National Defence Committee on April 12th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

That's exactly what I wanted clarified.

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

All right, so we're not going right to a vote afterwards. We're going to continue the debate on the motion?

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

That's correct. This is why it has to be clear.

[The Clerk]

If I may add, if the motion is adopted, we will move on to the next item on the agenda.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

That being the witnesses.

Can we carry on with the vote, please?

(Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

Go ahead, Madam Vandenbeld.

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

I call the question on my motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Go ahead, Mr. Garrison.

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

Who do you have? I think Randall's up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Okay, Mr. Bezan.

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

No, Randall had his hand up before I did.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Go ahead, Mr. Garrison. I did call on you earlier, but you must not have heard me.

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

Thank you very much. We are having some slight delays this morning electronically, so I did not hear you call on me.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to start by saying that I am as concerned, if not more concerned, than Madam Vandenbeld about the leak of this motion before the committee, but I want to say that I don't believe that casting aspersions on any particular members here is a useful way of investigating such leaks, and of course, those who are opposed to this motion—which I am—would have no interest in leaking the motion, because then we couldn't comment on it over the weekend.

Turning to the substance of the motion, I think it is premature to end the study before we've heard from key witnesses. I have heard Madam Vandenbeld say that the victims are demanding an end to this study. I have heard no such thing from any victims' organizations. What they're asking for is action to confront sexual misconduct in the military, and the subject of this study is not the general topic of the policies to combat sexual misconduct in the military.

The subject of this study is why nothing was done at the highest level when allegations of sexual misconduct were raised against a sitting chief of the defence staff, who was allowed to serve for an additional three years without any action being taken, without any investigation, and who, in fact, of course, was given a pay raise, which indicates a judgment of satisfactory performance.

This is the topic of our study, because we need assurances that those at the highest level in the military both understand what sexual misconduct is and are prepared to take action against even the most senior officers in the military when sexual conduct is involved. That is crucial to any measures [Technical difficulty—Editor] sexual misconduct in the military.

We've certainly heard in testimony, and I've heard many times from those who talked about the failure of Operation Honour to confront sexual misconduct because it appeared to set up two different standards, whereunder rank-and-file members of the military were subject to one code of conduct and one response to sexual misconduct while senior officers seemed to be exempt from those measures.

What we're trying to do is give confidence to Canadian women that they can serve equally in the Canadian military, and that confidence comes only when they know that these issues will be taken seriously at the very highest level. When Madam Vandenbeld talks about the hours of testimony we've heard, I absolutely agree with her. We've heard lots of testimony. We've heard lots from the minister. We have heard no one take responsibility for the fact that the chief of defence staff continued to serve for an additional three years, let alone apologize for that fact.

We have had no one take responsibility for the fact that the allegation against him, for which the military ombudsman clearly found evidence, was ever investigated. Once again, no one has taken responsibility, and no one has apologized for the failure to follow up on that investigation. We heard many lectures by members of the Liberal party about ministerial responsibility, and clearly, in the Westminster system, as we heard from Mr. Wernick and as is obvious, there's always a minister responsible.

Until we get to the bottom of who knew what and when of the minister and the Prime Minister, we have not concluded this study, and we still have additional witnesses to hear.

For those reasons, I believe it is premature to proceed to shut down this debate and submit recommendations for consideration by the committee, and I will be voting against this motion.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

All right.

Mr. Bezan.

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

Madam Chair, I think Mr. Garrison put it very eloquently.

There are still people we need to hear from and there is no confirmation that they're going to be here by Friday. I'd hate to see our having one Friday meeting with four or five witnesses sitting at the end of the table. This just speaks to the higher issue here of the Liberals trying to shut down debate. They're trying to extend the cover-up that happened three years ago in the Department of National Defence under the watch of Minister Sajjan, and under the watch of the Prime Minister through his subordinates in the Prime Minister's Office. Here we are with the Liberals now trying to shut down a committee investigation into what happened.

As Mr. Garrison just said, we need to know who knew what, and when they knew it and why they didn't act upon it. We still haven't seen that come forward in any of the testimony that's been presented by the minister himself.

I was extremely disappointed with the minister's appearance last week where he failed to show any contrition. He did not take responsibility for what happened back in 2018. When you contrast that with Michael Wernick, who was very clearly upset that, as he said, he had “lost sight of the misconduct issues” against General Vance.

Therefore, we need to continue to drill down on the intel here. For the Liberals to try to shut this down in an expeditious manner flies in the face of our responsibilities as parliamentarians to carry on with this investigation. Here, again, they'd rather have our having this debate on committee matters when we have witnesses sitting at the table who want to share with our committee their knowledge on this issue.

I am just so disappointed. The Liberals like to talk about being a feminist government. Well, guess what? That's all phoney and hyperbole, and it's not at all about the reality of what the women in the Canadian Armed Forces are facing.

Let's stand up for those victims right now. Let's make sure we continue to get the information that they want to see happen. Just as Mr. Garrison said, I haven't had anyone write to me and say that it's time to shut down this study. You guys are [Technical difficulty—Editor] any results. I can tell you that the only way we can get the results is when we get to the truth. I have more members of the Canadian Armed Forces and more and more veterans who are reaching out and telling us to go further and get more information so that they can know what happened.

This is about restoring trust: trust in the leadership of senior commanders within the Canadian Armed Forces, and trust in the department leadership as well, including the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence. Right now that trust is broken, and this is our chance to repair some of that damage by holding those responsible to account.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Thank you.

Mr. Barsalou-Duval, you have the floor.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

This may be a point of order, but could you tell me what we're debating right now? I thought I had understood that you had to make a decision following the last vote, because there was a desire to hear the witnesses right away and to debate the motions at the end, but perhaps I misunderstood. I had understood that, in the event of a tie vote, you had to make a decision as chair. I understand that we are debating Mr. Bezan's motion rather than hearing the witnesses.

So I need some clarification to understand where we are and what I didn't understand in the process.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Yes, and that's the challenge of having these kinds of motions going back and forth, and that's why I wanted to be perfectly clear with the clerk about what we were actually voting on.

As we mentioned earlier, with regard to the motion to adjourn the debate, we are now instead going to vote on Madam Vandenbeld's motion, because the—

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

No, no.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

—because the—

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

I have a point of order, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Stand by.

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

That's not the motion that is before us right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Stand by.

Yes, it is because the motion to adjourn the debate failed. It did not pass, so the motion that was brought to the floor by Madam Vandenbeld at the beginning of the meeting is the motion that is standing and being voted upon.

Now, go ahead and take the division, please.

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

On a point of order, Madam Chair, you have hands up and you can't call a vote when there are still people who want to speak. You don't have that.... You have three hands up on the screen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

When I called the vote, there were no hands up.