response to developments in law and society, and the need to maintain trust in the system.

Through Bill C-66, we are introducing reforms to the National Defence Act to address key recommendations from the reports by former Supreme Court justices Arbour and Fish. They include Madam Arbour's fifth recommendation, as well as eight recommendations from Justice Fish's third independent review of the National Defence Act, designed to, among other things, increase confidence in the military justice system and help remove real or perceived influence from the Canadian Armed Forces' chain of command. Most notably, through Bill C-66, Criminal Code sexual offences that take place in Canada would be under the exclusive jurisdiction of civilian authorities.

Through Bill C-66, Criminal Code sexual offences committed in Canada will fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of civil authorities.

Bill C-66 also seeks to modify the process for appointing the director of military prosecutions, the director of defence counsel services and the Canadian Forces provost marshal. It will also expand the class of persons who can be appointed as military judges or non-commissioned members and it will expand the class of persons who can file an interference complaint with the Military Police Complaints Commission. It will enable those acting on behalf of a victim to have access to a victim's liaison officer under the victims bill of rights.

The well-being of the members of our armed forces is one of our top priorities. They work hard to defend us, our country and our partners around the world. It is our responsibility to ensure that they can work in an environment that is free from any kind of discrimination, harassment or misconduct.

Our government is committed to changing the culture within our armed forces so that every member of our defence team can be authentic and feel valued, included and encouraged to give the best that they can in service of Canada every day.

The changes that our government is making to the culture within our armed forces and our military justice system are part of an ongoing process.

In closing, I would like to salute our armed forces.

I thank all our members here in Canada and abroad for their extraordinary service. I really hope the House will find a strong resolution to send the bill to committee.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for London—Fanshawe and add my words to those of the members thanking her for her work. I also worked with her mother, and I would like to thank Irene Mathyssen for consistent leadership on the issue of justice for women who suffered sexual violence in the course of their military service.

Having studied the bill, does the member believe it is possible to make sufficient amendments in clause-by-clause in committee to make Bill C-66 ready for speedy passage?

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Madam Speaker, today is an important day for many survivors. I want to begin by recognizing the women and men who are watching this debate on the bill today. There are generations of survivors of military sexual trauma who will be closely following the debate on the legislation. I have heard from many of them. They told me about how they felt invisible. Some have felt invisible to the institution they committed their lives to in the Canadian Armed Forces. Some have felt invisible to the senior leadership of the military they served. Some have felt invisible to the greater public, who do not know all the complex layers of their experiences. Some have felt invisible to us, the few hundred Canadians with the rare privilege to serve in the House of Commons, who hold a sacred obligation as decision-makers to protect those who protect us.

Every day these survivors are working for change. They build resilience by supporting and holding each other up when the institutions will not. They empower each other and assist with making claims when institutions will not. They organize and demand reforms to politicians when our priorities do not meet them where they are at. They come together to support each other when they choose to make the impossible decision to share and reshare their trauma to the media or to parliamentary committees.

Today is another chapter in their fight. I want to highlight this to the women and men watching, to those brave survivors. This piece of legislation is not the last chapter, but one step in a large list of changes that are needed, and I am with them. We will not stop until there is justice for survivors and until everyone who steps up to serve their country can do so in a safe environment. I want them to know they are not invisible. They are remarkable, and they are not alone.

Today, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-66, the military justice system modernization act, which, among other things, is legislating Justice Arbour's fifth recommendation of the independent external review to remove criminal sexual offences from the military justice system. This will give exclusive jurisdiction to the civilian justice system.

This legislation also works to implement some of the recommendations by Justice Fish's third independent review of the National Defence Act, expanding the eligibility criteria to be appointed as a military judge to allow non-commissioned members to become judges, not just military officers. This legislation removes the minister's power of appointing and removing the director of military prosecutions—

The House resumed from September 18 consideration of the motion that Bill C-66, An Act to amend the National Defence Act and other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to take part in the debate today. I will be splitting my time with the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola.

I find this to be a fascinating debate. We are debating concurrence in a committee report that says that the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities recognizes Canada is in a housing crisis that requires urgent action by the federal government to end homelessness and that this motion be reported to the House. We are talking about it being a crisis that requires urgent action.

It was interesting to hear the exchange between the Liberal member and the NDP earlier. The Liberal member for Winnipeg North in particular was complaining about the fact that we were discussing this today. He consistently complains about these things. He referred to Bill C-66 and made an urgent call for us to get back to that. I know all parties support the bill. It has been before the House for over 180 days. We sat until midnight virtually every night in the spring and the government did not bring the bill forward. We did not have the conversation, so it was not urgent at that point in time. Our shadow minister has signalled that we support this. We recognize that there are some things all parties in the House support, and that bill is one of them. Hopefully it will be a priority for the government and will pass very soon.

I believe this report also passed unanimously, recognizing the crisis situation and the urgent need to have conversations.

The wording and type of language is very familiar. In the Liberal 2015 platform, close to a decade ago, the Liberals said:

We will conduct an inventory of all available federal lands and buildings that could be repurposed, and make some of these lands available at low cost for affordable housing in communities where there is a pressing need.

About a decade ago, and recognizing the similarity in wording, the Liberals promised to make this a priority and recognized that there was a “pressing need”.

Nine years later, in the 2024 budget, the Liberals almost used identical wording. They talked about the federal government conducting a “rapid review” of its entire federal land portfolio to identify more land for housing. That was an active sentence, that the federal government is conducting a rapid review. I guess “rapid”, by the Liberal definition, is nine years for something urgent, and the situation has only become worse.

I found it really interesting to listen to the NDP interventions on this, particularly that of the member for New Westminster—Burnaby, who talked about the current government and how terrible it was, forgetting the fact that up until two weeks ago he was, for all intents and purposes, a part of the Liberal government through the Liberal-NDP coalition. I will note that, as terrible a fiscal situation as we were in in 2021, when the NDP joined the Liberal Party, things only got dramatically worse for Canadians after it joined the then completely incompetent Liberal government. We are sitting in a situation right now where rents, down payments and mortgage payments have doubled. Canadians who have mortgages coming due right now, after five years, are going to, without a corresponding increase in their income and their ability to pay, be paying hundreds of dollars, in some cases over $1,000 more, in their monthly mortgage payments without any increase in their income. The NDP members have supported the situation that has gotten us to this place, this predicament right now, every single step of the way for the last three years.

There has been a lot of talk about the Harper years. I was a part of that government from 2006 to 2015. I had the privilege of serving on the cabinet subcommittee that looked at ways to get the budget back to balance, which we did by 2015.

However, I would go back to the situation in 2014. There was a pretty interesting conversation going on, driven by the New York Times and some international research institutes. They found that in 2014-15, Canada had the richest middle class in the world. I am sure there were challenges for some Canadians, but, by and large, we were in a better fiscal situation than any country in the world. Even people like Hillary Clinton were lamenting this in conversations in some of the articles that were written at the time. Experts from around the world were pointing to Canada as an example of how to deal with a difficult financial situation coming out of the global meltdown. That was in 2014.

Let us fast forward 10 years to 2024. We are no longer the richest middle class in the world. Our middle class is, as a percentage of our population, by all measures, contracting. Regular people, people who never, ever even contemplated the fact that they would need to use a food bank, are now lining up at food banks with their kids in cities across Canada.

Let us look at the situation we are in again, and listen to the NDP talk about the housing crisis and where we are right now relative to the past. This crisis did not exist in the same way in 2015. Let us look at cities across the country. Housing starts in August were down 13%. At this time, when we need to be building houses, housing starts are down 13% across the country.

I would note that in the Liberal member's city of Winnipeg, housing starts are down 16% from August 2023. In B.C., under the provincial NDP government, housing starts are down an astonishing 31%. In Vancouver, which is very close to New Westminster, where the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby is from and represents, housing starts are down 34%. In Toronto, under the leadership of a former NDP member of Parliament, Olivia Chow, housing starts are down 48% over the last year. Those are just astonishing drops in housing starts across the country.

We have a real crisis. I think all parties have recognized that this is a crisis and that we need to deal with it urgently now.

One member of Parliament in the House has been dealing with this issue right from the start. That member of Parliament is our Conservative leader. In 2021, at the start of the pandemic and the explosive additional spending by the Liberal government, which was eventually propped up by the NDP, he brought up the effect of the increase in interest rates over and over again. He was mocked for bringing it up by the finance minister and by the Prime Minister on a regular basis.

