Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I apologize. My “raise hand” function keeps going on and off on its own. I'm not sure why that's the case.
I want to take a few minutes to talk about the question that Liberal members keep raising in this committee and in the House, and that is the questioning of the motives of opposition members in dealing with this study. I raised earlier with the chair that I think this is actually a question of privilege. I think it is a violation of the rules of the House of Commons to reflect on the motives of other members and, in particular, to reflect on the way they do their jobs. Even if it's not found to be in violation of privilege, it's clear that it's not productive. We can sit all day and argue about motives and we will make no progress on anything.
I have to say on the charge of partisanship, at the risk of committing the offence that I'm actually complaining about, that I think this may be a bit more about projection on the part of Liberal members than it is about the reality we're facing.
Let me talk about my motives on this study very directly.
I'll talk first of all about why I believe this study is important and what I believe this study is about on principle. The purpose of this study, from the beginning, has been to look at why there was no effective action to combat sexual misconduct in the military over the last six years and, in particular, why no action was taken in 2018 when allegations of sexual misconduct were made against General Vance, why he was allowed to stay in charge of Operation Honour for nearly three years after that and why he was even given a salary increase.
The Liberal members persist in ignoring the fact that the status of women committee is conducting a study on what should be done in the future to address sexual misconduct. They are the ones who heard from victims. They are producing a report with those recommendations, which I understand will be tabled shortly in the House of Commons. For me, the key question here is that all those good recommendations that I believe the status of women committee will make will come to no good end if we don't understand why all the good recommendations made by Madam Justice Deschamps six years ago weren't implemented and didn't cause progress on this problem within the military.
How did we face more than 500 sexual assault cases while Operation Honour was in place? Why did we face a total of more than 800 cases, when you combine sexual assault and sexual harassment, while Operation Honour was in place?
All the good recommendations that any House of Commons committee can make will come to naught if we don't understand why the previous recommendations weren't followed, weren't implemented and there was no progress. To me, that is being concerned about survivors and helping survivors understand why nothing happened in their cases, and it's about future survivors and making sure there aren't as many as we've had in the past, and in fact trying to achieve the goal that there will be no more survivors of sexual misconduct. If we don't know why no progress was made, we'll never get there. That is the central part of this report.
Now I want to speak more directly and personally about my motivations in this study and how much I believe that this is about supporting victims.
As an adult survivor of child abuse, I know a lot about being a victim of sexual assault. I know a lot about what it feels like to try to tell your story and not be believed. I know a lot about what it feels like to talk to people who should have known or who did know and took no action. I know a lot about how it feels when no action is taken, and you find later, as in my case, that there were eight other victims of the same behaviour, some of them very close to me. So I do resent being told that I don't care about survivors because of the political positions I might be taking here. I resent it a great deal.
It took me a long time to accept that what happened to me happened as a child, but when I tried to bring these things forward as an adult, I faced all those same challenges that survivors of sexual misconduct in the military face now. Therefore, I believe that coming to a conclusion and examining very carefully why effective action didn't happen is taking the part of survivors and is the most important part of what we can do in the defence committee.
The status of women committee has heard from many survivors. They've heard much of the testimony that's being repeated here. It is shocking and disturbing testimony. There is no doubt about that, but as I said, the status of women committee, I understand, is very close to tabling their report, which will have recommendations about that.
I will leave that there, but I really will not tolerate people arguing that, because of what I think is important here and the way I wish to approach this, I don't care about survivors. It's just not true on principle and it's certainly very untrue personally.
Let's be clear. This is about the Minister of National Defence's record over the last six years. It's not about who he is as a person. Certainly, and I want to be very clear, the Minister of National Defence is not the victim here. The victims are those who were subject to sexual misconduct on his watch and who saw no effective action taken against it.
Let me turn to what I've said before: There needs to be a rule against gaslighting. There needs to be a rule against this creation of an alternative universe here. The reason we haven't gotten to the report on mental health and the reason we haven't gotten to finish the report on COVID is the Liberal filibuster that's been going on, whether it was on a previous motion about who was to be called as a witness or the motion in front of us. The Liberals say they don't understand why a motion would have time limits. The Conservative motion, it seems clear to me, has time limits in it because of the Liberal filibusters preventing us from being able to reach conclusions and issue a report.
The members go on and on about why a committee report would not ask for a response from the government and how it always happens, but that's not true. The justice committee just issued a report on coercive and controlling behaviour, and the committee did not ask for a government response. Do you know why? They said the government had already testified before the committee and the government needed to get busy on the recommendations rather than writing a response to the committee. There was more important work to do than responding to the committee.
It isn't true that every committee report always asks for a government response. It's certainly not true that not asking for a response means you don't think it is an important issue. You might, in fact, think it's something the government should get busy on rather than spending time coming back to tell us in committee what they already told us many times.
I would very much like to have finished the report on mental health in the Canadian military, but Liberal members, including the chair of the committee, made the decision to stay on the topic of sexual misconduct, despite the offers of the opposition to finish the reports on mental health in the military and COVID in the military and then return to this question. Those overtures were rejected. I believe it was a form of placing pressure on the opposition members to give up our inquiry into why there was no effective action, in order to get to the reports on COVID in the military and on mental health.
Before someone says that never happened, I'll just remind honourable members that I don't delete my tweets. I don't delete the text messages that I receive from people. I hope that members won't bother denying that this was a pressure tactic placed on opposition members.
Where are we now? If we don't finish our report today, it will not be tabled before we rise for the summer. The Liberal filibuster today ensures that will not happen. That also means we will not finish the report on mental health in the military. It means we will not finish the report on COVID in the military. Given the sabre-rattling occurring all around the House of Commons, this in fact may be one of the last meetings of this committee in this Parliament. It is not the opposition that has blocked progress on all these other topics; it is the consistent filibustering by the Liberals.
Now, I'm not reflecting on why the Liberals have done this. I, frankly, don't understand it. We've been trying to get to the bottom of why there was no effective action taken against General Vance, why the recommendations of the Deschamps report weren't fully implemented and why sexual misconduct is still rampant in the Canadian military. I believe that answering those questions is the central task before us as the defence committee. I'm very disappointed that the Liberal filibuster prevents us from answering those questions.
Thank you, Madam Chair.