Thank you.
I want to thank Ms. Vandenbeld for ceding the floor and allowing us to close off this debate.
This has been going on for a long time, since May 21. Let's point it out. We're in meeting number 32. There have been ongoing suspensions. This is the fifth meeting, and we're almost into the tenth hour of debate on the amendment proposed by Mr. Bagnell that says, quite simply, to table a comprehensive report from the government, a response to the report, if we ever get to the report.
All the debate we have listened to over the last month has barely touched on the issue of the scope of the study, which was the sexual misconduct allegations against General Vance and Admiral McDonald. We had a report that came from the status of women committee—I think all of us support the recommendations that came forth—that looked at the broader context of the issues around sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces, but, when it comes down to the issues of ministerial accountability as tied to the chief of the defence staff, that is where the Liberals have continued to filibuster.
We hear they don't like that term. When these minutes are finally published and people have a chance to read them through, they will see that Liberals dominated this discussion talking about recommendations from other committees and other countries and other studies that were not done by Parliament itself, rather than talking about the issue of trying to come to a decision on how we go forward to write a report.
This obstructionism has not hurt just our filing a report on sexual misconduct as it relates to General Vance and Admiral McDonald and the lack of action taken by Minister Sajjan, but this also prevented us from finalizing our reports on mental health and on how our Canadian soldiers responded to the COVID-19 crisis and were impacted by it.
We heard a lot of witness testimony that didn't appear at this committee read into the record. I believe that was done as a part of political grandstanding. I think it was insensitive to those victims. It's disrespectful to our armed forces. I have to say that, while watching these politics play out, I've never been more disheartened, and I've been a member of this committee for the past 10 years.
How many more victims were re-traumatized by listening to their testimony read here without their permission? In that time frame, we know that every three days someone within the Canadian Armed Forces is sexually assaulted, and because we dragged our feet and allowed this obstructionism to take place, we were not able to come to a final decision.
It's disgusting. It's egregious that Liberal members put more time into protecting the Minister of National Defence, the Honourable Harjit Sajjan, rather than protecting the women and men in uniform. I would say that this is complicit in the overall cover-up of sexual misconduct. These ongoing suspensions and contemptuous behaviour borders on violating the privilege of all members here.
Knowing that, it is the top of the hour. It is the end of the session.
I do now move to adjourn meeting number 32 of the Standing Committee on National Defence.