Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I would like to address my intervention to paragraph (b) of the amendment on the motion. As I've said before, I applaud Mr. Barsalou-Duval for focusing on the culture. Paragraph (b) specifically talks about putting an end to the culture that has persisted for too long within the CAF in order to prevent women and men from becoming new victims of sexual misconduct. This particular part of the amendment is very important.
We have been discussing particularly in this committee what happens after there has been an incident, after someone has been victimized, has been harmed, but really what we need to do is to prevent the harm from happening in the first place. That's why I am very pleased to see that amendment. Unfortunately, it's an amendment on a motion that obviously is very difficult to support.
I would like to talk a little bit about how we do that prevention. It is one thing to have supports in place when you have a person who has gone through a very difficult and traumatic experience, but in order to prevent it, you really need to address the culture. You need to address the values: What it is that is valued and promoted within the Canadian Armed Forces, and what characteristics and skill sets are valued?
I said this in the status of women committee, but I think it bears repeating here. All too often there is an attitude of “Well, he's a womanizer, but he's a good soldier or aviator or sailor.” That does not exist. We need to make sure that the qualities of a good soldier, good sailor and good aviator include the kinds of qualities that allow leaders within the Canadian Armed Forces to draw out the best talent, the best skills, the best of everybody who serves and who is serving under them.
That requires a completely different value set. That requires us to look at the promotion system and how we advance people within the Canadian Armed Forces. If you advance based on certain hard skills, and you look at the leadership skills, the team-building skills, the empathy and the understanding as peripheral, those are the types of things.... Worse yet, if you look at behaviours that can be very toxic, behaviours that can undermine, diminish, condescend and make people feel unwelcome, and treat those behaviours as peripheral to the skill set you're looking at, that is harmful.
I think that paragraph (b) of the amendment really addresses the core of the issue. It also addresses why we need to get on to the military justice study, because for so much of this, it is a matter of ending impunity. When people see that there are consequences to negative behaviours, that the kinds of characteristics that are rewarded include the skill sets that facilitate inclusion, that ensure every single member is not just ending harm but are thriving, that there is an environment in which everybody feels they are fully and completely equal and that they are valued, those are the kinds of things that you advance.
On the corollary of that, with the kinds of behaviours, the kinds of characteristics that are causing the culture of toxic masculinity—we heard from a number of our witnesses on the normative warrior culture, which is very harmful—we also need to make sure there is justice and that there is not impunity when those kinds of things occur.
That's why I'm actually very pleased that—