Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate the last intervention.
I want to remind the committee though that politicians in committees do not do investigations. That has to be independent. The appropriate investigations are going on, they will run their course and the information will be public.
To add to what Mr. Spengemann said in relation to Ms. Alleslev's comment about limiting people's input, as Mr. Bezan said, people should be allowed to speak. This motion extends the debate for reasons I'm not sure of.
Any comments that members have about things that would be more useful in extending a debate or why it doesn't need to be extended or other input.... If we're going to extend it like we are today, there's some valuable information getting on the record. If one member agrees and says that, there's nothing to stop another member from saying that and repeating it.
There was an email and the person refused to allow an investigation. As Mr. Wernick said, there was nowhere to go. People know that in this particular instance. I'm not sure what more information there would be on that. There is a lot of information from the thousands of members in the military who have, as I explained in a previous meeting, been affected by this, plus the serious and sometimes terrible information we have from serving members, victims.
As Mr. Bezan said, we should respect them. I would suggest we respect them and get on with it. If Mr. Bezan would withdraw his motion instead of prolonging this, we could move forward on this.
The second concern is that Mr. Bezan was prejudging the recommendations. This is very concerning to me because we haven't even discussed those yet from what I have heard. The things that Liberals are bringing up, we'll continue to get on the record.
As Xavier said, important input from members and victims is related to the changing culture, the independence of the processes and the repercussions. People are terrified of reporting because of the repercussions on their careers.
I'm not sure which of those things Mr. Bezan is calling into question in terms of recommendations when we haven't even discussed those. Anything that I've heard the Liberals put forward is related to what the victims and the experts have said needs to be done, so why would we be questioning those recommendations?
I have more to add to the debate. I could repeat someone else just so I could agree with them and read in excess of what they have said. What I am going to add now has not been said by anyone. It's something I've wanted to get in at previous meetings but I didn't have a chance yet.
It's related to the change in administrative directives, which is very important information and is much more than what the motion suggests. It's the change in directive to the DAOD 9005-1, which replaced the DAOD 5019-5.
I read these about a month ago because I was interested in what changes had been made. I read these directives dealing with the situation. It appears on the surface to be very comprehensive with very good changes. The question that the committee should be looking at, which would be a much more valuable witness than the motion before us, is why these things aren't changing.
The new 9005—for the record it's DAOD 9005-1, which I'll refer to as 9005—has a fundamentally different approach in how it frames sexual misconduct in addressing allegations of sexual misconduct in a preventive and reactionary methodology compared to 5019.
DAOD 9005's language and approach is very intentional, clearly designed to give direction and not be left up to the reader's discretion. I thought this was an excellent change, but the victims have explained that this isn't working. The DAOD expands to include specific definitions, frameworks and perspectives, which include supporting the respondent, not simply dealing with the incident.
The case can be made for this interpretation based on numerous items in the 30-page document. I won't read them all, but I'll read some of the sections that support this claim and then make the case for our witness—instead of the one proposed, which are dealing with something we've already dealt with—on why this 9005 isn't being effective.