Thanks very much, Madam Chair.
I wanted to speak because I wanted to return to the focus of what I think Mr. Bagnell's amendment is designed to achieve. It clearly suggests that, at the very least, we should be asking for a government response to the report that this committee produces. I wanted to speak to some of the reasons I think that's important.
One of the things that I think is critical in light of the challenges facing the armed forces is making sure not just that good ideas or solutions get proposed but that they get acted upon. Requiring a government response is something that helps ensure that legislators like us, when we put forward those recommendations, those solutions to problems that we are trying to tackle.... Actually, government has a responsibility to indicate to us and to Canadians how they plan to proceed on those.
I think it's important that we hold this government and future governments to account on their actions on this issue. The problem of sexual harassment and sexual assault in the military is a long-standing problem. I think you all know this. It has transcended government after government. There are a lot of reasons why this has happened, but during that period of time, there have been many good ideas brought forward, many people who have advocated and many survivors who have courageously spoken up to alert people to the problem and to try to solve the problem.
Of course, there are many reasons why this issue has not been addressed and why it has not been solved. One of them, I think, is that we need to make sure that this is signalled as a priority by MPs of all stripes to the government of the day, whichever government happens to be in power.
This report is our way to convey our advocacy, to convey our point of view, to try resolve the issue of sexual harassment and sexual assault before us. This is our primary tool as a committee. I think it's powerful, especially if it comes from the committee itself; and if all members of the committee work towards a consensus to write that report, I think it has a powerful impact.
Putting that aside for a moment, making sure that the government actually responds to it is incredibly important because (a) it's what we know we can expect from government; (b) we can signal if we disagree with what government is doing; and (c) we can hold government to account for its actions against its own stated intention when it responds to our reports.
I wanted to reinforce how important I think Mr. Bagnell's amendment to Mr. Bezan's motion is. Members of this committee will know that I've relied quite a bit during this debate on this amendment, on Mr. Bezan's motion, on trying to do my best to give voice to the point of view of survivors, of victims. It's helpful to refocus if need be, certainly to focus ourselves and others who are watching this, reading the transcripts and studying what we're debating here and what it is we should trying to solve.
Who is it we should be trying to help? Who are the people who are suffering and going unhelped? They are the victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault in the armed forces. As you know, I've tried to do my best to give voice to their points of view, especially in the testimony that a number of survivors and experts have provided to the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.
One of the people I was speaking about in our prior meeting was Ms. Batek, who is a survivor. She testified at the status of women committee as a representative of the Survivor Perspectives Consulting Group, SPCG. SPCG was created by a small group of military sexual trauma survivors. They've come together to help address this problem, to ensure survivor voices are heard and to help create solutions.
Members will likely recall that at our prior meeting, I read some of the testimony that Ms. Batek provided to the status of women committee on the kinds of help that she and her colleagues could offer to government, the military, MPs and so on in trying to tackle the problem. I highlighted Ms. Batek's testimony for a number of reasons. One of them was that I felt it was an excellent example of the type of perspective that we need in our report and work here at the Standing Committee on National Defence. We need to hear their voices, which is why I'm giving them a voice in this debate, but we also need to heed their advice.
Ms. Batek alluded to a number of the complexities and issues that have to be tackled to stop sexual harassment and sexual assault in the military. I highlighted them because it was important that we take note of the work ahead, how complex this is, how much work is involved and how much expertise is needed to solve it. The expertise of people like Ms. Batek and others, especially survivors, needs to be at the centre of not just who we're trying to help, but whose help we need to solve this problem.
That is why I feel so strongly that we need a report that's written based on the consensus of members of this committee, just as reports are written at every committee on every issue. We need to make sure that we speak with one voice. I think that's important.
I also think it's very important that we acknowledge these issues and that what's contributing to sexual assault and sexual harassment in the military is going to require our best. We'll need to put our best foot forward to resolve this, because it's complex and nuanced. To understand that complexity, the nuance and what has to be done, we need to understand and bring into our report recommendations like those provided by Ms. Batek, her colleagues and other survivors.
I want to share with you something that Ms. Batek said in her testimony to the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. She spoke to the impact of what's happening. She said:
A sexualized military culture, in many cases, may lead to military domestic violence, child abuse and civilian sexual assault. Not only does this culture provide a safe place for perpetrators to hide and exist under the protection of a uniform, but it also inadvertently teaches the victims to tolerate the intolerable, which leads to lives plagued with mental health challenges, potential homelessness and future abusive relationships.
