Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
At the last meeting, I had gone through a number of recommendations that we heard through the course of the study. I didn't quite complete all those recommendations on Friday, so I would like to do that in order to demonstrate that we don't need any more witnesses and that we have actually had quite a bit of study on this already.
Madam Chair, I would like to continue with a number of recommendations.
First of all, we have the recommendation that we need a strategic review to look at processes from beginning to end with a trauma-informed and survivor-centred and -informed lens. The reason this is so vitally important, and that it has to be trauma-informed and survivor-centred, is that we know that very often there are solutions proposed that are not trauma-informed and they can actually be more harmful. They can actually revictimize and can put the people who have survived and have gone on with their lives in a very bad position, but with good intentions. This is making sure that there is a strategic review and that everything will be looked at with a trauma-informed lens.
The next one is that we need a comprehensive plan for systemic culture change. I know that the “Path to Dignity and Respect” was something that we put out several months ago, because we have been working diligently on this topic, well before the committee's study began. We heard from witnesses who said that it wasn't enough, that the path needs to be broadened and that it needs to refer specifically to the toxic masculinity. We heard this from multiple witnesses. I think that making sure when we talk about culture change.... We heard from witnesses that we have to really make that comprehensive and we have to make it systemic.
We also had recommendations from witnesses about creating options and opportunities for restorative justice when it's wanted by survivors. This is a very important point, because not everybody.... By the way, we are talking about men and women and non-binary and transgender persons. This is something that all genders can suffer from.
Not everybody who suffers sexual misconduct, sexual harassment or sexual violence wants to immediately go the punitive route and say that they want to go through the court system or the military justice system. Sometimes it is a matter—and this is more when it's at the level of sexual harassment, where it isn't something that was clearly criminal—where you have somebody you'd really rather be able to work things out with and be able to have restorative justice. This is also important because there are people who may have said some off-colour jokes many decades ago and are reflecting back now and thinking that they didn't realize it then, but they were being disrespectful. They may want to have a process by which they can actually make amends for some of the attitudes and some of the things that may have happened.
When we talk about restorative justice, it is not the only solution, of course. Accountability is vitally important. I think we have seen that people need to be held to account for their behaviours, but it has to be a decision of the person who has experienced the behaviours and is coming forward to have options, to have choices and to be able to direct that process and have control over that process themselves. I think that's something that is probably a core thing in what our study was. We've heard from many witnesses. I don't think we need more and more witnesses.
The other thing that has come up through our witnesses is that the abuse of authority and power needs to be core to the increased education and awareness of this issue. We have seen on occasion that people talk about this as if it is about a sexualized environment. What it is, plain and simple, is abuse of power. We heard from many witnesses that this is clearly about abuse of power and that we need to stop saying that this is somehow about sex or about flirting. It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with power.
I know that we have enhanced the education and training. We heard from many witnesses that we need to enhance that even more. The fact is that, when we do that education, we need to do it so it's not about gender relationships, but about power. We need to make sure that people are aware of that as the core issue.
The other recommendation we heard is that respect for the dignity of the individual needs to be reinforced. It says here “individual”. I think this is very important because what we're talking about is something that can poison an entire unit, an entire team, the camaraderie and, in fact, the operational effectiveness of a unit. When you're not treating people who are subordinate or people around you with respect and dignity, these are things that can impact everything that the Canadian Armed Forces do. At the core of this, Madam Chair, we need to make sure we reinforce the respect and dignity of the individual.
I am glad, Madam Chair, that it says “individual” because as I mentioned.... I have had some survivors contact me since Friday, who heard me speaking. I actually want to apologize that I kept saying “women”. While it is very much a majority of women who experience this, we know—we've heard from witnesses—that men experience it, too. Men have an even harder time coming forward. It's difficult for women to come forward, but it's even more difficult for men, non-binary and transgender members of our military. We have to make sure that it is the individual who is respected.
We have also heard a recommendation that the values and attributes of an ideal soldier—or an ideal aviator or sailor—must be updated for the 21st century. No longer do we have a Canadian Armed Forces like in World War I, where it was the trenches and you saw a very masculine vision of what a member of the Canadian Armed Forces was. We have so many occupations in the Canadian Armed Forces and we heard from witnesses that the culture....
As we heard from Mr. Spengemann, it's not just the Canadian Armed Forces that are undergoing a tremendous culture shift. It is all militaries. All of our allies are facing the same thing because we really are moving toward a world where it's not brute strength. It is intelligence, skills, adaptability, the ability to reflect the population, the diversity of our Canadian Armed Forces and the ideas that people with different lived experiences can bring to a mission. That is what gives our Canadian Armed Forces strength.
