Evidence of meeting #21 for National Defence in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was investigation.
A video is available from Parliament.
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Madam Chair, we are dealing with a large issue here that has really demoralized the Canadian Armed Forces, and they need to know what role different individuals and offices play within the Department of National Defence. It is incumbent upon us to talk to all those officials. Even though Parliament may not be sitting for two weeks, I think it's important that we take at least one meeting during the break for us to continue to work on this study. I think it's just too important.
I don't believe anybody is going to be running off on spring break and partying on the beaches in Florida, so I think it's more important that we do this work and get down to answers. I know how important it is to be in our constituencies, but most of us are working from home these days anyway and are able to deal with our constituency issues. I believe at least one meeting during those two weeks off from Parliament would be in order, and I'd request that the committee support that.
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
I think it is very inappropriate to assume that we would be using those two weeks to go on beach vacations, frankly. I know that MPs work incredibly hard during constituency weeks to be able to touch base with the very people whose views we're here to try to represent.
Madam Chair, I would note for the record that in every constituency week for the last several months either this committee or now the status of women committee has held meetings on this topic, and I believe it is very important to be debating this topic. I also think, however, that we now have a lot of witnesses whom we're calling on this topic, but I think it is very important that we spend time with our constituents as well. I would like to go to a vote on the amendment to 21 days.
Thank you.
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
On a point of order, I wasn't accusing anyone of going on holidays. I was just saying that all of us are stuck at home.
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
Yvan Baker Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Thanks, Chair.
I really want to speak to this. I think what's important for me anyway, in my riding of Etobicoke Centre, is that, if I'm to do my job effectively as an MP, I need to also be able to spend that time with my constituents. That doesn't mean it's face to face. Whether it is face to face or over the phone is really secondary.
Right now the constituency work in my office.... I realize the pandemic has hit different parts of the country differently, and I respect that, but certainly in my community, a lot of folks are struggling and are reaching out to me for help, for guidance or for discussion about government policy, etc. I'm sure all the members on this committee are receiving a significant amount of that type of outreach from their constituents.
Whether I'm physically present or not, when it's a so-called Ottawa week right now during the pandemic, as I'm sure is the case for most of my colleagues here, my obligations as a legislator occupy almost all of my time, between committees and preparation for these discussions and the caucus meetings that allow us to advocate for whatever issues we believe are important for our constituents.
Those constituency weeks are really important blocks of time that are set aside for us to be able to serve our constituents. Of course, outside of pandemic time, that means we're physically in our ridings. It would make it impossible in those circumstances for the committee to meet unless under very unusual circumstances.
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karen McCrimmon
Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
We have an amendment on the floor and we want to bring it to a vote.
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
Yves Robillard Liberal Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
I don't want to take up too much time, but I only want to tell everybody that I'm a very understanding person and I agree with what Mr. Baker said, but I don't like to have other members of the committee judging me, please. I'm respectful to you. Please be respectful to everybody.
1:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karen McCrimmon
All right.
Thank you very much, Mr. Robillard.
We need to vote on the amendment to change the deadline from 14 days to 21 days in order to call the witness.
Is that correct? Do I have a correct understanding?
Okay. We'll need to take a vote. The clerk will get that set up and we'll have a recorded division.
(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)
1:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karen McCrimmon
We will go on to the main motion. Is there anyone who wants to vote against the main motion?
(Motion agreed to)
Go ahead, Madam Vandenbeld.
1:20 p.m.
Liberal
1:20 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Mr. Bezan had his hand up before she said that.
1:20 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Madam Chair, at the beginning of the meeting I asked a question about whether or not a witness has accepted our invitation to attend. In particular I'm interested in whether Ms. Zita Astravas and Elder Marques have accepted our invitation. Could you give us an update?
1:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karen McCrimmon
We have heard from Mr. Marques and he's in negotiations with the clerk at this present time. He's indicated that there is an openness to the idea. We have not heard back from Madam Astravas.
1:20 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
On that then, Madam Chair, I move the following:
That the Standing Committee on National Defence, concerning its study of addressing sexual misconduct issues in the Canadian Armed Forces, including the allegations against former Chief of Defence Staff Jonathan Vance and Admiral Art McDonald, summon the following witness to testify, Zita Astravas; that the witness appear individually for no less than two hours; that this meeting be held in public and be televised; and that the witness be called to testify within ten days of this motion passing.
1:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karen McCrimmon
Okay. It's open to debate.
We'll have Madam Vandenbeld and then Mr. Baker.
1:25 p.m.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
Madam Chair, first of all, we know that we've issued these invitations. As I mentioned last time, in the entire history of this defence committee, Mr. Walbourne was the first person we summoned. Mr. Trotter was the second person we summoned in the history of this committee.
This is something we really need to take very seriously, when invitations have gone out and you have the clerk reaching out to people. As I've said before, we have to be very careful using the power this committee has to summon people.
Having said that, you know that I've said many times that having one motion after another after another, one by one voting on people, is not the best way to conduct business in this committee. We have a steering committee. We have the ability to sit down together as members, prioritize those we want to invite, prioritize the amount of time we want to spend on each study and plan out our studies. That's traditionally the way things have been done on this committee.
Having a name thrown at us and having to quickly consult our colleagues and come to a consensus in the middle of a committee meeting isn't the best way to conduct business.