A year ago tomorrow, we were talking about a private member's bill that our leader had put forward, a bill that would deal with the housing crisis in an urgent way, in a common-sense way. I will not have time to read all the highlights of that bill, entitled the “Building Homes, Not Bureaucracy Act”. Canadians can look that up on ourcommons.ca. However, I will point out that when we put out this common-sense, good-faith bill to get more houses built in Canada, every non-Conservative member of the House, Liberal members, along with members from the Bloc and NDP, voted against that private member's bill that would have created significant action toward housing over the last year.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate some of the comments the member has put on the record this afternoon. We are now into day two of the fall session. On the first day we were debating the citizenship bill, which I understand a majority of members of Parliament want to see go to committee. In fact, the member's own party had a member stand up for unanimous consent to get it to committee, but it was frustrated in part because of a concurrence motion.

Today, we are interrupting Bill C-66, which deals with sexual assaults and violence in the Canadian military, and with an option. All political parties support that legislation, and yet instead of having that debate, we are now debating another motion for concurrence. I am wondering if my colleague across the way can provide his thoughts. It is not to take away from the importance of the issues, but, relatively speaking, what about important legislation that does need to proceed at some point?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting day. Again, we have the Conservatives continuing a tradition that they started virtually since they have been in opposition, and that is to prevent legislation of all forms from passing. We have seen that day in and day out. Today, they are really eager about things of this nature, because they have such a thirst or a hunger for power that they put that over the interests of Canadians.

Our government has been there consistently to deal with the issues that Canadians face on a daily basis. We understand and appreciate the concerns, tensions and anxieties in our communities. We are developing public policies, whether they be budgetary or legislative measures, to deal with those real issues.

All I have witnessed, sitting across from the Conservative opposition for many years now, is a party that thinks of nothing else but the political far-right Reform-Conservative party. That is its preoccupation, a hunger for power, nothing more. Today really amplifies that fact. It wants to talk about housing as if it cares about housing for Canadians.

Let us look at the leader of the Conservative Party. What actions did he take when he was the minister responsible for housing. We only need to use two hands to count how many houses the Harper government built while he was the minister of housing. We barely need the second hand. The former minister of housing, today's leader of the Conservative Party, managed to build six homes. What a powerful record. I suspect even those six would have been by accident.

When we think of national housing and addressing the housing needs of Canadians, the leader of the Conservative Party was an absolute disaster. Now he tries to come across as if he is a know-it-all and wants to deal with the housing crisis. Is a part of dealing with the housing crisis to slap the provinces and the municipalities around, as opposed to working with them?

Why would the government, or any member of Parliament, give any credibility to the Conservative Party today, when its leader was an absolute failure in delivering housing policy? In fact, had we had a more competent minister of housing back then, the issues that we face today would not be as great. Virtually no programming was put in place for non-profit housing under the Harper government and the then minister.

Does the leader talk about the homeless? If members search Hansard, they will see how often he talked about homelessness as minister of housing. I have a newsflash: There were homeless Canadians back then. Where was the leader of the Conservative Party when he had the chance to make a difference on this file?

Today is not about Canadians. It is not about addressing the concerns of Canadians. It is more about the Conservatives' hunger for power. They are preventing legislation from passing.

On Monday, we had the Citizenship Act. Instead of debating that legislation, the Conservatives brought in a concurrence motion, even though a majority of the members of the House wanted that legislation to pass. We even had one opposition member try to move for unanimous consent to have it pass through to committee. We are talking about citizenship for individuals who should have their citizenship. It is something that should be non-controversial, but the Conservative Party, during that debate, showed its hand, saying that it opposes the legislation.

I have been very clear that the only way that legislation would pass would be if we were to bring in time allocation to get it into second reading. However, with today's motion, now that the Conservatives want to talk about housing, what are they interrupting? What legislation are they filibustering today? It is Bill C-66. It is about the Canadian forces. The critic for the Conservative Party yesterday was criticizing the government for not passing the legislation fast enough, and today the Conservative Party is filibustering the legislation.

The first word that comes to my mind is “hypocrisy”. How can the Conservative Party, with any credibility whatsoever, try to say that they are concerned about Canadians, when they filibuster important, non-controversial legislation, even the legislation that they support? They do this in order to talk about other issues that Canadians are concerned about, such as housing.

We know Canadians are concerned about housing. We do not know need to be told that by the Conservative Party of Canada. We are aware of it because we are on the ground; we are listening to what Canadians have to say about housing. That is why we have developed a number of housing initiatives.

I can tell the members opposite that housing is not just the federal government's responsibility. The federal government has stepped up to the plate in dealing with housing, unlike any other federal government for generations, the last 50-plus or 60 years. We have a government that is investing in housing and that has had a housing strategy. If we want to talk about dollars, we are talking about something like $51 billion. The impact of those expenditures and that money that is committed has had a very real and tangible impact on Canadians' lives.

An estimated 1.8 million Canadians have directly benefited from this government's commitment to housing. Had the previous government had the type of commitment that we have had to housing, I would argue that the housing issues today would be nowhere near to what they are now if we had had a prior Conservative government actually doing its job on the issue of housing. I do not say that lightly.

I was first elected in 1988, and my first parliamentary responsibilities were being the party whip and housing. I have been following the housing file for over 30 years. I understand the importance of housing. All of us should strive to ensure that everyone has access to housing. Municipalities, provinces in particular, and the federal government all have a role to play, not to mention the non-profit sector.

When I had left the Canadian Forces, one of the first things I did was participate in the West End residents association. They had a very proactive approach to dealing with housing. We established the West End housing co-op. We lobbied the provincial government to build houses in vacant lots and to take down derelict homes and replace them with infill housing. As a community, we were very successful.

At the provincial level, there is a number of things that were actually done to try to enhance things. We should recognize that, back then, there was a population of about 1.15 million people, yet we still had over 20,000 non-profit housing units, all of which were subsidized in good part by the federal government.

These are the types of issues that provinces have to deal with. When we think of municipalities building newer homes, yes, there is a bureaucracy there. There is a process that needs to be followed so municipal planning can be conducted in a way that is good for the economy and the environment. As a federal government, we have recognized all of those aspects of housing, the non-profits, the city, the province and, of course, the federal government.

Late last spring, the Prime Minister was in Winnipeg. I was at that particular announcement, which was out in the Transcona area, and so was the mayor of Winnipeg, as well as the premier of the province. I say that because it amplifies the fact that it is more than one government that has to deal with the housing issue we have today.

As a national government, I would challenge any member, whether they are Conservative, Bloc or New Democrat, to show me a government, a national government, in the last 60 years, that has invested more in housing than the Prime Minister and the government.

That does not mean that our work is done. We understand that the need is high. That is why, as recently as Monday, we had the Minister of Finance taking a look at ways in which we can continue to support first-time homebuyers, how we can use the rules to ensure that they have more opportunities to purchase a home. There are some releases and information on that. If people are curious, they can look into it and get the details.

In virtually every budget, we see the federal government providing programs and incentives. A couple of years ago, we had the one dealing with trying to get more purpose-built apartments being constructed in the country. We have had a huge take-up on that. Thousands of units are going to be built as a direct result of that one federal program.

Members can contrast that to anything that Stephen Harper did. It does beg the question. People say that was eight years ago or nine years ago. We do not build a building overnight. Had the Conservatives done their homework, had they worked with the provinces, the municipalities and some of these non-profit organizations, I believe it would have made a difference. Because we have had some of these programs in place now for a number of years, it has had a positive impact. Recognizing that the need is so great, we continue to invest more.

As Liberals, we understand the importance of homes. I ask members to think of those non-profits. I have had the opportunity to go to a number of key ceremonies, as I suspect many of my colleagues on all political stripes have done. I am a big fan of Habitat for Humanity. Habitat has done so much in providing individuals that never would have gotten, or in all likelihood would have been very challenged in getting, the key to a new home. It has done so much, not only for the family unit but also for the communities in which they are built. I suspect that, when it comes to Habitat, Winnipeg North is probably in the top 10% of communities that have benefited the most because of it.

Habitat for Humanity Manitoba has built homes right from the Point Douglas area, going through the traditional North End into the Shaughnessy Park area, going up into The Maples. From the suburbs to the inner city, it is providing homes for people who otherwise would have been very challenged to be able to acquire one.

There are ways in which we can expand housing opportunities. We have a government that says it wants to see more housing co-ops. Housing co-ops matter. They make a difference. People who live there are not tenants. They are residents. For me, that is something we can and should be encouraging more of. That is why I was pleased that the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance has provided more supports to ensure that we will see more housing co-op developments. We have continued to look at ways we can support different organizations and levels of government to address the issue of housing, which is so very important to Canadians.

What I do not support is the manner through which we are having this debate today. I believe that the Conservatives are preventing important legislation from passing. I am talking about the Canadian Forces bill, Bill C-66, which deals with civilian courts for victims within military ranks. I was a little optimistic yesterday when the Conservative critic stood up and said that the Conservative Party supports the legislation. If it supports the legislation, if it wants to see the legislation pass, it needs to allow the debate to occur. Instead of doing so, Conservative members brought in a motion of this nature to filibuster legislation, even though they agree with it.

