National Defence Committee on April 30th, 2021

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

I would just like to remark that we are in difficult times with COVID-19, and many have family responsibilities. I think it would be really not right that if somebody has a child and there's background noise of necessity, the individual would not be able to speak in this committee because of that noise. I know that it's difficult for the interpreters, but I do think that we have to be very understanding of family, and that is not something that should ever stop a member from being able to participate in debate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Okay. Thank you, Madam Vanderbeld. I was also wondering what that was.

Mr. Barsalou-Duval, could you maybe just slow down a little bit? The interpreters are having a hard time. If you slow down a bit, maybe they'll be able to catch more of it, but I think it's very important that we hear from you.

Thank you.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yes, my son is at home with me. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it's not always possible to find babysitters. It can make things a little complicated, and I hope it doesn't cause too much inconvenience. I will speak more slowly and try to stay on track.

In my opinion, it's important that we get to the bottom of this to really understand what happened. That is why I support the motion. We are asking Katie Telford, the Prime Minister's chief of staff, to appear, and it seems that she may be able to shed some light on the story.

When we have finished this study, it's important that people do not get the impression that we have taken half measures and cut corners. It's important that we do everything we need to do to submit a report for the victims. However, we can, at the same time, make recommendations on behalf of the victims and properly do the work that falls to our committee.

I would like to say that I am deeply disappointed and in disbelief over the developments in the past few weeks. It feels as though both the government and the Prime Minister are adjusting their version of events as witnesses appear before the committee. Sadly, that kind of behaviour does not foster trust. When serious situations like this arise, the least we can do is be transparent and put our cards on the table, whether we have something to be ashamed of or not.

That is why I don't intend to let this go. Several individuals will have things to say at today's meeting and I will be pleased to hear from them. However, I hope we can make a decision today. It would be in everyone's interest that our committee's work move forward and not be hampered by a desire to keep certain witnesses from appearing, as has happened in the past.

I look forward to hearing what my colleagues have to say on the matter.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

All right.

Thank you, Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

We will move to Madame Romanado, followed by Mr. Bagnell.

Go ahead, Madame Romanado.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Mr. Barsalou-Duval, it is always a pleasure to hear your son. You must never apologize for that.

I thank MP Garrison for his words. I'm subbing in here today and haven't been part of the study, but I think that's something that seems to have been forgotten along the way. If the goal of this committee and the members of this committee is to provide a report with recommendations to finally stamp out sexual harassment in the military, that's great. I think every member of the Canadian Armed Forces and the families who support them want us to come together to finally come up with a concrete solution for this problem.

If the point of this is literally to get content for social media, well then, shame on you. When I decided to run for office, as a military mom I was really concerned for my son, who joined the forces in 2011, and for the younger one who joined in 2013. Many of you on this committee who served with me in the last Parliament know that. The reason I decided to run is that I was a ticked-off mom. I was worried that if my kids got sick or injured in the Canadian Armed Forces, they wouldn't be taken care of when they left. I said, “You know, I can put up or I can shut up,” so I got involved. I decided to run for federal office because I was not happy about how we were treating our veterans and members of our forces.

As my colleague MP Alleslev and the chair will know, when my kids joined the forces, the family joined. The whole family is involved. You hear stuff and you talk about stuff and you get worried. You start thinking about things and you hope things will change. You get involved and you get active.

I now have another member of the Canadian Armed Forces in my family. My son married a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, so I have my own little platoon going on.

However, I'm really concerned. The Deschamps report clearly brought forward the problems in the Canadian Armed Forces. As MP Garrison said, we had a duty to act. We all have a duty to act.

We can stand here, beat our chests and blame each other over who did what and who didn't do what, but what's important is what we do moving forward. How do we fix this? Those survivors and the families who support them, who went through horrible experiences, need us to move forward. They need us to come together as a collective and move the dial.

