National Defence Committee on Nov. 2nd, 2020

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I would like, Mr. Minister, to return to the question of the role of women in the Canadian military. I am disappointed with the rate of progress. I want to point out that on recruitment, if we continue at the current rate of one percentage point improvement every four years, it means that it would take us another 30 years before the Canadian Armed Forces reaches its 25% goal, and closer to 60 years before it reaches 30% women in the military. That level is generally acknowledged: you need about 30% of women to change the culture in any institution.

I'm also disappointed with the progress on the regulations; it's been more than a year. It shouldn't take more than a year to consult those victims. I want to return to another disturbing part of this, namely, that if we're going to changes these attitudes in the Canadian military, it's necessary to train future leaders. Statistics Canada just released a report covering cadets at the Royal Military College in Kingston and the Royal Military College in Saint-Jean for the year 2019. Those statistics showed that 15% of women at the colleges experienced sexual harassment or assault in the previous year. Seven in 10 of the military college students experienced or witnessed directly that sexualized behaviour. Of those who witnessed that behaviour, over 90% said they did not intervene because they weren't comfortable to intervene.

In speaking to the media, Mr. Minister, you said that you would take all actions necessary to deal with this problem at the Royal Military Colleges. Can you tell us today what those actions are and when they will be taken?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Mr. Garrison, I'm glad you raised these points. This is one area that we have devoted much effort to and will continue to devote it to until we make sure that we don't have any of these types of behaviours. One instance is too many. When it comes to our Royal Military Colleges and institutions, they are extremely precious organizations that we need to make sure we protect and we need to make sure that we look at how we support our women who are joining there. A lot of measures have been taken. We have made the initial appropriate investments into the colleges.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Chair, I have a point of order.

There are interpretation issues. Unfortunately, the interpreters are struggling to hear the minister, so they cannot do their job and help us, francophones, understand what is happening.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

My apologies. The microphone that was given to me does not work, so I had to use the one in the laptop. Is it better now? I'll try to speak as loudly as I can.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Dowdall, please.

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I thank the minister for being here today.

I want to take an opportunity to mention something quickly. I'm just over a year into my mandate here and I'm very thankful to be here, but two parts have disappointed me so far. Certainly from my perspective, it's only our third meeting here, and I would like to have had more opportunity to speak. The other one is that even now with our discussion today, I'm yet to see a budget tabled since I've been elected. Those are probably two of the disappointments I've had.

I would like to follow up. I had a discussion on this at our meeting in March this year, and as you know, National Defence and Veterans Affairs Canada built a suicide prevention strategy late in 2017. In 2018 we had 15 suicides. In April your department revealed there had been 20 suicides in 2019, the highest number since 2014. For perspective, 175 Canadian military personnel have died by suicide since 2010, which is more than the 158 Canadians who were lost during the war in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014. We know that we want to invest. We think it's so important for mental health, probably more than ever, especially now since COVID is an issue all across Canada, but certainly it's a huge issue in my riding at Base Borden in Simcoe—Grey. Minister, where are we in 2020?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

This hits all Canadian Armed Forces members extremely hard and all of us who work and support the Canadian Armed Forces. Every time we have an instance like this, it is extremely hurtful and forces us to ask the question: do we have the appropriate support and are we doing the right thing? One thing I can assure you of is that we don't leave any stone unturned. Every type of support is required to make sure that we try to prevent and try to learn from every instance. Even during this pandemic, we knew it was going to be an even a greater challenge for members. We were making sure programs like Soldier On had the right support so they can actually take their support—

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Minister, I just want to say that they're great initiatives, and I think everyone in the House supports those initiatives, but I'm just asking if we have definitive numbers. Are we seeing that? We're making investments, but you always have to have your checks and balances, and that's the part that I'm kind of confused about, and that's the question that I'm asked constantly in my riding.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

If you're asking for the exact numbers, I don't have them today, but one of the things we've seen is that sometimes we have to take a look to see if we are providing the appropriate support for our members and their families. That's one thing I can assure you that we are doing, but sometimes we need to continually learn from every single incident so we can prevent it. This is hurtful for all of us.

One thing I can assure you of is that we're not leaving any stone unturned to provide the appropriate support. I can have more information sent to you and have a more discussion on this, because it does require a far greater amount of time for this level of conversation on this, on the type of work that we're doing, not only to prevent this, but also at how we at members who have come and gone through it to provide that peer support. I can give many examples like this, but at the end of the day, we need to continue to strive to provide all of the necessary support to our members.

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

I know I probably don't have much time—

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

You have one minute remaining, Mr. Dowdall, but the bells have begun to ring, so we need unanimous consent to continue for another 10 minutes. Are we good for that?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

No.

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

Let's continue, please. I think all of us can log in virtually. We don't need to go to the House physically.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

There is no unanimous consent.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

If there's no unanimous consent, I'm afraid we need to adjourn.

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Can I at least ask my last question quickly?

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

No, I'm sorry, because there's no unanimous consent and the committee therefore needs to adjourn.

Thank you to all of our witnesses.

Minister, thank you for giving us time by joining us today. This is very important for us, and we appreciate your presence.

With this, the meeting is adjourned.