I appreciate Mr. Bezan's giving notice about the motion concerning Mr. Lick. I think that's a good practice in this committee, and I was okay with debating and voting on it, because we had a bit of notice.
One reason I felt originally that we could go to a vote on the two you brought up was that I thought, at that point we could adjourn. There has already been an agreement to have a steering committee meeting during the break, and at that point we can sit down and discuss as a committee.
There's a certain point at which throwing things out like this and asking for a vote and asking for a summons.... We have responsibilities here, as a parliamentary committee, to use our power in a responsible way. We have responsibilities to our colleagues, to each other, to make sure that we are giving each other advance notice of the things we want to debate in this committee.
This process of going one by one, throwing names out the way we have.... I don't know how many other names the member opposite might want to do. We know that this meeting was supposed to end at one o'clock.
We could do the same. I have a list of names of people that we submitted quite some time ago. I would say that some of the names that we submitted when this study first started, about six weeks ago, haven't been called yet. They haven't been brought to this committee.
I know that the chair was giving priority to some of the names coming from the opposition, but I'd love to hear from somebody like Rear-Admiral Rebecca Patterson. I would love to hear from some of the other names that we put in of people who really have lived this, who understand the issue and who want to talk about how we make it better.
I know that trying to find out who knew what when and pointing fingers back and forth is a legitimate thing, but when I talk to the women, talk to survivors, the message I'm getting from them is that we finally have a parliamentary committee looking at and studying this issue at a time when women, with great courage, are stepping up, stepping forward, believing that we as leaders are listening to them and genuinely want to make this better.
I want to hear from them. I think the status of women committee has a tremendous opportunity. I put forward a list of names that includes Dr. Preston, whom we heard from. It includes Professor Maya Eichler, who, by the way, when she came to this committee, gave her opening statement and had no time for questions, because there were motions and points of order and the same sort of thing that we're seeing today—just trying to put a name forward and have a vote, and should we summon, and should we....
Frankly, she never got a chance to answer any questions. She has spent her career as an academic, as an expert on sexual misconduct in the military, and she never got a chance to answer questions.
I brought her name forward to come the status of women committee, and all the opposition parties combined voted against her. I brought a name like Julie Lalonde, who is an expert on culture change within institutions. She is a feminist who has even been consulted by the military at the Royal Military College. She has a lot to say on this, and her name was rejected by the opposition in the status of women committee.
Many of these names are on the list that we've provided to the chair. I'm not going to go through them one by one and name individual private citizens and put them on the spot so that they would then have to turn around and explain publicly why they did or did not accept an invitation to this committee, but I have to say that, in terms of collegiality and process and in terms of parliamentary courtesy, this idea that all we're doing here is throwing another name, another name of somebody to see if we can maybe try to score points needs to stop, frankly.
We need to hear from the women. I think we need to hear from the veterans, from the serving women in the Canadian Armed Forces whose roles and responsibilities are to do exactly this. We have a minister who came to this committee and said that every option is on the table. He wants to change things. He wants to make a difference, and he wants this committee to come up with recommendations.
I'm going to just ask one more time for all members of this committee to step back from this kind of let's summon and let's.... Let's step back from that. We have a meeting on Friday. We've agreed to a steering committee meeting over the two constituency weeks. We've also agreed to a meeting over the constituency weeks with Mr. Lick and possibly some of the others we've asked for.
We should perhaps agree to just adjourn the debate right now, wait until we have that steering committee meeting and discuss how we want to proceed with this study. Frankly, let's listen to what the women are saying—and men—what survivors and those impacted are saying. They are saying that all of this pointing of fingers between one party and another party is not helping them. It is demotivating them. What they want to see is this committee come up with recommendations and hear from the people who understand. The answers are out there. People understand what is needed. Everybody knows what needs to be done. We need to be listening, and we need to be hearing from those people.
I would love to sit down, have a steering committee meeting and put together a list of people who can give us excellent recommendations about what we're going to do to fix this problem. It can't continue. You heard the minister say that the time for patience is over, but I think that, in terms of the way in which this committee functions, we really need to go back to the courtesy where we work together, where we sit down and look at names, and we don't start using this power to summon in a way that has historically never been done in the House of Commons.
If you look at the annotated Standing Orders, at the bottom of the Standing Orders there's a footnote with a handful of names over the history of the Parliament of Canada of people who've been summoned to come here. We summoned Gary Walbourne. I don't think we needed to. I think he would have come. The clerk is currently in discussion with one of those witnesses who has said that, yes, he is willing to come. I would like to give the clerk a little bit more time to go back and forth with some of these people and give them a chance to come of their own volition.
Honestly, Madam Chair, I'll hear from colleagues on this, but I think that sitting here all day today and debating something like this, after the time of this committee has already formally supposed to have ended, doesn't help the women. I don't think that helps the women of the Canadian Armed Forces. I don't think that helps the men and women who are victims. I don't think that helps change the culture. I think all it does is tell them that the people who are watching are just playing politics. Frankly, that is not what I came here as a member of Parliament to do. I'm here because I want to make sure we do right by the people who serve our country.
I would very much encourage our colleagues to adjourn today, come back next week in a steering committee meeting and really put forward the names of people who are going to be able to move this file forward.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
Yvan Baker Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Thanks, Chair.
Given that we are well over our planned schedule, I move that the committee do now adjourn.
1:35 p.m.
Conservative