National Defence Committee on March 26th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Good afternoon, everyone.

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 22 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of January 25, 2021; therefore, members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so that you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entirety of the committee.

If interpretation is lost, please inform me immediately, and we'll ensure that the interpretation is properly restored before resuming the proceedings. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you are on video conference, please click on the microphone to unmute yourself.

I'll remind you that all comments by members should be addressed through the chair. When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute. With regard to the speaking list, the committee clerk and I will do the best we can to maintain a consolidated order of speaking for all members, whether they are participating virtually or in person.

Before we introduce our witnesses for today, there are two issues that I'd like to bring to the committee's attention.

The first is that the law clerk has completed his review of the documents pursuant to the production order issued by the committee on Monday, March 8. We received a letter from the law clerk this morning.

I'd like to bring to your attention the following extract from the law clerk's letter:

In the course of our review, we noted that certain records contain sensitive personal information that does not fall within the categories of redactions expressly allowed by the Committee’s Order. My Office has highlighted this information in ‘yellow’ in the documents for the Committee’s consideration, should it wish to redact that information before distributing the documents or making them public.

We can actually give him permission to do this or we can distribute them with certain guidelines about the confidentiality of the information that is included in these documents. Does anyone have a significant preference?

Go ahead, Madam Gallant.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

I would like to see the documents, with your encouragement that they remain confidential to a point. I don't want to have anything redacted. We've already had too much redacted.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Okay.

Go ahead, Madam Vandenbeld.

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

If you could perhaps clarify, Madam Chair—or perhaps the clerk could clarify—on the documents, what you're asking the committee is whether to send the documents to committee members with highlights from the law clerk saying “these are the things that are sensitive and personal and should not be sent publicly”. Then, as a committee, it would behoove us, I would imagine, if we plan to make this public or distribute it further, to make sure that those highlighted by the law clerk are redacted before we then further distribute. Members themselves would be able to get the unredacted version.

Is that what the law clerk is suggesting? Perhaps the clerk could clarify.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

That's what the law clerk is asking about—the permission to redact those—but we can also not redact them, and then it's the responsibility of the individual members to treat that information confidentially. That's the option.

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

In that case, I would suggest that—as long as we get a nod of heads from members that we would then treat the personal information confidentially—it would be fair to give that to members knowing that members will be discreet with that information. I think that's the fair and transparent thing to do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Mr. Bezan, go ahead.

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

I just want to agree with the parliamentary secretary that I think if we have the areas that are highlighted that are sensitive, and that we stress upon all members of the committee that those parts of the documents are not shared, that it is held in confidence by committee, I think that's clear to everyone. For the rest of the documents—and we know some of these have already been made public—we are then more free to use as we see fit, but while protecting the private and confidential matters that are contained within those documents so as not to taint the investigation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Okay.

Madame Gallant.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

I would like to see the documents before we agree in advance to anything, and then based on what Mr. Bezan said, I think the committee will take the proper course of action.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

That's the impression I'm getting, that we're saying we will ask the clerk not to remove those portions, that we will share them with the committee members and then the committee members must commit to recognizing that the parts of the documents that are highlighted in yellow are confidential. The process must be treated respectfully.

That's the direction I'll go back to the clerk with, and you will see that being sent out to you probably later on this afternoon.

The other issue is about the order that came out of the House last evening for a witness to appear on April 6. We are currently working on that issue at the present time. Plan to keep your schedule free on April 6 and we will let you know as soon as we have the details.

I would also suggest that perhaps we should do our steering committee meeting on the same day. Rather than doing it days apart, we would do everything we need to do on the 6th and do our steering committee on the same date. Does anybody want to weigh in on that?

Go ahead, Mr. Bezan.

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

Just on that, Madam Chair, I'd say instead of just doing a steering committee, let's do the entire committee, since we're all going to be online anyway, and let the entire committee talk about what we want to do as work. It just saves one step. If the committee approves it right then and there it doesn't require us to have to have a steering committee report to take it back to the whole committee and then have that approved down the road. We can actually get moving forward on organizing our work accordingly.

I do agree that if we can have Ms. Astravas show up on the 6th.... The other witness would be Gregory Lick, the military ombudsman. Maybe we can have that happen at the same time, or if we have to do it next week, then we do it next week.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Go ahead, Madame Vandenbeld.

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

On that, just going back to the discussion we've had about naming witnesses and private citizens in a public forum, which then puts them on the spot in terms of explaining why they did or didn't accept the invitation to appear [Technical difficulty—Editor], I would just suggest that it be an in camera meeting.

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

I'm good with that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

You're good with that? Okay, we will organize a type of steering committee with the entire committee in camera to discuss how we move forward with this particular study and our work plan going forward.

Is everyone on board with that? Good.

I think that's all I need to deal with right now.

Madame Vandenbeld.

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

I have a question for the clerk.

I had put a notice of motion to bring Richard Fadden, who is the former national security intelligence adviser in 2015 to the Harper government. I just want to ask the clerk if I got the 48 hours' notice in when I put that in? I did not. In that case I won't move that motion until the meeting that we're planning on the 6th.

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

I was okay with you moving it. You have our support.

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

But I won't move it because I want to be consistent with my feeling that this committee should give 48 hours' notice when we're going to be putting motions. I'll wait until next week.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Thank you.

Mr. Baker.

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

Do we know the time of that April 6 meeting?

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Pursuant to the order, it needs to start at 11, so we could have our steering committee either before or after. Before might be good.

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Okay.

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

Madam Chair, some of us are on the west coast, so no meeting before. Committees have agreed not to meet at 7 a.m. Pacific Time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Mr. Garrison, you are correct.

We'll do our steering committee meeting afterwards.

Are there any other contributions to this discussion?

Thank you. We have part of a plan going forward.

Thank you to our witnesses for being with us today and for your patience while we got done a couple of details that needed to be ironed out.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Tuesday, February 9, 2021, the committee is resuming its study of addressing sexual misconduct issues in the Canadian Armed Forces, including the allegations against former chief of the defence staff Jonathan Vance.

With us today by video conference: Janine Sherman, deputy secretary to the cabinet, senior personnel and public service renewal at the Privy Council Office; and retired lieutenant-colonel Bernie Boland. Welcome.

Up to six minutes will be given for opening remarks.

I'd like to invite Ms. Sherman to begin with her opening statement.