Evidence of meeting #23 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.
2:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karen McCrimmon
All right. Thank you very much, Mr. Lick. I appreciate that very much.
Mr. Wernick has declined to make an opening statement. Has he changed his mind? No.
Then we'll turn to the floor for questions. Up first is Mr. Bezan, please.
2:40 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Thank you, Madam Chair, and I want to thank our witnesses for being with us.
Mr. Lick, I want to thank you for your opening comments and the testimony that you gave at the status of women committee last week. Your participation has been very constructive and you won't get any argument from me or from our side of the table about the need to make sure your office is fully independent and reporting to Parliament with its own independent legislation.
I want to turn my questions, though, to Mr. Wernick, so we can start the dialogue during the testimony today.
Sir, there were documents provided to committee that indicated that by March 2 you had already been party to two conversations regarding the allegations against General Vance. With whom did those conversations take place, back in 2018?
2:40 p.m.
Michael Wernick As an Individual
I'm not sure what testimony you're referring to, Mr. Bezan. I'll do my best to reconstruct the chronology. My research assistants are Google and Wikipedia, so I've been trying my best to reconstruct events of three years ago.
My recollection of the sequence of events is that on Friday, March 2, Elder Marques came upstairs from the second floor, popped in and asked to see me and raised the issue for the first time. That is the first I heard of it. It was on Friday, March 2.
I gather, from reconstructing the media articles, the sequence was that Mr. Walbourne had gone to see Minister Sajjan. Minister Sajjan had spoken to his chief of staff, Ms. Astravas. She was in touch with Elder Marques at the PMO at some point between March 1 and March 2.
He came to see me in the morning of March 2. He said that there was an issue that the minister was concerned about and wanted us to look into regarding the chief of staff. I said, okay, you'd better go and see Janine Sherman, who was my person at the time on senior personnel matters, and that's what happened in the afternoon.
I can clarify one of the media stories on the email of roughly two in the afternoon. It was: You're difficult to find. Can we get together? We're going to have to put things in writing. This is an email from Elder Marques to Janine Sherman.
Then there were conversations in the afternoon of Friday between Elder, Zita and Janine. I was not party to those conversations. I'm not sure that I can put them in the right order, but they were effectively about how best to respond to Mr. Walbourne.
By the end of Friday.... Again, I'm going by a media story. The minister had responded to Mr. Walbourne late Friday evening, saying, you should go and talk to PCO. Then, on Monday morning, after the weekend, Zita Astravas followed that up with a very similar email, which is reported in one of the media stories, saying, you should go and speak to PCO.
Between the morning of the 2nd and the end of the 2nd, effectively, the file was in the hands of the Privy Council Office.
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
How much detail of those allegations were you made aware of on March 2?
2:45 p.m.
As an Individual
None—just that there was an issue concerning the chief of the defence staff that the minister wanted looked into.
I learned of the specific allegations earlier this year in the media reports.
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
So they never said in those allegations that it was regarding sexual misconduct at the very least?
2:45 p.m.
As an Individual
I don't have the language of the emails in front of me. I think the language was “potential sexual harassment”. There is a back-and-forth of emails between Zita, Janine and Elder. I certainly would say that it was in the realm of sexual misconduct or sexual harassment, but I couldn't speak to the exact language.
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
After March 2, did you have contact with anyone else in the Prime Minister’s Office regarding the allegations against General Vance?
2:45 p.m.
As an Individual
No. From our point of view, it was in the hands of PCO. I asked Janine to get in touch with Mr. Walbourne to see what we could find out. That led to the events of the following week. It took, I think—I'm reconstructing the timeline—a series of emails and calls to persuade Mr. Walbourne to meet with Janine. She met with him on March 16.
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Through that process, between March 2 and March 16, had Janine and others in the PCO—Elder Marques and Zita Astravas—reached out to you at all about further actions they should be taking, other avenues they should be looking at, in trying to figure out what the allegations were?