I ask that we come together and get this done for them. I don't want to have to hear that one of my kids went through this. I don't want to have to bury another family member or friend in the Canadian Armed Forces. I don't want to hear that anymore. I don't want to go to any more funerals. I want to know that we did something. I don't know about you guys, but that's why I ran.

I was once told you either run for office because you want to do something or because you want to be someone. I don't know about you guys, but I want to do something. Let's get this report finalized. Let's hear from whoever we have to hear from, but let's get it done.

I don't know what the regular practice is for the national defence committee with respect to submitting witness lists. In my committee, if a member wants to submit a witness's name, they submit it to the clerk and we just invite them. We don't invoke Standing Order106(4) and have these debates on a witness; we just send in the witness's name. To me, this sounds like political grandstanding. You're playing games. If you really want to just have someone come to the committee, send in your witness list. Get the people here, speak to them, and get it done, but stop playing games for the sake of getting political points. This is not what we're supposed to be doing.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Thank you, Madame Romanado.

We'll go to Mr. Bagnell, followed by Madame Vandenbeld.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I really appreciate Ms. Romanado's being here. She comes from a military family and could have a lot more input than I would have knowledge of. I really appreciate that. She said passionately that we should get on with doing the recommendations. Mr. Baker and I said that at the beginning. That's what I'm going to spend most of my comments on today.

As we know, there was a complaint. An investigation was done as far as any information was available. That was carried out. As several members have mentioned already, information came out this week that's changed the whole focus of the General Vance situation, if you want to follow that. The victims want us to get on with and do the report and make the changes, so that's what I'm going to mostly concentrate on.

There are hundreds of victims and hundreds of perpetrators. We've already spent more than enough time on Mr. Vance, on one of those hundreds, and that is being investigated in the proper channels anyway, and the investigation of the one complaint was completed at the time as far as it could be done. As the member said, the focus has changed. If we were going to pursue that, which I'm not suggesting at this time, the much more serious news that's come out is that Mr. Vance was appointed while he was still under investigation. That could lead to all sorts of witnesses regarding that situation, but, as I've said before, that's not my focus right now. I want to carry on like I did before, talking about things that will help the witnesses.

The minister has made some very major steps this week, and Mr. Baker touched on those. There's a lot more to be done. I will go into those at great depth, but not right now. I want to get back to the second part of what I was doing the last time when we were making the case that there's enough information available, both from victims and reports, to do a really good job of helping the victims now, who must be thinking of a pox on all our houses if we don't move forward and suggest to the minister.... He's already taking steps, but we could give him more authority to take more steps if we had our recommendations done.

Before I get on to that, what I want to do is what I did in the second half of the last meeting, and comment on what has been done so far. There were suggestions about trust and confidence at the top. I think that's important. I think the minister has done so much. With parliamentary timelines, you have to act quickly to get things done. I think, with the present minister, the number of things he has done gives that confidence and trust. If we're going to get something done, he's going to do as much as he can.

I'll just remind some of the people who may not be too familiar with this subject, including some of the great national media, who I really appreciate.... They do some excellent research. I haven't noticed as much on the steps to date and, obviously, we have to do more, which has always been the focus of my discussion— some of the steps.

The present minister, long before any of this came up, said he was ensuring that our support and approach was victim-centric. It meant that victims are to be supported throughout the process. It meant the establishment of a case management system to ensure that cases are investigated and resolved in a timely manner.

He also said it involves increased training that is both victim-centric and accessible to all CAF members no matter where they work. It builds on some of the important work already under way, including a review of the unfounded cases, which is important both inside and outside the military, and the passing of C-77 that includes a declaration of victim rights that puts the victims at the core of the military justice system. He made it clear long ago that we owe it to our women and men in uniform to get this right on the sexual misconduct.

I appreciate Mr. Garrison's comments on the wording. The government took the allegations seriously and the minister said that no one should feel unsafe at work. He also said there's a lot of work to do, as I think all committee members agree today. That's why he launched the path to dignity and respect, a strategy for long-term cultural change to eliminate sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces. He made a very strong statement that the mission here is nothing less than cultural change and that we should not stop until our members are able to perform their duties in an environment free from harassment and discrimination.

