National Defence Committee on April 12th, 2021

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just wanted to follow up on Mr. Baker's comments on It's Just 700.

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

I have a point of privilege.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Stand by. I gave the floor to Mr. Bezan.

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

A point of privilege has precedence over all other motions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

All right.

Go ahead, Madam Gallant.

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

Ms. Vandenbeld said that only members had received her motion, but that's not true. Everyone, from members' main accounts, assistants and a librarian were copied on the motion.

I would invite her to withdraw her accusation against fellow honourable members.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Go ahead, Madam Vandenbeld.

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

If you'll recall, I said “members”, and by that, I meant that members and their staff were the only ones who received this motion.

Frankly, all I did was ask for the person, whoever it was who leaked this to the media, to please own up to it and make an apology to this committee. That's all that I've asked for.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Go ahead, Mr. Garrison.

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

I had the floor before that—

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

I think you did, but your hand went down, so I thought you were finished.

Go ahead, Mr. Bezan, then after that, Mr. Garrison.

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

I was just trying to make sure I wasn't called after I spoke.

In reply to Mr. Baker's comments, many of us [Technical difficulty—Editor] members of It's Just 700. I can tell you that what they want is the truth. That one tweet that he read was about the work of the Status of Women committee and that they look forward to the report. I'm sure they want to see both reports, and they don't want us to cut off work prematurely, and that's what this motion does.

It's shutting down this study. Again, it feeds into the narrative—and I'm not sure why the Liberals would want to feed the narrative—that they're trying to cover up sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces and that they're more interested in protecting the political skin of the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence than protecting the women who serve us in uniform.

Let's continue to make sure that we have all of the witnesses we need to hear from and still put in place conditions that we can have a report in place before this House recesses for the summer at the latest.

Speaking from my experience, it's not about impugning the reputation of the clerk in any way, shape, or form; it's just that we've been able to accomplish this work in the past under very tight timelines, and I know that we can do that again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Go ahead, Mr. Garrison.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I, too, just want to state very clearly that no one's impugning the reputation or abilities of the clerk. What we're disputing is the interpretation of the advice given by the clerk on what is possible and what is not possible.

I also want to say that I don't think it's useful in our debate today, which is about whether we're getting to the truth and whether we're getting all of the evidence, to try to cite outside sources saying what we should or should not do. It is our responsibility as a committee to find the evidence we need to find.

I will say quite frankly that, if I believed that Elder Marques was appearing on Friday and that he had been invited and was confirmed, I wouldn't think this motion was so premature.

What we had is a phenomenon—it's the first time I've seen it in my 10 years in Parliament—where the Minister of Defence referred us to staff. Rather than take responsibility for it himself, he said that his staff told the Prime Minister's Office and the Prime Minister's Office did this and the Privy Council Office did that. The reason we are asking to hear from these staff is that we were referred to them by a minister who, instead of taking responsibility, has tried to pass it off to staff.

I have drawn no conclusions about what the Prime Minister knew or when he knew it. I believe he has said publicly that he knew there were accusations but not the details. The testimony of Elder Marques is quite crucial to finding out what exactly the Prime Minister was told and when he was given that information.

We know from the former military ombudsman that he had evidence that substantiated a complaint. I don't know if that information was passed along to the Prime Minister or not. I don't know that at this point because the Minister of Defence said his staff had taken care of this, and the Prime Minister's staff had taken care of that.

If we had confirmation that Elder Marques was coming and could tell us what the Prime Minister knew and when he knew it, then we might be close to coming to a conclusion of these hearings, in my opinion. Then we would know who should have taken responsibility for the failure to investigate, and we would know who should have taken responsibility for the fact that General Vance continued to serve for three years under this [Technical difficulty—Editor] and know who's responsible, really, for the failure of Operation Honour because of the activities of very senior officers in the Canadian military.

If we had that confirmation, then I wouldn't regard this motion as so premature, but we don't have that confirmation. We don't know when he's going to appear.

There is other important work of the committee that is still on the table. We have draft reports on mental health in the military, and we have a draft report on the impact of COVID on the military. I would like to see us deal with those.

If these witnesses aren't prepared to appear on Friday or can't appear on Friday, there's other work that we can continue to do until these witnesses appear before the committee. Then we can finally find out who was responsible for this failure to investigate and the failure to remove General Vance.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Go ahead, Mr. Bezan.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank Mr. Garrison. I agree with him that there is other work here. There are two draft reports that are important that we need to get to.