The social cost of allowing this toxic culture to survive extends to the Canadian public, and that makes this a Canadian problem, with real financial and social costs affecting all taxpayers.
I want to pause there. Rightly, we focused our discussions and debates on the impact that sexual assault and sexual harassment have on CAF members, and I think what Ms. Batek is raising is very important to take note of. It is one of the things we should be considering as we're writing the report. One of the reasons that Mr. Bagnell's amendment is so important is that getting government responses to how it's going to address all elements and impacts of this problem is important.
In this particular case, Ms. Batek is speaking about how the sexualized military culture can lead to a whole series of issues outside of the military, most immediately in this case for the families of members of the armed forces who are impacted by the sexualized military culture. She talks about domestic violence, child abuse and civilian sexual assault, so this committee can't allow itself, in my view, to put out a report that just ticks the box that allows us to say we wrote our report if it doesn't take into account this very issue, particularly when we haven't thought about, considered, debated and understood the nuance of how the families of CAF members and how others in civilian life are being impacted by what's happening in the military. We can't do that if each MP is only given two minutes to speak. It's just not realistic. It has taken me more than two minutes to explain this problem and to convey Ms. Batek's point of view.
Her words and concern are about the social costs of allowing this toxic culture to survive, and extending that to the Canadian public is something we need to take heed of. I think we need to make sure that our report and the government's response take note of that and have solutions to address it. What are those solutions? We could debate that. I have some thoughts on it and I'm sure members of the committee have thoughts about it, but that's the discussion we need to have. That's the consensus that all members of this committee need to build if we're going to get to recommendations that are in the best interests of survivors and of members of the Canadian public who are impacted in the way that Ms. Batek has explained.
Ms. Batek went on in her testimony to say:
...when Lieutenant-General Eyre testified before this committee on March 23, he explained that his approach to changing the sexualized military culture was based on two streams, the second of which included listening and learning. This is exactly where SPCG fits in.
I want to pause there for a second because I think there's an important point to be noted from what Ms. Batek is saying. She highlights Lieutenant-General Eyre's testimony before the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, and I know that Lieutenant-General Eyre testified at this committee as well. What she chose to underline in this part of her testimony was that a key component of his approach, in one of the two streams that he indicated were important, was listening and learning. If that's something Ms. Batek thought important to highlight in her testimony to the committee, it's worth underlining here at this committee too. As we think about the motion by Mr. Bezan, the amendment proposed by Mr. Bagnell and how we move forward, we need to listen and learn and apply that listening and learning.
It's not okay for us to sit here and say we heard the witnesses and move on. It's not okay to suggest that we shouldn't hear from the perspectives of survivors. It's quite the opposite. We should be listening and learning and then applying that. If we don't listen, that is, to me, beyond reprehensible. If we just listen and don't learn, it is the same. To me, it is unforgivable that we're not going to listen and learn and then act on what we listened to and what we learned.
I guess I'm urging members of the committee to do that. I think the people like Ms. Batek who testified before our colleagues are urging us to do this. They are offering their expertise and advice, and I think we need to make use of that expertise and advice. The only way we can do that as a committee is if we actually put it into our report and get the government to respond to it, as Mr. Bagnell has urged us to do.
Ms. Batek went on. After talking about the listening and learning, she said:
This is exactly where SPCG fits in. Our team can provide the perspectives needed to ensure that every strategy, every plan, every policy and every program aimed at tackling this crisis is viewed through a survivor-informed lens.
Is our work informed by a survivor-informed lens?
If we're not willing to take the time to hear what the survivors have said, to understand and to learn from what they have said, if we're not willing to take the time to document what they have said and what they have advised government to do, in a thoughtful way, if we're not willing to do all of those things and then hold government to account to act on those things, then we're not taking a survivor-informed lens. We're not tackling this crisis that the survivors have faced and so many other people are facing as we speak.
I share that to say, let's take a survivor-informed lens. Let's make sure we take into account what they have to say, and their advice and their expertise and their solutions, the solutions they have brought forward and others have brought forward, and let's write a fantastic report that we can be proud of, that Canadians can be proud of, and most of all that survivors can be proud of.
Thanks very much, Madam Chair.