Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I must start by saying that I was extremely disappointed in the way the last meeting concluded, with an arbitrary exit by the chair. I think it's part of the pattern Mr. Bezan pointed out of obstruction of the work of this committee by continual filibuster, by cancelling meetings and by suspending meetings.
The attempt by Liberal members to frustrate the majority of this committee in getting the witnesses we need to provide answers as to why there was no effective action on sexual misconduct in the military, and in particular, why there was no investigation and no action on General Vance, remains outstanding.
It's a disservice to the survivors of sexual misconduct in the military for the Liberal members of this committee to continue to argue that they want to get on to the report for survivors, while their very filibustering frustrates getting on to that report. It's like we live in some alternate reality where burning up time in committee doesn't keep us from getting the work done. I just don't understand the Liberals' position, other than that they do not wish to have the answers to the questions that we're asking here about why senior leaders either did not understand the severity of sexual misconduct or wanted to somehow protect senior officers who were accused of sexual misconduct.
I'm not going to go on at length, but in any institution where you have so many senior leaders who've had to exit their positions as a result of sexual misconduct, there would be a crisis and the board of that corporation or institution would be demanding accountability from those responsible. In this case, because it's the Canadian Armed Forces, the Canadian Parliament and this committee are the board that has to demand that accountability.
Again we've heard many times the Liberals using the words “finger pointing”. Accountability is not finger pointing. It's identifying the people who should have acted and failed to act and identifying the reasons it happened, so that as we go forward and promise Canadian men and women who serve that this won't happen again, there is some assurance that we know why the action didn't take place before. The promises will not be taken seriously by anybody if we don't figure out why the previous promises weren't kept.
Like Mr. Bezan, I would implore the Liberal members of the committee to give up their filibustering. In the time they take to filibuster, we could have easily dealt with witnesses such as Ms. Astravas, who many times the minister and the Prime Minister's Office have pointed to as the key person in understanding what was conveyed from the minister's office to the Prime Minister's Office. That's the key question we still need to answer here in order to establish who's accountable for the lack of effective action.
Therefore, I would urge us to go to a vote on the amendment and then on the main motion expeditiously to schedule Ms. Astravas's appearance. Then we can get on to finishing the report on sexual misconduct, and then, though I would prefer to have dealt with them earlier, we can also get a chance to deal with the other two important reports: on COVID and the Canadian Armed Forces, and mental health in the Canadian military.
There's important work to do here and I implore the Liberals to stop obstructing that work.