Thanks very much, Madam Chair.
I would like to start by saying a few things about what Mr. Garrison said earlier on. I first want to say thank you to Mr. Garrison for sharing what he's gone through. I have no words; I just want to say thank you. That's really courageous.
The second thing I want to say was that it was never my intent to impugn motive and if I did so, I apologize. I agree with what you said about how the impugning of motive should have no place here. If I was guilty of that, I apologize. That was not my intent.
Certainly in my last intervention I think I wanted.... As you can tell, I'm very concerned about our doing everything we can to stop sexual assault and sexual harassment from happening in the armed forces. I was trying to identify the reasons—or I asked the question why—we weren't pursuing the writing of the report the way it's conventionally done. In doing so, I asked about what the rationale or the reasoning of some members of the opposition might be. That wasn't meant to impugn motive or to make an allegation about another member. It was simply speculating as to why we weren't going down the path that I thought was in the best interest of survivors.
That said, in your intervention you answered that. You explained why you felt that we shouldn't go down that path. I don't know if you meant to, but to me, you answered the question I was openly asking in my prior intervention. I thank you for answering it. It was never meant to impugn motive, but if it did, you have my apologies for that.
Mr. Garrison, I really appreciated what you said about why you feel that the report should take a different direction from the one members on the government side have been advocating for. Like Mr. Bagnell, I respect your point of view and I'm thankful that you explained why you feel the way you do. I don't agree with that. Obviously, I see it differently. I've heard what you said about the status of women committee pursuing a report and making recommendations. I think that report has a tremendous amount of value to the cause of addressing the underlying problem of sexual misconduct in the armed forces.
From my perspective, I really believe that we have an opportunity as parliamentarians—the members on the status of women committee and those of us here on the defence committee in particular, as well as those in the senior positions of the armed forces and the minister and his team in the government have an opportunity particularly—to really make a difference on this issue. That is why I feel it's so important that all of us put our shoulder to the wheel and push in that direction.
From my vantage point, if that means there's a little or some or a lot—I don't know; I'm speculating of course—of overlap between what's written in a report by this committee and that of the status of women committee.... If there's overlap and we're reinforcing each other, great. That's all the better because we're putting that many more voices, shining that much more of a light and giving that much more voice to those whose voices need to be heard. We're driving that much more accountability upon the government—whether it's this one, the next one or the following one—to hear our recommendations and take action on them.
In the course of writing the report we may identify additional areas of focus to what the status of women committee has worked on. We may dive into greater detail in a particular area where the other committee has not, so there's an opportunity to reinforce, of course, the other committee's work, but also to build upon it. All of that, to me, should be of the highest priority, because I think at a critical time it allows us to make potentially significant steps forward in addressing the underlying problem. I have to say that I appreciate your responding to or explaining why you feel the report's focus should be slightly different, or different, and I honour that perspective.
One of the things we could also add to this conversation and that could be in our report, and one thing I value when it comes to members of all parties who sit on this committee, is that we have members who served in the armed forces, or who have worked extensively with the armed forces in some capacity. I think that perspective brings something to this conversation that's really important, and it's a specialized experience that members who've actually served have. I don't have that experience, but I think some of the committee members do, and I think that's one of the reasons our report could bring a tremendous amount of value. Even it was just reinforcing what the status of women committee has presented, I think that would do wonders on this issue and make a meaningful difference, ultimately, for survivors, whom I'm so passionate about.
I wanted to share that.
I want to thank Mr. Garrison again for his thoughtful response, and for sharing his personal experience. That takes courage, and I thank you.
One area I was speaking to previously that I wanted to come back to is where survivors told us there's need for improvement, which I think should be in a report by this committee. I am speaking to the testimony of Emily Tulloch, who is a survivor and an armed forces member who testified to the status of women committee. What she was speaking to in her testimony was an example of the kind of issue that I think those members on the defence committee, but particularly those members who served in the armed forces would better understand. She was speaking to the military police and how they undertake investigations. Her recommendation was that the training for military police needs to be improved in the area of how they conduct interviews of sexual assault victims.
I want to read a bit of Ms. Tulloch's testimony around that particular issue. She says:
I also believe that an officer of the same sex of the victim should conduct the interview. In my situation, it wasn't offered that I could speak to a female officer until halfway through my interview, when I started crying. Even then the military police said they would have to reschedule for the next week, because there was no female officer available.
She goes on to say:
In basic training the leadership tries to ingrain the core values of the military in recruits. These values are duty, loyalty, integrity and courage. These values are taught through PowerPoint and workbooks. However, these values are falling through the cracks. That is how we get this toxic culture that we have been dealing with for so long. It has been abundantly clear that military leadership has not been able to uphold the high ethical standards of integrity. If the leadership can't follow basic core values and set a good example, how are the majority of troops supposed to?
I want to pause there for a moment because Ms. Tulloch is speaking to.... She says these values are duty, loyalty, integrity and courage. These are the core values that the training of recruits emphasizes. One of the things that this speaks to is how much work has to be done in the area of culture change. I know Mr. Spengemann has spoken to this extensively. Mr. Bagnell has spoken to the issue of culture change extensively, but Ms. Tulloch's words are that these values are “falling through the cracks”. Then she says that this is how we get “this toxic culture that we have been dealing with for so long.” Ms. Tulloch is underlining something that I really think we need to drive home as a committee: not just culture change but some of these specific concrete suggestions that are being made to us by survivors and by others who are familiar with culture change and who have testified before this committee. Whether there's a bit of an overlap or not with the Standing Committee on the Status of Women report, I think this would be something that is important to reinforce, drill down on, add additional suggestions on, or enter into additional detail on.