2:45 p.m.
As an Individual
No. I think, in hindsight, that we were at the first step, which was to go and see Mr. Walbourne. We knew that Mr. Walbourne had brought something to the minister, so our first step was to reach out to Mr. Walbourne. There were no other steps that I'm aware of. I know that Ms. Sherman testified earlier, but I'm not aware of any other steps.
Our intention was to contact the ombudsman to see what we could find out.
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
As Clerk of the Privy Council Office, was it your belief that you were acting with the Prime Minister's knowledge of the allegations in March of 2018?
2:45 p.m.
As an Individual
No. I have no reason to think that the Prime Minister was aware of any of this at the time. The only person I know who would have been aware is Elder, and I don't know who he would have spoken to within PMO at the time.
I think that, effectively, both Minister Sajjan and the PMO had given carriage of the file to us at PCO.
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
So you aren't aware of Elder Marques having conversations with other people on the second floor of the—
2:45 p.m.
As an Individual
I never have any knowledge of who speaks to whom within the PMO.
2:45 p.m.
As an Individual
The loop was closed after Mr. Walbourne met with Janine and effectively waved her off and said that he wasn't going to share anything, that he didn't have the consent of the—I think Mr. Lick used this phrase—constituent or complainant. We reached an impasse on March 16. There must have been conversations back with the PMO around March 16 or 17 to report back that we had reached an impasse.
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT
Thank you, Mr. Lick, for being here. You hold a very important position, and I was delighted that you commented on the two major findings that other experts have brought, independence and culture change, that we need to address those quickly and we should get on with it, stop the political manoeuvring, which I think Yvan and I have been saying since the beginning. We have to get on with dealing with those issues. Hopefully, over the two hours we can get suggestions from you and Mr. Wernick on how we can deal with how independence and culture change that form a major part of our committee report.
Mr. Wernick, would you say that Ms. Sherman followed the appropriate process in handling the allegations?
April 6th, 2021 / 2:50 p.m.
As an Individual
If I understand the question, yes, I do think Ms. Sherman did what was appropriate during the period between March 2 and March 16 and pursued the route that was open to us at the time.
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT
There seems to be some confusion about why the former national security adviser wasn't involved in the case.
Can you say anything related to that?
2:50 p.m.
As an Individual
I think that is a hypothetical of what might have followed. It's not clear to me how the national security adviser would have added anything to the equation at the time. We knew there had been something raised by the ombudsperson and the most direct route was to talk to the ombudsperson.
Maybe to help with further questions, it's not clear who else you would talk to. This was an anonymous complainant so we couldn't speak to her. There are no witnesses to a one-on-one incident so we couldn't speak to them. It would have been inappropriate to go and speak to the General because that would have raised a risk of reprisal. Frankly, the only person we could talk to was the ombudsman.
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT
We have heard some reproaches from members of the committee stating not enough was done and that hearing of the allegation should have been enough to warrant an investigation into General Vance.
Can you tell us more about how PCO attempted to conduct an investigation?
2:50 p.m.
As an Individual
The investigation basically came to a halt around mid-March, I think, at the meeting of the 16th. We confirmed afterwards and we basically had the road blocked. As I said, how would you launch an investigation further from that with an anonymous complainant and no witnesses, and where it would have been inappropriate to just confront the subject of the complaint at that time?
We never closed the file. I think I would like to correct some of that impression. We decided to leave it open, and see if there was a change, whether the ombudsman would reveal more information that would allow us to at least start some kind of fact-finding, or the complainant would change her mind about trusting enough to talk to us.
The parallel, I think—it's not a great one—is with the incidents at Rideau Hall. Nobody came forward through the formal processes, but once there were complaints in the media, my successor, Mr. Shugart, hired an independent fact-finder and did an investigation of what was going on, a workplace assessment. The difference is that there were multiple complainants and multiple witnesses to interview.
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT
My understanding is there was no way you could proceed any further without further information.