Canadians do have an expectation of a minority government. There is an expectation that opposition parties would also contribute in a positive way in dealing with private members' bills and government bills. As an opposition party, it should not have to be shamed into doing the right thing. As I have said before, the Conservative Party's focus is more on character assassinations. Wherever Conservatives can slap on the word “scandal”, or whatever other negative word, so they can post all sorts of false information on social media, that is what they will do.

That is why I say the hunger for power is what is driving the Conservative Party today, and it is a destructive force. It has nothing to do with the concerns of Canadians and their needs, which are what we need to be able to talk about. We need to be looking at and figuring out how we can pass legislation so that the lives of Canadians in all regions of our country will be that much better. As much as the opposition party wants to focus its attention on the negative side of things, the Liberals will continue, as a government, to be focused on Canadians.

As the Prime Minister has clearly indicated time and time again, we will continue to be focused on Canadians and improving their quality of life so that we have an economy that works for all Canadians. We will continue to focus attention on our middle class and those aspiring to be a part of it, to build a stronger and healthier economy and continue to work on the issues of inflation, which is now at 2%. That is equal to inflation prepandemic. We will continue to build that stronger and healthier economy, which we are going to see in the months ahead.

Contrary to what the Conservatives continue to say, coast to coast to coast, Canada is not broken. Canada is the best country in the world to live in and call home. As a government, we are going to strive to make that the case, not only for today, but also for tomorrow.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We're not.

Okay. We'll vote on the motion.

(Motion negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

This brings our meeting to a close.

Thank you very much for blowing a hole in our agenda.

We're scheduled to do a DPU review on Tuesday, and the we have the chief of the defence staff on Thursday, along with representative Singh on the Indo-Pacific. Assuming that Bill C-66 is not referred to the committee by then, at this time next week we'll have to review our agenda and hopefully arrive at some sort of understanding about how to go forward. I may or may not reserve time for a subcommittee meeting around that time.

With that, thank you. The meeting is adjourned.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

No, I have a quick comment on it.

We support the motion, but I just don't know if we can afford six meetings in the time that's left. Our committee has a big workload in front of us. I would suggest, based upon the draft reports that are still to come back and have to be tabled, based upon Bill C-66 coming here, based upon the estimates and everything else we have to deal with, the DPU study as well, which we've started, and the space study, this needs to be punted down the road until we get those wrapped up before we start another study.

This is an issue. This is a concern, especially for those at National Defence who are firefighters and veterans who were exposed. We do need to dive into this.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

The reason we want the minister here for two hours is that we're talking about the priorities of his leadership as the minister. I don't believe having the government officials here reflects the political priorities of the minister and of the government, so it has to be for two hours.

We're going to have the minister here, I'm sure, when we talk about Bill C-66, but that's going to be about the legislation. Our committee will be seized with that bill when we get it. It will take priority according to the procedures and House affairs requirements of Bosc and Gagnon. We need to be seized with it. We're going to have plenty of time to talk about Bill C-66 when we get the legislation from the House.

I would just say that we need the minister here for two hours because we have lots of questions around Ukraine. We have lots of questions about procurement. We have lots of questions around housing. We have lots of questions around recruitment and retention. He's announced the submarines. Why is it taking as long as it has to procure them?

We've also heard that a number of Order Paper questions have been answered and now we're seeing that the over-the-horizon radar has been punted down the road until after 2040, yet in the next year or two, the radar constellation that we have in the north and the North Warning System will be obsolete.

What we need to hear from the minister is how he is going to protect Canada. How is he going to be a reliable ally? How is he addressing the shortfalls in the forces? That takes at least two hours.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

I thank my colleague for bringing this motion to the floor. I think we would agree in principle. My only....

From the debate I heard from all of you, and certainly from Minister Blair.... Yesterday, our Minister of National Defence was very strong in his comments when he did his introduction of the second reading of Bill C-66, saying it is a priority. We need to find ways to collectively...and I think we have, hopefully, consensus to bring Bill C-66 here as early as possible and continue on the path of helping bring forward this legislation and get it to royal assent.

By this token, if Mr. Bezan would be comfortable doing a friendly amendment of “no less than two hours”—remove the “two hours” and put in “one hour, and one hour with officials”—I feel we could let it go.

Military Justice System Modernization Act

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Speaker, the minister may not have asked me a question, but he did raise a point that I failed to mention when I was listing other files that the committee could examine.

With respect to recruitment and retention, yes, 70,000 people applied. The problem is that so many applications remain in the queue for so long because the processing time for new recruits is so problematic that there is no way to make up for the backlog. This is just another example of how much work needs to be done in the armed forces to improve the system. This gives me an opportunity to reiterate that I wish Bill C-66 had passed already, so that we could continue to work on everything that still needs to be done, rather than doing it now, nearly 10 years after the first red flag was raised.

Nevertheless, I will work with the minister and my colleagues on this file, which is critically important, especially for the victims and survivors of sexual misconduct in the armed forces.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Madam Speaker, I would like to extend my very sincere appreciation for the Bloc's support in moving this bill through second reading and to committee. I also want to acknowledge the very thorough analysis of all the points that are in Bill C-66. The member did a very thorough job of articulating the important measures in this bill and the reasons behind them.

It is absolutely important that every single member of our Canadian Armed Forces, men and women, trusts that they will be treated fairly and respectfully. They should not be afraid to come forward. With the appointment of our chief professional conduct and culture in 2021 and our commitment to that position, with some of the very important work that has taken place over the last two years in implementing almost half of Justice Arbour's recommendations and with our clear commitment to doing the rest, I am hoping that we will encourage people to trust that they will be treated properly.

I also want to share that over 70,000 people applied to join the Canadian Armed Forces last year. There is no shortage of Canadians who want to serve their country. We just have to do a better job of getting them into training and deployed in the services. I believe that the introduction of this bill and the work that we will all do together in committee will make a real difference.

I do not have a question, but I look forward to working with all members on passing the bill through committee. I believe very sincerely that the committee has important work to do and can make this bill better.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I too will put an end to the suspense by announcing that the Bloc Québécois intends to vote in favour of the principle of the bill at second reading so that it can be sent to committee.

However, I will reiterate some of the comments I made about the timeline that led to the passage of the bill and the relevance of debating it now.

As has been mentioned, the issue of sexual misconduct in the armed forces was first brought to the forefront in March 2015 by the hon. Justice Deschamps. This took place around the same time as a series of other events that I will come back to a little later. In April 2021, Justice Fish also made some recommendations. In addition, Justice Arbour released a report on the subject in June 2022. When she was asked to look at potential reforms within the armed forces to put an end to certain issues related to misconduct, she replied that this had already been done and studied. However, hardly anything was put in place to bring about the changes recommended by her predecessors.

It was not until March 2024 that Bill C‑66 was finally introduced at first reading. Only now are we debating it at second reading. We know that it is not because the Standing Committee on National Defence has nothing to do right now. We are already working on a number of things. I am a little concerned that other matters no less important than this one could get delayed.

I am not trying to diminish the importance of any particular issue, but we have several files to deal with. We usually give priority to clause-by-clause consideration of bills so that reports can be produced. I am worried that we are going to get bogged down because, for one thing, military procurement is still an issue. Just about every week, the media reports on a new problem, whether it is sleeping bags or deliveries of light armoured vehicles. This is a recurring problem. We are likely to hear about it again.

There is also the matter of military spending. Although new funding was announced with the updated defence policy, some cuts that were announced last September are still in effect. That has led to a lack of resources in several areas. Canada is still not meeting the 2% target that it committed to at the Wales summit in 2014. That percentage used to be a minimum, but it is now a maximum. We still have capacity issues when it comes to international operations. There are problems with recruitment, retention and housing. Francophones in the armed forces are also having trouble getting services in their mother tongue.

We may end up talking about the Afghanistan evacuation in the summer of 2021, the evacuation of Kabul. During that evacuation, the current Minister of Emergency Preparedness, the member for Vancouver South, reportedly gave instructions to prioritize members of the Afghan Sikh community over Canadians and interpreters who had helped Canada. That is not the first blunder this minister made. I may come back to that later, because, on his watch, mistakes were also made regarding the then chief of defence staff, Jonathan Vance. That was likely the most high-profile case pertaining to sexual misconduct and the lack of separation between the chain of command and the military justice system. It was a case study of sorts for the many other cases that were not necessarily talked about in the media but that still plague the armed forces.

