Thank you very much.
I would remind the committee that this chair, as the commissioned officer and an elected member of Parliament, along with all members must put their country above their own personal gain or position.
That is not what has happened. What we have seen, Madam Chair, from the actions last Friday, is that a motion was brought to entertain another witness, and you ruled it out of order. In fact, there was no question that it was not out of order, because the motion simply said what we're going to study. The recommendations would be submitted by Friday and the report for this study would be done by a further date. It did not in any way say that no new witnesses could be brought forward, and this is not a new witness. This is someone we have been trying to get to committee since March 8.
We challenged your decision, and we were able to overrule your decision. Madam Chair. In return, you suspended the committee meeting for 80 minutes as a punishment for bringing this motion forward without giving 48 hours' notice, when in fact it is protocol and generally accepted that we bring motions, and absolutely nothing prevents us from bringing motions from the floor. Your rule, Madam Chair, as I understand it, is to facilitate the process fairly and honourably, not to punish members of Parliament on the committee.
You then failed to monitor the debate to ensure there was relevance around the topic we were discussing, as well as that points were not being made repeatedly over and over again.
If the motion on the table was to bring a specific witness, Elder Marques, forward, then the debate should be around that, not about whether or not we have enough recommendations so that we don't need to review this anymore. We don't know what testimony a witness is going to bring until we actually hear from that witness. It is unconscionable we would debate that, because we have so much other information, which may or may not be relevant to what this witness is going to say, that we don't need to hear anymore.
We are counting on you, Madam Chair, to ensure the will of the committee is maintained—not just the will of a few Liberal members but that the will of the committee is maintained. It was clear on Friday that the will of the committee was not to adjourn, and Madam Chair, you did not have the will of the committee to adjourn. It was clearly the will of the committee to get to a vote on this critical motion before adjourning.
This motion is not some frivolous procedural motion. This is a critically important motion. This committee is essentially the last line of defence in all of the things we're doing to get to the bottom of sexual misconduct, abuse of authority, harassment and discrimination in one of the most important institutions of our country, the Canadian Armed Forces.
We have heard of the repeated failures in the process. We still do not have answers as to not only how a chief of the defence staff could remain in his position for three years with unresolved allegations of sexual misconduct but why no security review was conducted. He also received his performance at-risk pay, a salary increase, and was allowed to become the longest serving chief of the defence staff ever.
This motion is to hear from an individual who was in the Prime Minister's Office. Ministerial accountability only comes if we know who knew what when. We can't just take the Minister of National Defence's word for it, and the Minister of National Defence clearly said he didn't. He told his chief of staff who, he believes, told Elder Marques.
Who Elder Marques told, we don't know, yet that's very important because we heard from the Clerk of the Privy Council that a plan was put forward to the Prime Minister to remove the CDS, change the CDS, before the last election.
However, for whatever reason, that didn't happen, and as I said, he received his performance at-risk pay and a salary increase and was extended as the longest-serving CDS ever. How? How could that have occurred while there were unresolved allegations of sexual misconduct against the highest officer in the land?
We have not done our job. We are the last line of defence until we know exactly what Elder Marques in the Prime Minister's Office knew, who he told and how this occurred.
Yes, it is our job to fix the processes, and we've heard lots of recommendations around processes, but this is not only about processes. This is about the individuals in critical positions and whether they followed those processes. When people fail to do what they've been entrusted to do, we need to understand how we can fix the system or how we can hold those people accountable so that it doesn't happen again. Therefore, for the government to say we don't need to hear more testimony is unconscionable.
Again, the committee decides, and the will of the committee is to hear from this critical witness. No change will occur if those who have the authority and responsibility do nothing or allow the process to be frustrated and critical information not provided.
You, Madam Chair, from your actions on Friday, are complicit in preventing this committee from doing the will of the committee. Therefore, we implore you to use the powers vested in you, with loyalty to country, integrity and the courage to do what is right, not what is easy, to put the best interests of the country, the rule of law, our democracy and the sacred responsibility to our fellow men and women in the Canadian Armed Forces first, to honour them and fight for their desire to be treated fairly and serve free from harassment and discrimination.
We can only do that—our job as a committee, as the last line of defence—if we hear this critical testimony from Elder Marques and if you facilitate fairly, procedurally, openly and honestly the will of the committee and the best interests of the country first.
Thank you very much.