I've always said, Madam Chair, that you can use your flexibility in your position to [Technical difficulty—Editor]. If we don't have witnesses available, then we can go on to other studies, including finishing off these draft reports.

After we get through this study, the next study that we're undertaking—which you've already provided the terms of reference—is on a review of the military justice system. The one thing we have learned through this process is that the highest commanders in the country are immune, it seems, to the military justice system, including court martial. Who gets to do the court martial when the chiefs of the defence staff themselves are implicated?

Here's another study that we need to dive into that dovetails beautifully...and will provide I think some very good clarity as to what types of changes need to be made to the military justice system, both code of service discipline as well as the National Defence Act. As we move forward, we need to make sure we address that in the next study, and I hope we can get to that in relatively short order.

I want to assure members of the committee, especially our Liberal counterparts, that we aren't here trying to rag the puck. We aren't trying to delay the study. We just want to get down to the last few witnesses. We know who they are, and as I said, it's Zita Astravas and Elder Marques. Once we hear from them, I think we'll be in pretty good shape to be able to start moving forward and drafting the report for the study.

Elder Marques may perhaps suggest other witnesses. We may want to bring in one expert to talk about things like political interference and how far the minister can go in accepting things like evidence and providing direction to the CFNIS or to boards of inquiry or to outside sources when required, because it might involve things and people like the chief of the defence staff.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

All right. Thank you very much, MP Bezan.

To our witnesses, I must apologize to you. You're getting a first-hand view of what happens in parliamentary committees. We ask you to stay with us a little bit longer, because we know what you have to offer the committee today is very important.

I have to go now to Madam Alleslev, please.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to continue a bit with what my colleague, Mr. Bezan, was saying. There's a very big difference between delaying a study unnecessarily, and ensuring that a study addresses the critical questions brought to us to review. We are trying to ensure that we do a thorough and responsible job, and that we get the critical evidence that we require in order to answer the very fundamental questions that have been put before us.

As we said, this is not about delaying; it is about ensuring that we do a responsible job [Technical difficulty—Editor]. That is our responsibility.

To that end, we can't say what additional information we will require when we hear from critical witnesses. To Mr. Garrison's point, when the minister came, he said, “I gave it to my chief of staff and she went and spoke to people”. That's why we've called Zita Astravas to provide us with that information.

If we had received all of the information from the minister, we wouldn't have had to call Zita. We haven't heard from these remaining critical witnesses yet, so we don't know if they're going to tell us another piece of the puzzle that we absolutely need to review in order to do the job we need to do.

To the point that Mr. Bezan made about the military justice system, not only have we seen something incredibly disturbing, that we have senior military people who appear to be immune from the justice system, but we also have been given testimony that says the possibility exists for senior military personnel to interfere in the military justice system. That is even more egregious. Not only does it seem like there are two different approaches, but senior military personnel are actually able to interfere in the process to protect themselves.

If we have entrusted these senior military officers with such great responsibility, not only have we asked all serving members to protect and defend Canadian values at home but we've also asked them to go to other countries to defend and protect these values that the world wants to have. If they can't do that within our own organization, within the military itself, then we can't hope to be a model to honour and defend those values outside of the country.

We absolutely need to get to the bottom of this, because this is the tipping point for our Canadian Armed Forces. We as parliamentarians, at the moment, appear to be the last line of defence of being able to push this forward and have some of these really critical issues reviewed and explored.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Thank you very much, Ms. Alleslev.

Seeing no hands up, I'm going to ask the clerk to proceed with the vote.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)

We will now continue with our witnesses for today.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), and the motion adopted by the committee on Tuesday, February 9, the committee is resuming its study 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—

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Chair, if I could, I'd like to move a motion. We have only half an hour left of this meeting, and this is a critical witness. I would like to move a motion that he come back another day so that we could hear his testimony and deal with the matter in its fullness.

Half an hour doesn't do justice to being able to hear from this witness.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

The clerk says that we do have one more meeting on Friday. Perhaps I can ask the clerk to reach out to these witnesses to see if they can come on Friday.

Is that acceptable, Madam Alleslev?

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Well, we need to hear from them, so if it's not Friday, then it needs to be a day when it does work for them. Obviously, they're helping us with this—

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

We do have them today, so we can ask to go longer [Technical difficulty—Editor].

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

I don't believe we can, Madam Chair. Half an hour versus two hours is not the same. We need to be able to do this justice.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

To our witnesses, could I ask whether you might be able to stay with us today until maybe 1:30 p.m., let's say, or two o'clock? If you could also make yourselves available on Friday, that would also be an option.