All this work that could have been accomplished might get pushed aside because we are going to have to work on Bill C‑66, which could have been introduced much sooner. On top of that, we may not be able to finish the study. Anyone who has paid the slightest attention to the news in recent days knows about the sword hanging over our heads and the possibility that an election could be called. This could jeopardize the bill, which is anxiously awaited by victims of sexual misconduct in our military and other observers.

I have a lot of empathy for these victims, but I am afraid that we will not be able to finish the study, as much as we want to, even if everything goes as smoothly as humanly possible in committee. The bill may not make it to third reading, pass through the Senate, or go on to receive royal assent. However, at the very least, we all agree on the principle of this bill.

Another point I would like to make is that a number of victims were consulted by Justice Arbour as part of a much broader study on changing the culture in the armed forces. However, those victims do not appear to have been contacted for the specific study of Bill C-66, to fine-tune the bill. As I mentioned in a question to my colleague earlier, it can be hard for victims to testify publicly, so I would like to issue an appeal to them while I have the opportunity. If any victims wish to contact committee members to make recommendations or suggestions or to submit questions that they should ask, that would be great. Personally, I promise to treat any submissions in complete confidence, if only to get the point of view of people who have unfortunately experienced the difficulties of the excessive proximity between the military justice system and those facing charges.

Let us come back to the bill, which makes several changes. The bill focuses primarily on changes related to sexual misconduct. The military has other grievances as well, but they are unfortunately not addressed in this bill, which is understandable because it would have been a massive bill. It would have been almost impossible to address it all at once. I wish we had already dealt with this issue so we could move on to other things, but oh well. Again, it goes back to the issue of timing and the proper use of the parliamentary calendar by the government. We could spend all day talking about that. I will refrain from doing so this time.

On the issue of misconduct, the main amendment made by the bill is the one that could only be made through legislation. It seeks to implement recommendation 5 from Justice Arbour's report, which proposes to completely remove the Canadian Armed Forces' jurisdiction over the investigation and prosecution of sexual offences listed in the Criminal Code and committed in Canada. Previously, the only offences that could not be tried by the Armed Forces themselves were murder, manslaughter and cases related to kidnapping or human trafficking. The bill adds new offences that will no longer be dealt with within the armed forces, such as sexual touching, invitation to sexual touching, sexual exploitation, incest, bestiality, voyeurism and publication of child pornography.

These are all sex offences. They can no longer be judged internally. This is a major change that was long overdue and I think it could have been implemented a little sooner. It was the key recommendation emerging from Justice Arbour's report and, as I said, it was the only recommendation that required legislation. Some things will not change, however, and I think that is a good thing. Military personnel can continue to gather evidence while awaiting the arrival of civilian authorities in the event of wrongdoing.

The other recommendations being adopted include ones from Justice Fish's report. Justice Fish recommended modifying the appointment process for the three primary judicial or military authorities, namely the Canadian Forces provost marshal, the director of military prosecutions and the director of defence counsel services, to make it a political, civilian process instead of relying on the military chain of command. These individuals would be selected by the government instead of military leadership. That way, they would be sheltered from any form of blackmail. I would just remind my colleagues about the case of the chief of defence staff, Jonathan Vance, who had sexual relations with a subordinate and subsequently bragged about having full control over the military investigations, ensuring that the victim could not file a complaint. His successor at the time, Art McDonald, had also stepped down a few weeks following allegations of a sexual nature. That is one of the recommendations from Justice Fish's report that is implemented by Bill C‑66.

This bill implements eight others as well. I will speak to them briefly. They are recommendations 2, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14, 15 and 16.

Recommendation 2 was that the National Defence Act be amended to allow the Governor in Council to appoint military judges, who can now be any officer or non-commissioned member who is a lawyer registered with the bar of their province and who has at least 10 years of experience as a lawyer and military member. This measure aims to exclude military judges from the summary hearing system. This evidently refers to summary hearings for service infractions or offences of a more disciplinary nature in general, such as being absent without leave, negligently discharging a firearm, wearing a uniform improperly or maintaining equipment poorly. Previously, service infractions like these could be tried before military judges. Now that the government is going to appoint military judges, they will no longer be able to decide matters that are subject to a summary hearing.

I understand the reasoning behind this, but I think it will still be useful to hear from people in committee to find out whether this exclusion is a good idea. The problem is that these summary hearings will always be presided over by unit commanders. This means it will always be a superior officer trying one of their subordinates, which generally results in a rather expeditious form of justice in which the person is guilty until proven innocent rather than the other way around. This recommendation may need some improvement.

Recommendation 7 from Justice Fish's report will also be implemented. It calls for the director of military prosecutions and the director of defence counsel services to be appointed, again on the recommendation of the Minister of National Defence, for terms of up to seven years.

Recommendation 8 will also be implemented, meaning that the judge advocate general will no longer be able to issue directives or instructions in respect of a particular prosecution. This power will be granted to the Minister of National Defence.

Recommendation 10 calls for the National Defence Act to be amended to enhance respect for the independence of military prosecutors, military defence counsel, and other actors in the military justice system. It will also clarify that the provost marshal, who is the head of the military police, the director of military prosecutions and the director of defence counsel services are independent.

Recommendations 13 and 14 are for the provost marshal to be appointed by the government rather than by the military. Once again, appointments are being moved outside the military chain of command in favour of a more civilian process. An effort is made to create roles that are more self-sufficient, to avoid constantly ending up in a kind of closed circle or boys' club where judicial decisions are susceptible to outside control.

Finally, there is recommendation 16, which I mentioned earlier. It will allow any member of the military to file an interference complaint with the Military Police Complaints Commission of Canada. Previously, only the victim could do so. A third party will be able to file a complaint against a military member or superior officer if they believe that the person interfered in the justice process. The purpose is to increase the number of people who can file a complaint, including the victim, for various offences.

Other recommendations being adopted include the recommendation that non‑commissioned members be allowed to become military judges. In the past, this position was reserved for more senior officers, but it did not necessarily reflect the current reality. Many non‑commissioned members, whose rank ranges from private to chief warrant officer, have a stronger academic background than some officers. In some cases, they are more academically qualified to fulfill this role.

Now the role of military judge could be open to a much larger pool that will better respect the current reality of the armed forces, which is not inappropriate in the circumstances. There will also be a much larger pool of potential candidates to select from for this role.

In the less substantial changes set out in Bill C‑66, there is the one that creates the victim's liaison officer position. It provides a representative for the victim, a sort of help in the complaints process. It also adds the possibility of a victim's representative being the spokesperson for the victim in dealing with this liaison officer. Some rather interesting recommendations were made, after all.

Finally, it harmonizes the National Defence Act with the Criminal Code regarding sex offender information and publication bans. There was a sort of code of silence for the general public on what could go on within the forces. Bill C‑66 will help modernize this.

As I was saying earlier, all of this is happening in the context of an issue that we have, unfortunately, been aware of for a long time, the issue of sexual misconduct. Members will recall that Justice Deschamps was commissioned to produce a report, which she submitted in March 2015. At that time, Jonathan Vance was also appointed as chief of the defence staff, even though allegations had already been made against him. Mr. Vance continued to commit indiscretions basically free from recrimination, mainly because the member for Vancouver South, the current Minister of Emergency Preparedness, more or less turned a blind eye to the complaints that he heard and everything surrounding Jonathan Vance's appointment. That likely gave victims the impression that nothing would change and that they would never get justice if the person who committed an offence against them was their superior. Unfortunately, that was true for many long years. We can hope that Bill C‑66 will have a positive impact and that it will give victims at least a little confidence in the system's ability to deliver justice when offences are committed.

Above all, the thing that I hope will change is the impression that no matter what happens in the armed forces, the boys' club will close ranks. Let us hope, once this dynamic changes, that recruitment and retention problems will become a thing of the past. It turns into a kind of vicious circle. The forces get a bad reputation, which has a ripple effect on recruitment and retention. We end up with a smaller pool of members in the forces and, unfortunately, fewer young recruits with a fresh outlook and possibly a much more assertive voice when it comes to speaking up and seeking justice. The fish, we are told, rots from the head. Often, we have to wait until the head is gone before things change. We cannot simply hope that things will change gradually as young people with different values join up. We need to speed up the process.

Bill C‑66 is a step in the right direction. I hope that we can move the bill forward quickly in committee. I somehow doubt it will happen. However, if any sand gets thrown in the gears, Bloc Québécois members will not be the ones to blame.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I will say that the code of service discipline, the very ethos of the Canadian Armed Forces, holds up the issues of honour and integrity. I think all of us would demand that all those who serve apply that to their daily lives. This situation of sexual misconduct only happens when those individuals are not following through on that ethos, and then they are going to be subjected to the code of service discipline and the Criminal Code.

