National Defence Committee on April 16th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

I call this meeting to order.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Welcome to meeting number 25 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. Members are attending in person or remotely using the Zoom application. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. For your information, the broadcast will always show the person speaking, rather than the entirety of the committee.

As a reminder, all comments by members should be addressed through the chair. Once again, as a reminder to myself first, please speak slowly and clearly for the benefit of our translators. Thank you very much. They have been very forgiving of us in the past, and we really appreciate the hard work they do.

With regard to a speaking list, the committee clerk and I will do the best we can to maintain a consolidated order of speaking, whether people are participating virtually or in person.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Tuesday, February 9, 2021, 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.

Mr. Bezan, you have your hand raised.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First of all, I just want to make sure you have our speaking order. It will be Mr. Benzen, Ms. Alleslev, Ms. Gallant and then myself.

Also, as we have yet to hear from Elder Marques, who I know indicated to the clerk, according to correspondence, that he was willing to appear a matter of couple of weeks ago, I move the following: That the Standing Committee on National Defence, concerning its study on 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 Elder Marques to testify as a witness; that the witness appear individually for no less than two hours; that the meeting be held in public and be televised; and that the witness testify within seven days of this motion passing.

If I may speak to that, we have correspondence from the clerk confirming that Mr. Marques had agreed to appear before the committee, and that as late as March 31, he was willing to appear. That hasn't happened, of course, we know, with the move by the Liberal members of the committee at the last meeting on Monday to shut down the study.

I think it is imperative that we hear from Mr. Marques. As you can see, all the other witnesses who have been called have been very accommodating in appearing, including former chiefs of staff of Conservative ministers and the Conservative prime minister, so I think it would be only fitting that we have Mr. Marques appear to give us more information about what he did with the information that was passed to him by Zita Astravas, as we have learned from testimony from a number of witnesses, including the Minister of National Defence.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bezan.

I believe the committee has already decided. They've already voted to deliver a report on this study, and the idea was to wrap up this study. We've completed our work on this study and we need to get on to other work.

That is my understanding of the will of the committee, and it's the will of the committee that needs to be paramount here.

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

Madam Chair, I'll just counter that and say that the motion we passed on Monday did not at all end the number of meetings to be held. It didn't put a timeline to end hearing from witnesses, just that draft recommendations had to be in by the end of today, which I'm sure members are going to accommodate. It has a timeline set out as to when draft reports need to be done, considered and tabled. It does not put an end to hearing from witnesses.

In my opinion, this motion definitely is timely and one that we need to consider. I would say that once we hear from Elder Marques, if there aren't other witnesses we need to call, I think we would be in the position to move on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Madam Alleslev.

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

Additionally, Madam Chair, it was the will of the committee to hear from Elder Marques. This motion is just a reinforcing and reiterating that the will of the committee was that his testimony was critical to the study that we're doing. We would not want to complete this study without hearing his critical testimony to make sure that the thoroughness and responsibility of our report is taken to its full extent.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Thank you very much for that.

I'm ruling this is out of order. That's because the will of the committee has been to begin the wrap-up of this particular study because we felt it was so important that a report needs to get out in order to support the CAF in their endeavours to go ahead and adjust their requirements.

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

Madam Chair, I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Stand by. Next on is Madame Larouche.

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

No, it's a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Go ahead.

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

I'd like to challenge the chair's ruling on that decision.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

I have ruled that the motion is out of order in that the committee did decide to wrap up this study and move on to other work. That's the ruling I made, and therefore the motion was out of order. The ruling is being challenged. We need to vote on the chair's decision.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Chair, I had raised my hand to speak to the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Go ahead, Madame Larouche.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Provided that it doesn't delay the tabling of the report, we agree that Mr. Marques should appear, if he so chooses, especially since he had been invited before the motion was introduced.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

It is non-debatable and non-amendable, and we need to move to the vote, unfortunately, but thank you.

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

For clarity, Madam Chair, if we want to uphold the ruling of the chair, do we vote “yes” or do we vote “no”? Which one is it?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Wassim Bouanani]

If I may, Madam Chair, the question will be, “Should the decision of the chair be sustained?”, so it's a “yes” if you would like the decision to remain the same.

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

Okay.

[The Clerk]

The question is this: shall the ruling of the chair be sustained?

(Ruling of the chair overturned: nays 6; yeas 5 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Okay. I understand that because of the leaks of motions that were sent to this committee over a week ago, there is maybe a resistance, a reluctance, to prepare motions in advance, in the 48 hours.

[The Clerk]

We're going to suspend until we are comfortable.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

I'm calling this meeting back to order. Thank you very much.

I need to apologize to our witnesses. We really appreciate your being here.

Unfortunately, we have a bit of a challenge in the committee at the present time, because last weekend a confidential motion was leaked to the press. That makes everybody's lives very difficult. It creates a situation or a condition in which people maybe don't want to share their motions in advance.

Routine motions call for 48 hours' notice before being tabled in order for them to be presented to the committee. There are exceptions, but we've gotten into a habit of doing that more often than not. I think that's just something that we have to deal with. It is a bit of a challenge when last-minute motions come to the floor. It actually takes away from a level playing field, because some people know what's coming and some people don't.

I must admit that I wish to discourage this kind of behaviour. I want us to go back to giving 48 hours' notice for motions. I think it's very important to remember that last-minute things are unfair to your colleagues. Even though they might be legal in the strictest sense of the word, they're unfair to your colleagues.

I have to not reward that kind of.... If we want to go back and follow our procedure for routine motions, that's what we have to do.

I apologize for the time that we took today. I appreciate your patience with us.

Do we have debate?

Go ahead, Madam Vandenbeld.

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

I believe that Andréanne had her hand up before me.