When we look at the ideal soldier, unfortunately—maybe because of pop culture, history or socialization—we often still think about that brute strength. That is a very masculine kind of concept. While we are going through this change, we really need to understand that it is a culture shift that is happening. There are people who need to be brought along to adapt to the idea that strength is sometimes compromise. Strength and bravery can sometimes mean that you are doing something much more intelligently. That is something we have heard many times from witnesses. Also, when we talk about gender, there is this idea that if you show emotion, you're somehow weak—that you're somehow not strong.
We have all of these things in our psyche. A lot of this comes from war movies that we watch or the socialization when we are little boys and girls.
Madam Chair, I would like to add a small story about what happened to me when I was 12 years old. When I was 12, we went on a field trip. I grew up in Calgary and the Currie Barracks were next to Heritage Park, where we used to go on field trips. After our field trip, my mom was driving and we had three or four other 12-year-old girls in the car. We ended up stopping at the ice cream shop. We saw some military personnel go by. I remember one of the girls saying that if she were a boy, she would join the navy. Another girl said that if she were a boy, she would for sure join the air force. Somebody else said that if she were a boy, she thought she'd join the army. I'm not going to say what I said, because of course as parliamentary secretary, I don't want any of the forces to think I have a preference for one over the other.
At 12 years old, in Calgary, as young girls growing up in the eighties, it never occurred to us that little girls could join the navy, the army or the air force. It never occurred to us because we'd never seen a woman in uniform. I, for one, had never seen one, either on TV or in reality. There were no role models.
I think what our study has shown through all the witness testimony we've heard is that this is the kind of thing that still exists, these subliminal ideas that we internalize that we are not even aware of. We need to make sure that, when we look at the ideal soldier, the ideal aviator, the ideal sailor, every little girl, every transgender person, every non-binary person, every racialized person or anyone can look at their Canadian Armed Forces and see themselves and see it as a place where they can contribute and where they are welcome, and not just a place that tolerates or accepts.
We heard many witnesses talk about the little indignities that happen day to day that say you don't really belong here, the things that say we need to accommodate you. It's not about accommodating. It is about making sure that the Canadian Armed Forces are a place where the wide diversity of people in this country can contribute absolutely, fully and be welcome, and where little girls who are 12 years old who see the military driving by can say, “When I grow up, I want to be one of them.” That is what we're looking for. That's why I think that recommendation, which I have here as number 82, is probably one of the most important recommendations.
We also have a recommendation here, and this is something that isn't always looked at, for the health care needs of women to be fulfilled, including research and development and gaps in occupational and operational military medicine for women that need to be identified and addressed. The example here is pregnancy, and we actually had this discussion in the status of women committee the other day with our witnesses. I think this recommendation is very important because, again, it goes back to what I said. Rather than feeling as though they're being accommodated, we need to make sure that people feel they're fully and absolutely participating.
We know that there are gaps. We know that when it comes particularly to women on deployment, in terms of health care needs, the military medical system is primarily focused on trauma medicine, of course, and it's focused on people who are fairly in the prime of their lives. They're fairly fit, they're fairly active, they're younger and they're mostly men. What you have, then, is a military system where.... I've spoken to some veterans who said that when they were on deployment it was very hard to look at things like birth control, to look at anything that had to do with gynecological needs.
There are things that we know are different occupational and environmental hazards that can impact on fertility, and that's not just for women but for men as well. However, it has not been researched. It has not been studied enough to see exactly how those impacts affect women. That's why I think this is a very important recommendation that has come up: the research and development and looking at the gaps in operational military medicine.
We also heard from witnesses that we need money for the full integration of women in traditional male environments and it must be dedicated funding. Today is a very hopeful day because in a few hours we have our budget coming. I know we heard from many women, many veterans and many survivors, that it is very difficult if the money to do the so-called “accommodation”, if you need a special uniform....
I know very well that there is actually a lot of movement to make sure that things like uniforms are coming from a central budget so that it doesn't come out of the unit budget. To make sure that there is funding, very specific funding that would allow for the needs of women and other diverse members of the Canadian Armed Forces, to be able to have that dedicated fund that then doesn't get used for something else, or worse yet, get taken from somewhere else and then the unit says, the reason we can't go on our welfare trip or some other thing is that we had to use the money on somebody's uniform....
We've heard this. I believe that many advancements are being made right now. I've had those conversations, but I do think we have to pay attention to that recommendation that came from our witnesses. Again, this indicates that we don't really need to hear from many more witnesses, because in fact we have heard really, really good recommendations.
I will leave it there, Madam Chair. I see there are some more hands up. I will let my colleagues speak. I just want to indicate that I have many, many more that I still haven't gotten to. I would like to come back later and talk about those.