On C-77, he said that that the government takes the allegations very seriously and that “No one should feel unsafe at work.” That's why Bill C-77 was passed. It's a declaration of victim rights that puts the victim at the core of the military justice system. The minister said that the government had also promised to consult victims as it drafted the regulations for the bill, and that's exactly what is being done.

So far, he has consulted federal partners, including the sexual misconduct response centre—the SMRC—and is developing an online survey to consult as many victims as possible. As you know, some of the feedback has shown—as I said at the beginning—there are hundreds of perpetrators and victims.

We owe it to our men and women to get it right. The minister has said time and time again before this started that inappropriate sexual behaviour of any kind is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated. For every person who willingly serves their country, despite the many dangers and sacrifices, the military service deserves a professional environment in which they are treated with respect and dignity.

The Canadian Forces continues to take definitive action to address and eliminate sexual misconduct, but obviously we need to do more work. We heard from the victims at great length. I think they said that we've gotten the information from them and the steps we can take. Frankly, that's what we should be discussing now. Some of them have expressed their appreciation for us getting some more of that on the record.

The last time I was speaking, I talked about the Deschamps report. There are two parts on sexual misconduct. First there was a section on sexual harassment, which I covered the last time I spoke. The second part is on sexual assault.

To continue on our position that we have enough information, there's a lot we could be working on right now that's very important to the victims. I'm going to continue with that information to make sure it's on the record and to make sure that victims know that we're thinking about them and about the things that have been found out so far and the actions that need to be taken forward.

The report says:

As a preliminary matter, the ERA note[s] that as part of its mandate, it has been requested to consider and make recommendations concerning the following:

“the adequacy of the definition of sexual misconduct as provided for in DAOD 5019-5...;

I discussed at length at a previous meeting how the directives have made some very good, very comprehensive changes, but I'm not sure why those aren't working. That's what we have to be discussing.

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

On a point of order, Madam Chair, I thought this meeting was about debating the motion and bringing a witness in for our next meeting so that we can finish this study. I did not realize that we were already into the phase of the report where we're actually be making the recommendations. I believe when we go to compose the report, that is when we go over these recommendations.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Thank you, Madam Gallant.

Go ahead, Mr. Bagnell.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

On the point of order, we've already made this case. It has already been deemed relevant at the previous meeting when people where trying to extend the meeting way beyond the time to discuss things other than the recommendations, so I'll just continue with that rationale and that—

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

Madam Chair, as a point of order, Mr. Bagnell is reading the same script that he used in the last filibuster, so this is repetition.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

I'm sorry, but just to correct the member, this is totally new. I've never read this. I've never made these important points about the victims to show that we have the information that we need to move forward, that we need to be discussing, instead of constantly calling more victims on one particular case, that of General Vance.

As I've said, there are a lot more witnesses who are more important now that we've found critical new information this week about his appointment, but that's not what the people, the victims who have been so sadly hurt, have expressed and that's what I'm continuing.

As I said, I correct the member. I haven't said any of this before.

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

I would like to challenge the chair's ruling in accepting the overturning my point of order. I want to overturn your decision.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Ms. Vandenbeld, go ahead.

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

If the members could find where in the blues Mr. Bagnell actually said this before, then of course...but if that's not in the blues, I believe he has the right to continue.

Madam Chair, I think you already ruled on this.

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

Madam Chair, I don't think the blues are out yet.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

From previous meetings, the blues are out.

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

Are they out from that meeting?

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

I would imagine. How long does it take?

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

It takes forever.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

It's usually within a week.

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

Regardless, the video is always available immediately, and unless they can show that this was said before, I do think you've already ruled on this point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

All right.

Mr. Bagnell, carry on, please.

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

On a point of order, Madam Chair, I am moving a motion to overrule the chair's decision.

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

To be clear, if we vote yes, are we sustaining the chair?