When we are talking about sexual misconduct, that has nothing to do with wokeness. This is about behaviour that has to change, and that respect has to happen. I am talking about ending that woke culture and making sure that we get back to training war fighters. I think that the stereotyping that has happened about our Canadian Armed Forces members in general has been detrimental because everybody who dons a uniform deserves to be respected. For everyone who goes out there, there is an expectation that they have a certain standard to meet.

Bill C-66 is for those who refuse to follow the code, and then they have to be subjected to the Criminal Code. For that, we support it one hundred per cent. To my colleague from the NDP, I will just say that, as I said to my friend in the Bloc, we will be treating this with the utmost respect and balance this conversation deserves to ensure that those who come before committee feel safe and are going to be valued in their testimony, which we will take it into serious consideration as we go forward.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as a father of three daughters, I want to make sure that any victim, male or female, who wants to come before our committee is treated with the utmost respect and that the political partisanship that we often play at would have no place in this study on Bill C-66.

We need to ensure that they have a safe place to help us do an analysis of Bill C-66. If we are in a situation where there are shortfalls within the legislation, or if there are situations that need to be amended, then we need to hear from those victims and we need to make sure they are feeling safe, welcome and respected. I encourage all members of our national defence committee to do so.

As vice-chair and former chair of that committee, I can commit today that members from the Conservative side will definitely respect all who appear. This is not about partisan one-upmanship, especially when we have those individuals in the room. This is about making sure that we get this right, that the military justice system is there to serve those who are already putting their lives on the line for this country and ensuring that they have a safe and respectful workplace where they do not have to worry about being mistreated and sexually assaulted by any of their cohorts.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and co-chair of the Standing Committee on National Defence for his speech.

At the beginning of his speech, he mentioned the importance of hearing from victims and getting their views on Bill C‑66. However, it takes a lot of courage for victims to come forward and testify publicly about this type of case.

I cannot help but recall what happened this summer at a meeting of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women on the topic of domestic violence. It turned into a shocking free-for-all amongst the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP, right in front of the victims, who ended up leaving the room in tears. Only my Bloc Québécois colleague from Shefford rose above the fray and was respectful.

If I were a victim, I would be doubly afraid and reluctant to testify before a committee. I have an idea. If we were to hear from potential victims in camera, would my colleague agree to that?

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to stand in this House and speak for the brave women and men who serve in the Canadian Armed Forces. Conservatives are proud of our soldiers, sailors and aircrew, and we want to support all those in uniform who serve Canada.

Conservatives believe that sexual misconduct, discrimination, racism and other forms of harassment must be stomped out of the Canadian Armed Forces because all military members deserve a safe and respectful workplace. It is hard enough to do the dangerous work that we call upon them to do. We know they face incredible danger in addressing the conflicts around the world and the domestic responses to natural disasters right here in Canada.

The previous Conservative government, and we are talking nine years ago, accepted all recommendations from the Deschamps report to eliminate all sexual harassment from the Canadian Armed Forces. That report, as I already asked the minister about, sat on the desk of the former chief of the defence staff, Jonathan Vance, and on the desk of the former minister of national defence, who is now the Minister of Emergency Preparedness and the seatmate of the current Minister of National Defence. It sat on their desks and collected dust. Here we are, nine years later, and they are finally moving forward with legislative changes to the military justice system.

I would say that we cannot trust the Liberals to actually implement the policies needed to stop sexual assault and sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces when we look at the soft-on-crime policies they instituted in our Criminal Code and our criminal justice system in the civil courts from coast to coast to coast. After nine long years and two more reports from two more former superior court justices, the victims of sexual misconduct within the military still have no answers and they are not having their cases dealt with properly.

As I said earlier, Conservatives support Bill C-66. We want to get it to committee. We know it needs vigorous study. We know we need to hear from witnesses, both experts and academics, who are familiar with the National Defence Act and the military justice system, but we also have to hear from victims. We have to hear from those who serve in the Canadian Armed Forces and other stakeholders, including the legal community, provincial governments and municipal courts, that are going to be forced to handle the investigations, the collection of evidence and the prosecution within our court systems that are already overrun because of the soft-on-crime policies the Liberal government has brought forward.

We have these outstanding issues on whether there is capacity within the civilian court system to handle what is coming from the Canadian Armed Forces. The biggest problem is that they are overrun because of the soft-on-crime approach that is allowing people to get out on bail. Repeat offenders just keep going out and reoffending. That is why Conservatives always say, “Jail, not bail”. By doing that, not only are we taking dangerous and repeat offenders off our streets and making our communities safer, but we are going to be able to free up more resources within the court system to deal with things like sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces.

Conservatives are wondering about some of the logic within Bill C-66. It is proposing to take the investigation and prosecution of sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces outside of the military itself for any offences that occur within Canada. They would be moved into the civilian system, whether it is municipal or provincial police departments, or even the federal police department, the RCMP, in some jurisdictions. We would see the skills and ability of our military police and criminal prosecutors within the Office of the Judge Advocate General atrophy and deteriorate.

Within Bill C-66, whenever our troops are deployed out of Canada, we are still going to be in a situation where they are going to be the lead investigators and lead prosecutors, as well as the defendants, as we know happens within the military justice system, which has both prosecutors and defenders in order to provide the balance of justice to those who are accused and those who are plaintiffs. However, if they are not good enough to prosecute and investigate sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces when it happens here in Canada, how do we know we can trust them for cases outside Canada? I know I do, but I wonder if the minister is at all concerned about the atrophy of those skills, at both the prosecutor level and the investigator level, for our military police if they are not getting the repetitions. It is just like exercise; one has to do it over and over again.

The other concern we have is about the new Governor in Council appointments. Currently, the Governor in Council, or the cabinet, the Prime Minister, the PMO, appoints the chief of the defence staff, the deputy minister, the national defence and Canadian Armed Forces ombudsman and the judge advocate general. They are all done through an order in council and they all report to the Minister of National Defence. Now we would be adding more Governor in Council appointments: the director of military prosecutions, the director of defence counsel services and the provost marshal.

That would increase independence, but there are questions around the terms and lengths of those appointments. There is no consistency with other Governor in Council appointments we have, both in the civil system, within the bureaucracy and other government appointments, and those appointed under the National Defence Act. There is also no clarification of how those individuals would be reappointed. There have even been questions raised about whether having these three new Governor in Council appointments, who right now report to the JAG, would make having the judge advocate general irrelevant and the position undermined because of directives that can come from the minister.

We are also very concerned that this would increase political interference, which we have already witnessed with the Liberal government. This is because it would be giving the power to the Minister of National Defence to not only have control over more individuals within the Canadian Armed Forces, but also to issue guidelines under Bill C-66 with respect to prosecutions, which would open the door to that political interference.

All we have to do is look at some of the cases the government has already politically put pressure on to have moved to the civilian system. There was the case of Vice-Admiral Mark Norman; we can look at how that came about. Of course, those charges were all stayed and there was a legal settlement paid out by the Government of Canada to Vice-Admiral Mark Norman for its witch hunt.

There was the case of Jonathan Vance, the former chief of the defence staff. In that situation, he was not charged for sexual misconduct but was actually charged for obstruction of justice.

The next case I want to touch on is that of Admiral Art McDonald. Again, this was a political appointment by the Liberal government, and he was chief of the defence staff. It then came to light that there was some misconduct in his background. When it came time to prosecute, those charges were all dropped by the military prosecution office.

Major-General Dany Fortin was acquitted by the Quebec judicial system. There is pressure coming from the Liberals on National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces to move these to the civil system, so here he is getting off. All we are doing is destroying these people's reputations, and from the victim's standpoint, they are not getting any justice.

With respect to Lieutenant-General Trevor Cadieu, his cases were stayed by the Ontario justice department.

Vice-Admiral Haydn Edmundson was found not guilty in the Ontario justice system. That case was just ruled on earlier this week, and it was found that a CBC reporter actually tampered with a witness and all the testimony was thrown out.

The last one I have here is Lieutenant-General Steven Whelan, and again, the charges were dropped by military prosecutors, and Lieutenant-General Steven Whelan has filed a statement of claim. When we look at all of this, we know we have a situation where the political pressure on national defence from the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence to move these into the civilian court system does not automatically result in justice for the victims. It actually turns into situations where we have liability because of increased defamation of the characters of individuals who have served this country for long, hard years as military leaders.

We know General Jonathan Vance as a former chief of the defence staff. When we studied this at the national defence committee, for three months the Liberal chair kept adjourning the committee and refused to let us hear from witnesses and experts and victims about the cover-up that happened when the victims came forward about Jonathan Vance. The news stories broke and it came to light that the former minister of national defence, the Minister of Emergency Preparedness, had gone to great lengths to block the investigation, to turn a blind eye. The Prime Minister was involved in that. Unfortunately, the only committee that was able to give any type of report was the status of women. The Conservatives said, in response to that report, that it was “abundantly clear that there has been a lack of leadership by [the defence minister] on the issue of sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces.”

