National Defence Committee on March 12th, 2021

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

All right, thank you, Minister. That answers my question.

If a woman who is sexually assaulted in the military cannot turn to the military police because the police officers are under the impression that officers will interfere in anything they do; if she cannot turn to the ombudsman because he says he can do nothing if the chief of the defence staff is involved; if she cannot turn to you, the Minister of National Defence, because you say that, as a minister, you cannot interfere; and if she cannot turn to the Prime Minister, because he says that he knows nothing about it and that the minister did not tell him anything, who should she turn to?

When the chief of the defence staff behaves in a disgraceful manner, who should the person turn to if no one in your government is responsible?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Let me be very clear. Regardless of rank, from the top all the way down to the lowest private, the rank doesn't matter. Any person who has an allegation has the ability and should go to the military police so that they can independently investigate—

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

The military police says it cannot investigate because, according to its members, officers interfere in their work and lawyers negotiate unacceptable agreements. I am not the one saying so.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

No, that is not true. They have the ability. Anybody—

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

I am not the one who said so, Minister; it was your police officer. It was a member of the military police who said so.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

—who interferes with an investigation should be held accountable. No one should interfere with an investigation.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

You are telling us that you have been aware of this since 2018. Minister, the only thing you did was inform the Privy Council, which did nothing and, three years later, you are telling us that you are surprised.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

The time is up.

We will move on to Mr. Garrison, please.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I just want to state on the record, given the tone in the minister's opening statement and some of the remarks he has made, that certainly in the case of opposition members here, we're all trying to get to a Canadian military where women can serve equally because an end comes to the tolerance of sexual misconduct. I just think we all need to be very clear about that. I have spoken to too many women, as I know others on the committee have, whose careers were cut short by the tolerance of sexual misconduct in the military.

I know that this is the end of today's session, and I want to ask the minister about something in retrospect. What happened here is that not just one accusation of sexual misconduct against General Vance but several have been dealt with or are being dealt with. We appear to have now a situation where, from 2018, we have had someone who served as chief of the defence staff, who was ostensibly in charge of all the programs to root out sexual misconduct, and who in fact had been multiple times involved in allegations of sexual misconduct.

In retrospect, does the minister have any suggestions of what might have happened to avoid this period, which has now caused a crisis of confidence in the senior leadership's commitment to root out sexual misconduct?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Mr. Garrison, I'm glad you raised that question. This is exactly what we need to get to the bottom of. This is why we're going to conduct an external review to get to the bottom of this while not interfering with the independence of the investigation. It is absolutely concerning.

I apologize if I came on strong. Your passion for the changes you want in the Canadian Armed Forces I truly believe, but you also have to understand where I come from as well. It is a very different experience from what people perceive. Ultimately, throughout all this, we've had a great conversation, but very little of it was actually talking about the changes we need. I am glad you brought that focus back, because this is where we need to look at those recommendations.

We do have an independent justice review going on by Justice Fish. We have an independent panel that's looking at all systemic issues, including gender bias and LGBTQ2 members as well. We have to look at that greater independence. For me, probably the biggest concern that I have and that I need to fix is that members could not come forward because they were fearful of the chain of command. We need to look at what that independence will look like. We have some ideas. We've already had some meetings. I would love to be able to get advice from all of you as you look at the various studies.

Ultimately, I do believe all of us can agree on this, that we want to make sure we create an inclusive environment for everybody and—

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

All right. Thank you very much. I'm sorry.

Go ahead, Mr. Bezan, please.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Being the last one up on our side, I just want to say that I am incredibly disappointed with the tone from the minister today, as well as his statement. I just want to say that there were a few things he said he'd like to talk about in Bill C-77, the victims of crime bill and the Victims Bill of Rights in that. That passed a couple of years ago and here we are. It has still not been brought into force. That's a failure on his behalf not to have made sure that happened.

I want the minister to produce some documents. One is the order in council approved by cabinet that gave the change in remuneration to General Vance, on May 2019. I'd also ask that he provide any written directive to the ombudsman that instructed him to go out and do an investigation following the March 1, 2018, meeting.

You know, Minister, you looked the other way for three years. You knew there were allegations against General Vance and you never once took action other than to pass it off to your chief of staff, who took it to the Privy Council. We know how you acted when there were allegations against Vice-Admiral Mark Norman. You called an RCMP investigation and he was suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Mr. Bezan, what is your question?

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

It's my time, Madam Chair. I can make a statement if I want.

With Admiral McDonald, when the allegations became known, it was three weeks from the time the investigation started until he actually stepped aside, and again it made the news. Admiral McDonald stepped aside so that the chain of command would not be compromised, which compromised the investigation, because we know the national investigation service in the Canadian Forces and the military police report to the provost marshal, who reports to the vice-chief of the defence staff, who goes to the chief of the defence staff.

Over the three years that you knew there were serious allegations, why did you not have a board of inquiry and appoint a military judge to conduct that investigation or ask the CDS, General Vance, to step aside so that we could have a proper internal investigation without any influence coming through the chain of command?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

With all due respect, I take every allegation very seriously. What I'm focused on is dealing with what's in front of us, but we also need to talk about prevention.

One question is always burning for me, and it should be for all members. The media reported there was an investigation in 2015, when the member was parliamentary secretary of national defence. This is when the selection process for General Vance was done. If an investigation was done, there are a lot of questions we should be asking.

What was the decision in the selection process for General Vance at that time, when there was an actual investigation, which, apparently, was reported in 2015?

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

It was the same process for Admiral McDonald. That was very public as well.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Here's the other thing. I did not order any investigation of the RCMP—absolutely not. I have no authority to direct the RCMP.

You can make a statement, Mr. Bezan, but I'm not going to allow you to put all these false assertions to the public.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Thank you very much.

Madam Vandenbeld.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Minister, I would like to end off by talking about the fact that, as we know, you've spent your entire career protecting people. Now we have a situation, and it's coming forward that there are women in the Canadian Armed Forces that have not felt protected.

As somebody who has been committed to equality for his entire life, how does that make you feel? What would you say to the women of the Canadian Armed Forces?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Ultimately, when I'm talking.... I know that women members of the Canadian Armed Forces are probably watching this right now, and they see men arguing with one another, when what we should be doing is talking about how we're going to make their lives better.

From day one, when I came into this role, my whole thing was about how we can make things better. One of the first aspects of doing this was putting people first in our defence policy, and members of the committee contributed to this. We made changes. We learned things about policies put in place.

Imagine this: Under previous governments, when women wanted to have a family and went on maternity leave, they got it but it wasn't included as part of their service. They had to serve longer for the months they were pregnant. They had to add that time to their service. That's ridiculous. We changed that.

There are many things we could talk about, but ultimately it's not about what we did in the past. We have to talk about what we're going to do now and into the future to create a culture change for all women.

The courage of the women who have come forward should be the impetus for everyone in the Canadian Armed Forces to see how seriously we all take this. Every survivor who has had any type of inappropriate conduct happen to them should feel they can come forward, they will be heard, the police force will investigate and they will be protected. If they don't want to come forward at this time, they're going to get the right support for this.

We want to give them back the power in this case, but ultimately we want to bring a whole culture change so that when anybody joins the Canadian Armed Forces, they know that they're going to be protected and will be able to advance.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Thank you for the testimony today and appearing for this study.

Is the committee in agreement to adjourn?

All right. The meeting is adjourned.