Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I'm going to return to what I was saying when the meeting was arbitrarily suspended. What I was saying is that this motion doesn't deal with the problem that we have two outstanding reports for studies that began before this study of sexual misconduct, reports that we made a great deal of progress on as a committee and that we were dealing with at the draft stage, as was published on the committee website earlier.
One of those is the COVID report. I really think there are important recommendations there. We're not out of this pandemic yet. We could face further repercussions, further waves. I think it's very important that this report gets tabled in the House of Commons to provide that advice.
The second report is on mental health in the Canadian Armed Forces. This is an issue that I've been raising in two Parliaments now, both the specific issue that self-harm remains a disciplinary offence in the military code of conduct and the more general lack of services for those in the Canadian Armed Forces facing mental health challenges. We still continue to lose one serving member a month to death by suicide, so we have a real crisis here that needs to be dealt with.
We had very important testimony with very important suggestions of what might be able to happen, and we have a draft report. At one point, our agenda very clearly and publicly said that we would deal with the draft report on COVID and then deal with the mental health report. Unfortunately, at the next meeting, the chair arbitrarily changed the order of business to deal with the sexual misconduct report.
I am going to once again express my disappointment that the government has rebuffed all offers to deal expeditiously with these two important reports and instead appears to be holding these reports hostage to get its way on the sexual misconduct report. Obviously, the sexual misconduct report is much more difficult for us to make progress on because we have two different conceptions of what the question is.
I think that Mr. Bezan's motion helps us get at the essence of what the question before us really is: Why was there no action taken on allegations of sexual misconduct against General Vance in 2018, and why was he allowed to stay for another three years in charge of Operation Honour? If someone made that decision, we need to know who that was, and we still have contradictory testimony about that. If no decision was made, that raises an even larger problem of whether the Minister of National Defence in particular, or the Prime Minister's Office, actually understood the severity of the crisis of sexual misconduct in the Canadian military. As I have said repeatedly, until we answer those questions, any reforms going forward will be taken less seriously than they should be by perpetrators, and they won't have the full confidence of those who are survivors of sexual misconduct.
I am in support of this motion. As I said, with or without section (b), I would be prepared to vote in favour of the motion, but I do regret that the important work on COVID and on mental health in the Canadian Armed Forces is being held hostage by the government to try to force some concessions from the opposition on the sexual misconduct study.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.