Of course, instead of finishing the report and getting to the bottom of this, an election was called, Parliament was prorogued and the report died. The Liberals had lots of opportunities to act earlier than 2024. They had lots of reports they could have relied on. I mentioned the 2015 Deschamps report. In 2018, the Auditor General released a report on inappropriate sexual behaviour in the Canadian Armed Forces and then updated that report, the national defence and Canadian Armed Forces ombudsman report on sexual misconduct, in 2021. We had the Justice Fish report, which was a very extensive report with hundreds of recommendations. There was, also from the status of women committee here in Parliament, the 2021 report “Eliminating Sexual Misconduct Within the Canadian Armed Forces”. What did we have? Indecision, dithering, delays and punting this down the road to 2024.

Meanwhile, while all this was happening, sexual misconduct, sexual harassment and sexual violence have escalated. As I have said before, we are trying to push out any sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces on base and here in Canada. Since 2015, over the last long nine years of the Liberal government, we have seen total sexual assaults at all three levels increase 74.83%. As for sexual violence in Canada, and this is all Canadians, sexual violence against children has increased 118.85%. Forcible confinement or kidnapping is up 10.6%. Indecent and harassing communications are up 86.41%. Non-consensual distribution of intimate images is up 801%. Trafficking in persons is up 83.7%.

These are huge numbers that are dominating the work of our civil judicial system, whether it is in defendants or prosecutors or municipal or provincial or federal police forces. We are now going to throw in there an increase in sexual misconduct that we are seeing at national defence.

Over the last five years, sexual misconduct reports have increased from 256 to 443. That is an increase of 73% under the watch of the Liberal government, which has turned a blind eye to this problem and failed to act in an appropriate manner.

However, I do not think we should be surprised by this at all, because this is a Liberal government that has failed our Canadian Armed Forces. It has failed our brave women and men, who are the best of the best that Canada has to offer. They go through some of the roughest training. They get screened from a medical and a health perspective before they are ever allowed to don the uniform, and the current government has allowed our Canadian Armed Forces to fall into complete disrepair for nine long years.

Our warships are rusting out, our fighter jets are worn out, the army has been hollowed out, and we are so short of soldiers, sailors and air crew that all our troops are burnt out. We have entire air squadrons now that have been shut down because we do not have enough personnel, whether pilots or maintenance personnel, to keep our fighter jets in the air. Our submarines are barely in the water. From all the Order Paper questions that we get back, we are lucky if we can put one submarine in the water for 100 days a year, and that is four submarines combined, which is embarrassing. How do we maintain skills if we do not have the opportunity to train and practise alongside our allies and protect our shorelines from other submarines?

When the Liberals announced their defence policy, SSE, back in 2017, I said that it was a book of empty promises. If we look at their track record, it is still a book of empty promises. The defence policy update was a year late and, again, fails to make a strong investment in the Canadian Armed Forces. In fact, after the Liberals brought forward their defence policy update, they cut a billion dollars from the budget, which is affecting the operational readiness of our Canadian Armed Forces. Over $10 billion has gone unspent, uninvested in the Canadian Armed Forces. This means that the delivery of much-needed equipment is happening later, and our troops are getting tired of operating on old, worn-out equipment.

Our troops do not feel safe. They do not feel respected. They do not feel honoured by the government. That is why we are short 16,000 troops in the reserves and regular forces today; this is a shocking number to start with. However, because we are so short of troops, we are also short of the people, the ladies and gentlemen, who make up a kind of middle management. These are the corporals, the master corporals, the sergeants and sergeant majors, who go out there and train our forces.

Right now, we have over 10,000 undertrained and undeployable members who are in uniform. We do not dare send them out, because they do not have all the skill sets they need to do the job that we want them to. This is the government's own number. Our military has been so badly hollowed out that only 58% of our forces stand ready to deploy; again, that is a huge embarrassment.

One thing that has really undermined our troops is that, at home and abroad, they have literally been left out in the cold. We have a housing shortage of 6,700 units. The government has only budgeted $8 million to build homes over the next five years. Last year, it only built 20 homes for our Canadian Armed Forces members, and the year before that, it only built 18. Thirty-eight new homes will not make up for the 6,700-unit shortage we have right now, and that is why so many of our guys are living unhoused. They are living in tents; they are couch surfing and sometimes living in precarious situations.

I will close with this: The next Conservative government will rebuild the Canadian Armed Forces by cutting down on the bureaucracy and the wasteful spending on unnecessary consultants. We have people in the Canadian Armed Forces and within the Department of National Defence who can do that job. We will reduce that tail and invest it in the tooth of our military. We will take the taxpayer money that is going to foreign dictatorships and despots and reinvest that into the Canadian Armed Forces. We will spend more on the Canadian Armed Forces than the Liberals ever hoped to, and we will make the Canadian Armed Forces stronger and ensure they have the equipment they need. We will restore the honour and integrity of our military heroes so that Canadians can be proud of them. We will reverse all the woke Liberal culture, that experiment they have been carrying on; instead, we will support the war fighters of the Canadian Armed Forces so that they can proudly serve, proudly defend and proudly fight alongside our allies when they are called upon.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very gratified to hear that the member opposite, my critic in defence, and the Conservative Party will support the passage at second reading of Bill C-66. It is absolutely essential that we move forward with all speed. We all have a shared responsibility, and I believe every single member of this House cares about the men and women who serve in the Canadian Armed Forces. I believe we all know that we have to work together to ensure that they have a safe, respectful and supportive work environment. I would very much like to get this bill to committee because I very much respect the work of the committee, and I am very gratified to hear of the member's support.

I also feel a great sense of urgency. This is an important bill. As I said, on the very first day I was appointed to this position, I tried to explain to DND and to Canadians that it was among my greatest responsibilities to make sure that we find every possible way to support all of the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces. I believe that is a value that everybody shares. I will wait respectfully to hear from our friends from the other parties, but I believe it is very much in the best interests of Canadian Armed Forces members, members of DND and all Canadians that we move forward with all diligence and speed to get this bill passed. We have work to do. Let us do it together.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the minister's tabling Bill C-66 at second reading. The Conservatives will be supporting Bill C-66, but we want to send it to committee. We know that it needs to be thoroughly studied, and we want to make sure that it is going to work for victims. We want to hear from stakeholders, military justice experts and the CAF itself to ensure that the appropriate action is being taken.

The government came to power nine long years ago, and here we are in the dying days of this Parliament and the government, and the Liberals are finally bringing forward something they knew was a problem. In 2015, former chief justice Deschamps brought forward a report that sat on the desk of former chief of the defence staff Jonathan Vance, and on the desk of the former minister of national defence, who is now the Minister of Emergency Preparedness, for years and they did nothing with it.

The Liberals actually covered up the sexual misconduct by former chief of the defence staff Jonathan Vance. They even stalled a committee from doing an investigation into why there was a cover-up from the Prime Minister's Office by Katie Telford and by the former minister of national defence. Why did they allow that to happen and why did they not act then to address the problems we had in the Canadian Armed Forces in protecting the victims of sexual misconduct?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

moved that Bill C-66, an act to amend the National Defence Act and other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, as indicated, I have the privilege today to begin debate on the second reading of Bill C-66, the military justice system modernization act.

If I may, I would like to begin by first acknowledging and thanking the thousands of witnesses, advocates and survivors who have generously and courageously offered their advice and their experience on the important matters that are before us in the bill.

I would also like to commend the important work and advice of Madam Justice Arbour and Justice Fish for the advice they have provided, which has so well informed this work.

I also would like to take the opportunity to thank the dedicated members of the Canadian Armed Forces, the Department of National Defence, the Department of Justice and my ministry for their tireless work on this important bill.

Every single day in Canada and around the world, the Department of National Defence's public service employees and Canadian Armed Forces members come to work in service of their country and their fellow citizens. As the international rules that keep us all safe have come under increased threat, their task is crucial, and their ability to respond to global challenges is becoming even more important.

To effectively do their jobs, DND's public service employees and CAF members must feel protected, respected and empowered to serve. In other words, changing the culture of DND and CAF is not just simply the right thing to do; it is also essential to the readiness and operational effectiveness of our institution.

From the very first day I was appointed as Canada's Minister of National Defence, I have tried to make it very clear that my most important responsibility is to ensure that the Canadian Armed Forces' members go to work in an environment that fosters and enables their excellence. They must be provided with a work environment where they feel safe and supported while they do the critical work of protecting our nation and its people. That includes that no one at National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces is subjected to harassment, misconduct or discrimination.

