Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Welcome, colleagues. I hope everybody had a good weekend.
I had a chance to reflect on the work that's ahead of us. It's slow, perhaps, but I think we are making some progress on this particular issue that's been in front of us for some time now. I think members of the committee have characterized it as potentially the most important issue this committee has faced in its recent history. I think it is extremely important that we come up with our vision of a way forward, of recommendations that will solve this issue, both with respect to the accountability that's attached to the cases that have come before the committee, including the former chief of the defence staff, and also the systematicity of this issue and the question of culture change within the Canadian Armed Forces that's so urgently required, and that many witnesses, including the minister himself, have spoken to us about.
Madam Chair, when I had the floor at our last session, I took the committee through a good portion of a July 19 United Kingdom report entitled “Report on Inappropriate Behaviours”. The most recent section that I addressed dealt with the pre-emption of inappropriate behaviours in the British Armed Forces. I will have more to add on that, further on in the discussion, but I thought I would take a moment to take a step back and reflect on where we are as a committee. I realize that we are close to the summer recess. There are partisan winds blowing in various parts of the House and committees. That's understandable as a function of where we are in the process and the issues that are in front of us, which have partisan dimensions.
I believe this issue, Madam Chair, is one that we need to work on expeditiously in the sessions that we still have available to us, to overcome partisanship. I made reference in previous interventions to work that I was part of in the 42nd Parliament, along with a number of colleagues on this committee—Mr. Bezan, Ms. Gallant, Monsieur Robillard and Mr. Garrison—when we did work on diversity and inclusion. The circumstances were different, and it was a different time in political history, with a majority government, but I think there was a very strong view by this committee that we had to move to the same side of the table on “D and I”, as it's called. There were questions at the committee relating to sexual misconduct. They were not as sharply pointed, because we didn't have the evidence in front of us relating to the former chief of the defence staff. It was an experience that really showed Canadians and us as members of this committee what we can do if we are united and are able to overcome partisan reflexes.
In this particular instance of the report in the last Parliament, there was no dissent. I think we were all on the same page. We may have had disagreement and discussion with respect to some of the minutiae of the report, but the issue and its importance were very much alive and in front of us. We were able to come up with some very good recommendations that are impactful. Some of them are in the course of being implemented.
I think we need to find a way, and maybe this afternoon's discussion can be a pathway to that, to overcome to the greatest extent possible the partisan obstacles to this particular report. We may not be able to fully do it. The stakes have gone up. The urgency is greater and the expectations are higher.
Madam Chair, the reason I raise some of the comparative experiences from other countries is to show not only that this shouldn't be a partisan issue inside our borders but also that this is an issue that many other militaries are grappling with for the same reasons—a chain of command and generations of a military culture not conducive to inclusion. The role of women through other work we've done with regard to the Canadian Forces, in women, peace and security, has been at the forefront of our work in many ways, but these other militaries are also facing the very same questions. In some cases, they have gone out front with respect to not only reports, as the United Kingdom has done, but also follow-ups, very expeditious follow-ups, within a year in the British case, that might be illuminating to us as well. I think this issue can be resolved efficiently and expeditiously if we overcome those partisan hurdles. It's incumbent on all of us to try to do that.
Madam Chair, with respect to Mr. Bezan's motion, I think one of the obstacles was the structuring of discussion time. Procedurally, it does limit your own discretion to guide the discussion, as chair of the committee, when we're in camera and dealing with the report, to make sure that members have not only equitable time to intervene but also constructive time to comment on each other's thoughts. If we're only letting each member of the committee speak once for two minutes, yes, we can get our voice in, but we can't really build on each other's thoughts and priorities and reflections.
I think what's most important for us is that we find, among the now relatively lengthy list of important recommendations in front of us, in part those that are most impactful and those that are most implementable in the short term.
If we agree on those across party lines, we should flag them, identify them, approve them and move forward on them in whichever way we choose. There may be others where discussions may be more attractive. Hopefully, there won't be any that are strictly partisan in nature, but those discussions had to happen. They did happen at this committee. Again, it's very natural to have partisan disagreement.
I want to go back to what I've described as the tip of the iceberg, the case of the former chief of the defence staff, Jonathan Vance, who was appointed by the former government in the face of an ongoing investigation. His tenure then continued into the current government with extremely troublesome allegations, evidence and, ultimately, a report that the former chief of the defence staff himself felt so empowered by that he felt he owned the CFNIS, the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service.
This is not a partisan issue. The trajectory of this one particular case extends across governments. With respect to the systematicity of the culture in the Canadian Armed Forces, this even precedes the government that appointed the former chief of the defence staff, Jonathan Vance. At this point, it really is incumbent on us to find a way to get past the partisanship, and get to the same side of the table.
In my assessment, Madam Chair, we do have adequate time.... The time is tight, but we do have adequate time to really get into a discussion that would be fulsome, impactful, and allow us to prioritize those recommendations we agree on. We can find a way to implement them, contextualize them, prioritize them, and signal to our government, through a response requested from government, that we are following this issue closely.
This is an issue of accountability. It's an issue of democratic oversight of the Canadian Armed Forces through this very committee. It's on our shoulders as the democratic element, not the executive but the parliamentary element that's attached to the operations of the Canadian Armed Forces.
I think it's extremely important that we ask for a government response, and that we do so as a committee that is, to the greatest possible extent, non-partisan in its orientation and approach.
I will leave it there for my opening remarks. I have more to say later, as I indicated, to take us through some additional portions of the U.K. experience.
There's also some compelling work that was done in New Zealand that I think the committee would find illuminating and helpful with respect to how we would prioritize the recommendations that are before us, or will come before us, when we proceed to finalizing our report.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.