Madam Chair, I'm very surprised at the aggression that the member is pointing towards me. I'm simply laying out facts about different meetings that have happened, what time they ended and whether or not a meeting was cancelled. There was a statement made earlier. As I said, I want to ensure that anybody listening doesn't get the wrong impression about what has happened.
The meeting I was just referring to, which one could say was technically a cancelled meeting, was in fact superseded, because there was a motion in the House of Commons where that issue, which the meeting was supposed to address, was debated for eight hours in the House. That superseded the meeting. That meeting was in fact suspended. There was even an attempt at a motion to suspend.
I will just go through the larger issue here. This was a study that was originally intended to be three or four meetings. This study has now gone on for four months. Our committee meets generally when the House is sitting. It meets for two meetings for two hours. That's four hours a week. On this study alone, not only has our committee extended well beyond the number of meetings that were originally intended, but it has actually sat for 26 hours and 40 minutes of additional time, in addition to the time that the meetings were actually scheduled. There have been five emergency meetings that have been called, again, in addition to the regular scheduled time for these meetings.
I do believe it would be logical to say that this particular study has had already more debate, more witnesses, more time than anything that had been anticipated. I don't want to leave the impression for viewers or anybody listening that any meetings have actually been cancelled or cut short.
That's just what I wanted to begin with.
I'd also like to address the amendment and the motion, because whether it's an interim or a full report, the issue of adding more witnesses and hearing more.... I do note that there are witnesses on this list who have already appeared. What has happened, I believe, is that, as we've progressed, each time that we're ready to review the report and in fact have scheduled meetings to review the three reports, there has been yet another motion put on the floor to call yet another witness or another set of witnesses. I think in each case we have brought those witnesses.
When there was an additional witness, Mr. Elder Marques, we did hear from Mr. Marques. Then the chief of staff to the Prime Minister was called, and we did hear from her. We've heard from the minister now for six hours. He came in place of his chief of staff, Zita Astravas. Even Ms. Alleslev, said in her testimony a couple of meetings ago, that was accepted by the committee at the time.
My concern is that there is a narrative being put out there that somehow we're trying to stop witnesses. As we can see, we have accepted all the witnesses that members of the committee have asked for, except for actually a few who were put by the opposition, like Jason Kenney and a couple of others. The fact is that, every time, there's another motion. This particular motion, with or without the amendment that we're discussing, asks for no debate or amendments when we discuss the report. It asks for no response from the government, which is a normal practice and procedure.
What is happening now, I think, is that, because we have accepted all of the witnesses who have been put forward, all the additional ones each time.... I'm not attributing any motives here. The perception could be made that these are poison pills deliberately put into these motions, knowing that members of the committee wouldn't be able to accept them, to not get on with the report.
I would note, Madam Chair, that our next study is on military justice. We do actually have Justice Fish about to table a very important review of the military justice system. I would implore one more time that, if the opposition would like to try to find consensus, perhaps the opposition could withdraw the motion which includes, as I said, things that say, by my calculation, an hour and 45 minutes to debate a report that's over 60 pages. It says right in it that there be no debate and no amendment, which is very undemocratic and a very difficult thing to do in the committee, when we do need to look at the different parts of the report and make amendments. Also, it's not asking for a government response.
What I would suggest is that, if the opposition withdraws the amended motion, perhaps at that point we could then review the report.
Then we could move to the justice study right at the time that Justice Fish is going to be tabling, which gives us an incredible opportunity. We would be able to call Justice Fish and other witnesses who can speak about an aspect of sexual misconduct that is vitally important and that has been identified by almost every witness we had here and before the status of women committee as a core issue in looking at whether or not there is justice for victims of sexual harassment, sexual assault and sexual misconduct in the military, and that is the military justice system.
That's why I do believe that the comments about that are incredibly relevant and that we have an opportunity as members of Parliament. As I said before, I believe all members of this committee want what's best for the women and men of the Canadian Armed Forces.
I would very much hope that we can put partisanship aside and look at the recommendations in this study. Frankly, there are many recommendations that come from important testimony. We have had Madam Deschamps herself come to this committee. We have had experts. We have had academics. We have had people who have come in good faith, testifying before us in the assumption that their testimony would then lead to a report and recommendations.
Again, I very much hope we can still get to that. I do believe that, regardless of whether we pass this motion, there will be another one and another one. We've seen that as a pattern at this point. I do believe that in this motion, deliberately or not, there are things the opposition knows can't be supported, including not having any amendments or debate on a very important report.
I would just really urge, Madam Chair, that members of the committee try to work together to at least still get this report out and to at least get the other two reports.... We may not get a report on military justice before the end of the session, but we could hear some really important testimony. I know that if we could hear from Justice Fish, he will have some very important things to say that I do believe are relevant and vitally important to the survivors.
I want to talk more about military culture. I have a number of recommendations that you'll recall I was speaking of several weeks ago that actually came from the testimony and the survivors. I had a list of 92. I still have 27 left. However, I will set that aside, because I see other people would like to speak. I will come back to those momentarily, as soon as my colleagues have had a chance to speak.
Thank you, Madam Chair.