It also includes ensuring that all of our members have access to justice. Our people, after all, must be always at the heart of everything we do. They protect Canadians here at home, defend our sovereignty and respond to natural disasters to keep Canadians safe. They stand on the eastern flank of NATO. They train Ukrainians with the skills they need to fight and win. They work with our partners to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific.

It is our responsibility to protect our people in uniform and civilians, and support them. To do so, we need to modernize our military justice system in order to rebuild trust in it. That is precisely what Bill C-66 aims to do. It proposes a suite of amendments to the National Defence Act to bolster confidence in the military justice system for all of our people.

Let me share some of the key changes the bill proposes. After months of work, hundreds of interviews and the review of thousands of documents, former Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour provided the government with 48 recommendations to build a more inclusive military where all members are protected, respected and empowered to serve. We must and we will implement all of these recommendations.

In December 2022, my predecessor, now the President of the Treasury Board, directed National Defence to move forward on all 48 of Justice Arbour's recommendations and issued a detailed plan on how we will take action in response to each of them. Since then, we have made some very important and tangible progress. To date, approximately 20 of these recommendations have been implemented, and we are currently on track to address all 48 recommendations by the end of next year.

Recommendation 5 is the only recommendation from Justice Arbour that requires that it be implemented through legislation, so the legislation before us proposes to address recommendation 5 by removing the jurisdiction of the Canadian Armed Forces over Criminal Code sexual offences committed in Canada.

The legislation would give exclusive jurisdiction over these offences to the civilian justice system. Justice Arbour made this recommendation for a very clear reason. She stated that concurrent jurisdiction, jurisdiction that is both in the military and civilian justice system over such offences, “has had the opposite effect to that intended; it has not increased discipline, efficiency or morale, and it has not generated the confidence it would need....Rather, it has contributed to an erosion of public and CAF member confidence.” Madam Arbour went on to highlight the urgency of ending concurrent jurisdiction, to give clarity and certainty to all actors in the justice system and to ensure fairness and justice to survivors.

Under the proposed legislation, the Canadian Armed Forces would no longer have jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute any Criminal Code sexual offences committed in Canada. Instead, that jurisdiction would rest exclusively with civilian authorities.

Bill C-66 also addresses eight of the recommendations from former Supreme Court justice Fish through an independent review. It proposes to modify the important process for key military justice authorities to remove any real or perceived influence from the chain of command. It also proposes to expand the eligibility criteria for military judges to include non-commissioned members so that we can help diversify the pool of potential candidates, and it proposes to expand the class of persons who can make an interference complaint to the Military Police Complaints Commission.

In addition to addressing the recommendations from Justice Arbour and Justice Fish, Bill C-66 would also take additional steps to ensure the confidence and integrity of our military justice system. It proposes to exclude military judges from the summary hearing system, and it proposes to provide additional supports for survivors by expanding access to victims' liaison officers to individuals acting on behalf of the victim under the Declaration of Victims' Rights.

These proposed amendments are comprehensive, as they are required to be, and they incorporate the feedback and the needs of those who have been directly affected by sexual misconduct. The chief professional conduct and culture has conducted engagements with over 16,000 national defence personnel and Canadian Armed Forces members, as well as external stakeholders, in order to listen and to learn from their experience.

We have also consulted with current and former DND and CAF personnel, including those affected by conduct deficiencies of a sexual nature, harassment of a sexual nature, crimes of a sexual nature; victim advocacy groups; and military justice actors. In these consultations, we have heard overwhelmingly about the need for concrete and durable military justice reform in order to maintain trust in the system, and we have heard clear support for removing CAF jurisdiction of Criminal Code sexual offences committed in Canada.

We have heard the voices of our people loudly and clearly. We have listened and we have acted. We now know as well that there is much more work to do, but we are making concrete and measurable progress. Bill C-66, we believe, is an important step in a journey designed to achieve durable and lasting institutional reform. I hope that every member of the House will support this crucial legislation.

Let me also address some of the other work that we are doing to better support our people and to give them procedural fairness and access to justice that they deserve.

Since December 2021, 100 per cent of all new Criminal Code sexual offence charges have been laid in our civilian justice system. No new Criminal Code sexual offences are being adjudicated within the military justice system. In June 2022, Bill C-77 came into force, which established the Declaration of Victims' Rights. That includes the creation of victims' liaison officers to better assist victims in understanding and accessing their rights.

We developed a military-wide online brief on victims rights and the summary hearing process in order to promote awareness of changes in the military justice system so that victims, witnesses and military justice actors know exactly what to do when an incident of misconduct occurs. In budget 2022, we allocated over $100 million over six years to support the modernization of the military justice system, as well as other cultural change efforts.

We are also making progress in implementing the recommendations that have been made by Justice Arbour and Justice Fish. Members of the Canadian Armed Forces can now take their complaints for sexual harassment or discrimination on the basis of sex directly to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. This is precisely in line with recommendations 7 and 9 made by Justice Arbour.

We have addressed recommendation 11 from Justice Arbour by repealing the duty-to-report regulations. We have addressed recommendation 14 by agreeing to reimburse eligible legal costs for those who have been affected by sexual misconduct. We are also implementing recommendation 20 from Justice Arbour's report.

We announced in “Our North, Strong and Free” that we are going to establish a probationary period to enable faster enrolment of applicants, and where necessary, timely removal of those who do not adhere to our requirements of conduct. We have also strengthened the promotion process for senior leaders to better assess character, talent and competence.

In response to recommendation 29, I have also appointed the Canadian Military Colleges Review Board. This board is focused on reviewing the current quality of education, socialization and military training that takes place at our colleges, and I have been sufficiently clear that their cultures need to change significantly. We have launched an online database to make our conduct and culture research and policies more open and accessible, which is also in line with recommendation 45 from Justice Arbour.

As we deliver these meaningful reforms, we are committed to the highest standards of openness and accountability. That is precisely why we appointed Madam Jocelyne Therrien in the role of external monitor. Her role is critically important. She is overseeing the implementation of all of Justice Arbour's recommendations and providing Canadians with public progress reports on a regular basis.

In fact, Madam Therrien released her third biennial report earlier this year in May. It notes our progress on bringing about the change that will re-establish trust in the Canadian Armed Forces as a professional, inclusive workplace. In addition, she identified that there is a lot more work to do and that we have to move faster. I want to express my gratitude for Madam Therrien's work and her honest assessment as we continue building a respectful and inclusive institution.

In order to help drive these efforts, we have also developed the comprehensive implementation plan to prioritize and sequence our work right across the National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces portfolio to address the recommendations from Justice Arbour and Justice Fish, as well as the minister's advisory panel, the anti-racism report and the national apology advisory committee board, which was developed to provide recommendations for Canada's historic apology to the descendants of the No. 2 Construction Battalion.

We will continue working on all fronts, because it is critical to the well-being of our people and for the CAF's operational effectiveness.

As I said at the very outset of my remarks, we are committed to building a workplace culture where every member of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces feels protected, supported, respected and empowered to serve. Our commitment to building a better military culture is highlighted by our updated defence policy, “Our North, Strong and Free”. It is evident in our Canadian Armed Forces ethos, “Trusted to Serve”.

In these documents, we have made it very clear that conduct deficiencies, harassment, discrimination and violence in any form must not be allowed to develop or remain within our institution because they cause deep harm to our people. They fundamentally undermine our mandate, our mission and our effectiveness, and they erode the trust that Canadians place in us.

Therefore we are working hard to build a more modern and inclusive military culture in which Canadians from all walks of life can serve their country. That work is being led by the chief professional conduct and culture, the CPCC. This office was created in 2021. The CPCC serves as the single authority for professional conduct and culture at National Defence. The position was initially led by General Jennie Carignan. Of course now it is being led by Lieutenant-General Prévost, as General Carignan is our new chief of defence.

It has consulted with 16,000 DND personnel, Canadian Forces members and external stakeholders, and those consultations have deeply informed our work. It has enabled us to better understand the lived experiences of our people. It has enabled us to proceed on our culture of change work from a place of knowledge, understanding, support and compassion. Culture change requires a systemic, sustained and continuing effort. It is not just the right thing to do; it is also the smart thing to do. It is essential to our operational effectiveness.

We will continue to listen and learn from people across National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces. We will continue to work with external stakeholders and partners as we work toward building a safer and more inclusive work environment. I believe we are making real and tangible progress, but there is always much more work to do.

At the same time, as we modernize our military justice system and change our culture, we also need to ensure that the survivors of sexual assault and misconduct always get the support, care, respect, compassion and resources they need. Much of that work comes from the Sexual Misconduct Support and Resource Centre. This is a centre that is independent of the chain of command.

