Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'd like to build on what Mr. Spengemann was saying.
I do think that first and foremost in our minds should be the victims, how we're going to address what they've told us, how we're going to address the heinous behaviour that they've had to face and the consequences they've had to deal with. I think anything short of that coming out of this committee would be disappointing and a failure of this committee to do what it should be doing, which is fighting for those victims and fighting to solve the problem of sexual harassment and sexual assault in the Armed Forces.
That's why I have a concern, a great concern, about the motion that we're currently discussing, that Mr. Bezan has proposed, because it doesn't allow us to accomplish that goal. I think the motion calls for a report to be churned out of this committee without the necessary debate and without the necessary consensus-building that is always the approach used to write a report in committees. All of us have been through that in this committee and other committees. We know how important that consensus-building is, especially on a topic that is not just as important but as complex and nuanced as what we're facing here.
Not having the report be built on the consensus of all the members of the committee, as is always done in committees, will not allow us to ensure that the report represents the collection of views that we have heard, whether it be from experts, from survivors, from the minister or from anyone else we've heard from.
I think an important part of debate that happens when a report is being produced by a committee is that the debate, that consensus, forces members to understand, to appreciate each others' points of view and to find a way to collectively come together and issue a report that is the best possible reflection of the joint views of the members of the committee and what they have heard and what they have concluded based on the testimony that's been put before them.
Ramming it through after a couple of minutes of speaking time for each member trivializes that discussion. It eliminates that discussion, frankly, about building consensus, and that lack of consensus means that we won't get the report we need, one that reflects what we've heard, reflects the nuance and the complexity of this issue and ultimately presents recommendations to actually solve the problem we're here to solve, which is sexual harassment and sexual assault in the Canadian Armed Forces.
I really think we need to move to the report in the format that we always do when we're working on reports in this Parliament, in committees, working by consensus, and this motion eliminates that debate, eliminates the consensus. Basically, all this motion would do, if it were passed, would be to make this report a tick-the-box exercise, and that would be an incredible disservice to this issue and an incredible disservice to the survivors and what we've heard them say and what other witnesses have told us here at committee.
You know, one of the survivors, as an example of what we heard and what parliamentarians have heard from survivors.... I know many members on this committee have spoken to the fact that they've met with survivors. Survivors have come and presented in this Parliament and in particular to the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, and I think we need to honour that. We need to honour their courage. We need to honour what they said, the content of what they presented, and we don't honour that by not incorporating it into our knowledge, into the conclusions we draw, and ultimately into the report we write, and this motion would prevent us from doing that.
One of the people, one of the survivors who came forward, who presented to the Standing Committee on the Status of Women was Dr. Leah West. I want to share with you some of the things that she shared. These are the kinds of things that I think we need to be including in the report. She said:
With the brief time I have, I'll try to do three things: first, introduce myself and how I found myself here today; second, identify what I believe to be the root cause of the CAF sexualized environment identified by Justice Deschamps in 2015; and third, discuss a way forward.
To begin, why am I here? I served in the CAF for 10 years as an armoured officer. I graduated at the top of my class from RMC in 2007 and immediately took command of an armoured recce troop. One Thursday night at the end of my first year with my unit, I was sexually assaulted by a superior at a house party that was well attended by other junior officers in my regiment.
At work the next day, I was ill and passed out on our squadron's bathroom floor. An ambulance and MPs arrived and took me to a civilian hospital. I did not know exactly what had happened to me the night before or why I was so ill. Almost everything after the first drink was poured for me was black, but I did know where and how I woke up.
...I was assaulted at a house party. I don't know exactly what happened to me because everything that evening went black, but I do know where I woke up and the state I was in when I woke up. Standing over my gurney when I was taken to the emergency room were two male MPs who convinced me to have a rape kit done. I agreed, and it revealed intercourse but no evidence of drugs. I never saw or heard from the MPs again.
The following Monday, my commanding officer called me into his office, somewhere I'd been probably only twice in my life prior to that. The MPs had informed him of what happened and he looked at me and asked, “How do you want me to handle this?” I didn't hesitate. I knew what I was expected to say, and I said it, “Nothing, sir.” I told him that because I couldn't remember the exact details of the assault, I would modify my behaviour and who I could trust[.]
I told him not to do anything, because I couldn't remember the precise details of the assault. I said that I would modify my behaviour and who I could trust, as though I had been raped by a superior officer in my unit. He accepted my answer and we never spoke of it again.
I want to pause there for a moment and just let that sink in for a second. This survivor, Dr. Leah West, shared with the Standing Committee on the Status of Women this story of what happened to her, and this moment where she approaches her superior, and after.... I can't imagine what she would be feeling in the moment, but in the moment she knew that she was not to say anything. She was not to act on what had happened to her the night before.
This is part of the culture in the Canadian Armed Forces that we have heard about over and over again, and this is a real example of that. This, we've been told at this committee, happens over and over again, and we're going to ignore that and take two minutes each to say a few things and then ram a report through this committee?
I'm sorry. That's not okay. It doesn't do justice to what's happening in the Canadian Armed Forces right now, and it doesn't do justice and what's been happening for decades, forever.
Here we have a situation where someone has been raped, and not only can they not act on what's happened to them, but they know that the culture, the system prevents them from doing so.
I want to move on with what Dr. West went on to say:
Four years later, while deployed in Afghanistan, I was investigated without my knowledge by military police and my chain of command for having a consensual sexual relationship with a U.S. officer who was not in my unit but of the same rank.
The relationship was discovered when a male officer on my team accessed my email without my permission, found a deleted flirtatious email between me and the American and took it to my superior. They didn't need to investigate me. The day I found out what was going on, I admitted to my boss what I had done.
My relationship violated regulations against fraternization in theatre. I was charged and pleaded guilty, and I was fined, repatriated from theatre and posted out of my unit. All of this I could accept. I had knowingly violated orders, and my repatriation impacted the operational effectiveness of my unit. However, what I no longer accept is that I was also called demeaning names, told I wasn't worthy of leading soldiers, even threatened with violence by my commanding officer and repeatedly chastised by other senior officers.
For several months I worked alone in an office with four workstations managing a single Excel spreadsheet. The message was clear: My career in the regular forces was over. Eventually, when I was released, the position I had been offered with a reserve unit was revoked. The new commanding officer told me that I wasn't the type of leader he wanted in his unit. My experience is an extreme example of the double standard women in uniform face every day.
This service member, who graduated at the top of the class, was raped. Everyone knew that the system forced her, prevented her from bringing that complaint forward, and everyone played along. Everyone who knew about it played along. Then she broke the rules, admitted to breaking the rules and immediately faced incredibly harsh consequences.
This is the culture of the Canadian Armed Forces. Not only was she punished according to the rules, which she accepted, but she was mistreated and belittled and punished again, and offers of positions were withdrawn. She was told that she was not the kind of person they wanted in the Canadian Armed Forces.
If she is not the kind of person who is wanted in the Canadian Armed Forces, what about the man who raped her? What about the men who commit sexual harassment and sexual assault in the Canadian Armed Forces? Are they the type of folks that belong in the Canadian Armed Forces? Obviously not, but the only way we're going to make sure that they are not is if we solve the problem.
It's hard folks, but that's the reality. We have to tackle this. A tick-the-box report that ignores the nuance, ignores these stories and doesn't take into account these stories, to me, betrays that duty that we have. Mr. Spengemann talked about the partisanship. If anything can bring all of us in this committee together, surely we can rally together around this and say that we're going to produce a substantive—