It provides expert advice, guidance and recommendations to the military and National Defence on all matters relating to sexual misconduct. That includes a 24-7 support line where members can receive confidential support and information on options, and guidance on supporting others, as well as referrals to care and service operations. It also runs the response and support coordination program to provide individuals who have experience sexual misconduct in the DND and CAF environments with a dedicated civilian counsellor who can help them access health services, prepare for police interviews and very much more.

The Sexual Misconduct Support and Resource Centre also runs a grant program to fund community-based programs to broaden the range of support services that will be available to the wider defence community. It offers peer support programs and partnerships with Veterans Affairs Canada.

We have more work to do to support those affected by misconduct. That is why last year we launched the independent legal assistance program, which will provide reimbursement of legal expenses incurred on or after April 1, 2019 as a result of sexual misconduct in the DND and CAF environments. That is in line with Justice Arbour's recommendation 14, and we have responded. The program is also working toward facilitating direct access to legal information, legal advice and legal representation.

The work that I have outlined today is comprehensive in scope, but we need to do more and we will do more. A very important step in doing more is passing this legislation. Doing more is going to give exclusive jurisdiction over Criminal Code sexual offences in Canada to the civilian justice system, exactly as Madam Arbour has recommended.

We need to give clarity and certainty to victims and survivors, and we need to build a more modern military justice system that can maintain the confidence of the people it serves. By getting this done, I believe we will improve the operational effectiveness of our armed forces. Getting this done will help us attract and retain even more talented Canadians from right across the country. It will show them that as members of our military, they have access to a fair and modern justice system and reliable resources if they ever suffer harm.

Above all else, this is the right thing to do for our people, for our military and for our country. I believe it will help us rebuild the trust that may have been lost. It will keep our people safer and better supported, and it will help to ensure that the Canadian Armed Forces has the culture, the people, the institutions and all of the support and resources it needs to keep this country safe now and in the decades to come.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

The minister earlier touched on this in terms of Madame Lalonde's question on Bill C-66, which will enact Justice Arbour's recommendation 5. We know that correcting the justice system isn't just about bringing justice for so many women who were failed by the institution. In fact, we've seen so many cases recently of women having their cases stayed due to CAF delays in transferring files. Other women have reported their cases being rejected.

What is being done by the department to make amends for current and historic cases that happened before this bill will be enacted?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

I'm very grateful for the report of the external monitor. She and I have had, in addition to her report, a number of conversations on her concerns about the grievance process.

On January 18 of this year, I authorized Lieutenant-General Carignan to resolve all grievances for amounts less than $25,000. That was actually the vast majority of these grievances. That's really great news. In a two-month period, Lieutenant-General Carignan reported that more than 70% of those grievances have now been resolved.

It's really important that we be as quick and efficient as possible. People have been waiting a very long time for the resolution of these matters, and because that deals with a large number of these grievances in a more appropriate and timely way, it will also enable us to dedicate resources to the more complex ones.

Again, Madame Therrien's report was very useful advice in helping us focus on the things that were important to the members. She heard very clearly what we've been hearing from the members about the level of frustration in getting these matters resolved.

I would also point out, as Madame Therrien did, that there are a number of things in our legislation, Bill C-66, with respect to the independence of judicial actors, that often form part of these grievances. Again, I would come back to this committee. When we bring that bill to this committee, there will be really important work to be done on it here, but there are things in that legislation that I think we can all agree would be very helpful to the men and women in the Canadian Armed Forces.

[BGen Rob Holman]

The chief is correct. What Bill C-66 attempts to address for the provost marshal general is about perception. Even under the current scheme, once the provost marshal is appointed by the chief of the defence staff, they can still only be removed for cause upon the recommendation of an independent inquiry committee following a public inquiry. The basics of that scheme will remain in place under Bill C-66, but with the additional perceptual piece that comes with the Governor in Council being the appointing authority rather than the chief of the defence staff. There would be a complete removal of the role of the chain of command in the appointment of the CFPM.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

To follow the last round of questions, I want to take this one forward, as this may be your last appearance. I certainly do appreciate your service. I'm very grateful.

I want to talk about the new piece of legislation that was borne out of the Arbour report, Bill C-66. One major change that I'm hoping will make a change is not a new position but a change for the provost marshal, which will supposedly be taken out of the chain of command. However, so much within the chain of command, as discussed today, is part of the problem of cover-ups, punishment and not dealing with the situation.

Can you give us your opinion on how that specific change within Bill C-66 will make a difference and tell us your potential concerns? Then we can we can add them to a further study later.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

I would like to come back to the grievance issue.

I have heard some stories. For example, non‑commissioned officers would say that a number of grievances had already been lodged against them, and that others could be lodged if people weren't satisfied. We sometimes heard this. However, I understand that a great deal of work has been done in this area since then.

Even if a number of grievances are lodged and handled promptly, won't a negative response or insufficient remedy encourage people to take grievances lightly?

The fact that a grievance doesn't necessarily frighten a military member is an issue. Will the grievance be resolved? How?

Is there anything to that effect in Bill C‑66, which we'll be studying shortly?

[Patrick White]

First, I would say I haven't actually brushed up too much on the military justice system. As you heard, “mentorship” was the response from the recommendation by the military police for charges. I haven't gotten to the trial phase.

In my corporate law practice, we deal with issues of fiduciary duties of directors. There are stockholders who can appoint directors to the board of a company, but the directors, regardless of their affiliation with the stockholders, must act in the best interests of the corporation. The appointment process doesn't necessarily mean that an individual is in a conflict of interest if there is a very strict code of ethics and there is enforcement of that code. A breach of fiduciary duties is a cause of action in a court of law.

A director who breaches those duties can be held personally liable for individual breaches. That means that if they're acting inappropriately, they can be held accountable by other stockholders or they can be held accountable by other actors who have been harmed. The same principle can apply here.

I read with interest an assessment of Bill C-66 by someone in the profession with much more expertise than I have, Rory Fowler, a well-known name, I believe. To his point, I'm not sure that changing the appointment process is truly going to fix issues of independence when you could, in fact, empower someone with either positive reinforcement or the negative reinforcement that comes with clearly laying out ethical issues. In other words, let's say they received pressure from the chief of the defence staff to act inappropriately. If they had a reporting mechanism and an ethical obligation to resist that sort of pressure, they could be supported and there would be no need to change that appointment process.

Again, I will qualify that I have not brushed up too much on that aspect of the military justice system.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Again, thank you, Mr. Walbourne, for your service to our CAF members and their families.

Lieutenant, I would like to hear a bit more from you.

I will reflect on Bill C-66, the military justice system modernization act. The government has proposed to increase the independence of military justice actors, like the provost marshal, to ensure they are not influenced by the chain of command. I would like to hear your thoughts on the importance of the independence of military justice actors, but also the role that the chain of command can play in the system at present.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Down the road, we're going to be studying Bill C-66 with changes to the military justice system. Both of you have had extensive experience, unfortunately from a negative standpoint, with military justice and the way it's been carried out.

Would you be prepared to appear as witnesses on Bill C-66 as well?

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Walbourne, with the way the current system works, the deputy minister, the defence ombudsman and the judge advocate general report directly to the minister. They are order in council appointments. The government is proposing in Bill C-66 to add to that list the provost marshal general, the director of military prosecutions and the director of defence counsel services. They would become order in council appointments and would also report to the minister.

You've long advocated, as has your successor Mr. Lick, that the ombudsman's office should become a fully independent office that reports to Parliament and is properly resourced to remove political interference. Do you believe that having more people report to the minister circumvents, as Mr. White laid out, the chain of command covering up for each other with no accountability, or does it open the door for more political interference?

National Defence

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with the member for Waterloo.. Creating meaningful and lasting cultural change for the Canadian Armed Forces is imperative.

I am pleased to share that this morning I had the opportunity to table Bill C-66, the military justice system modernization act. This legislation would address nine of the recommendations from the Justice Arbour and Justice Fish reports. It will uphold our governments commitment to building a more inclusive, respectful and professional Canadian Armed Forces.

For every member of the Canadian Armed Forces, I want to advise that we have heard them. We have heard them clearly and we will do whatever is required to provide them with a safe and inclusive workplace.

Military Justice System Modernization Act

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to inform the House that this morning, the Minister of National Defence introduced Bill C-66, the military justice system modernization act.

This legislation is designed to implement nine recommendations from Justice Arbour's and Justice Fish's reports. More specifically, it aims to remove the military justice system's jurisdiction over criminal sexual offences committed in Canada. This legislation also proposes to increase the independence of key players in the justice system and create the position of victim's liaison officer in order to better support victims and survivors.

This is an important step towards lasting culture change in the Canadian Armed Forces. I hope the House recognizes the importance of this bill so we can pass it as quickly as possible.

National Defence Act

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-66, An Act to amend the National Defence Act and other Acts.

(Motions deemed adopted and bill read the first time)