National Defence Committee on Sept. 19th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

That's very interesting. Well, it seems to be a relevant historical precedent.

With that, I again want to thank each and every one of you for your contributions. This has been informative. I do wish, at some point, that Mr. Powlowski's question would get answered.

I'll dismiss you so poor old Mr. Bezan's right arm can take a rest now.

We'll go with one of your motions.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, thank you to the witnesses for being here today and helping us with their threat analyses.

I gave notice of the following motion last week on Friday, September 13:

That the committee invite the Minister of National Defence to appear before the committee for no less than two hours, within 14 days of the adoption of this motion, in relation to his priorities for the return of Parliament and his mandate.

I think, as we come back in what might be the last few weeks or months of this Parliament, that we should know what the minister's priorities are. We just heard about the ongoing aggression toward NATO and Ukraine, and that we need to be supporting them. We also know that our Canadian Armed Forces are still dealing with the recruitment crisis. We know procurement continues to lag. It's been a failure of this government.

We need to ensure that we hear from the minister on what his priorities are.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mrs. Lalonde.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

I thank my colleague for bringing this motion to the floor. I think we would agree in principle. My only....

From the debate I heard from all of you, and certainly from Minister Blair.... Yesterday, our Minister of National Defence was very strong in his comments when he did his introduction of the second reading of Bill C-66, saying it is a priority. We need to find ways to collectively...and I think we have, hopefully, consensus to bring Bill C-66 here as early as possible and continue on the path of helping bring forward this legislation and get it to royal assent.

By this token, if Mr. Bezan would be comfortable doing a friendly amendment of “no less than two hours”—remove the “two hours” and put in “one hour, and one hour with officials”—I feel we could let it go.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

That is an amendment to the motion.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

It's not friendly.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Apparently, it's not friendly.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

I'll speak to the amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Are there any other speakers on either the amendment or the motion?

Go ahead, Mr. Bezan.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

The reason we want the minister here for two hours is that we're talking about the priorities of his leadership as the minister. I don't believe having the government officials here reflects the political priorities of the minister and of the government, so it has to be for two hours.

We're going to have the minister here, I'm sure, when we talk about Bill C-66, but that's going to be about the legislation. Our committee will be seized with that bill when we get it. It will take priority according to the procedures and House affairs requirements of Bosc and Gagnon. We need to be seized with it. We're going to have plenty of time to talk about Bill C-66 when we get the legislation from the House.

I would just say that we need the minister here for two hours because we have lots of questions around Ukraine. We have lots of questions about procurement. We have lots of questions around housing. We have lots of questions around recruitment and retention. He's announced the submarines. Why is it taking as long as it has to procure them?

We've also heard that a number of Order Paper questions have been answered and now we're seeing that the over-the-horizon radar has been punted down the road until after 2040, yet in the next year or two, the radar constellation that we have in the north and the North Warning System will be obsolete.

What we need to hear from the minister is how he is going to protect Canada. How is he going to be a reliable ally? How is he addressing the shortfalls in the forces? That takes at least two hours.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Again, I don't want to sound overly partisan or political, but I'm quite shocked that this particular member is asking the minister to come and speak because when you look at some of the Conservative records on defence spending, it fell below 1%.

I just want to remind this particular member that he voted against a pay increase. He voted against supports for....

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

We voted against confidence in this government, and we will continue to vote against confidence in this government.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

For me, I would maintain my decision. I think we should have the minister come. He's always been extremely sensitive of our needs. Although he has a very big job to do right now, he's been coming every time.

We're just suggesting one hour plus one hour.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Is there debate?

The first vote is on the amendment.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

We'll go to Madame Normandin's motion, which is in order and is timely.

Madam Normandin.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

The motion was read on Tuesday, following a notice of motion. I will not reread it since it has been distributed to all members.

Its purpose is to call, among others, the person who was the Minister of National Defence when Kabul was evacuated in 2021. We learned from The Globe and Mail that the minister apparently gave what he claimed were non-coercive orders to prioritize evacuating Afghans of the Sikh faith, to the detriment of Canadians and allies of Canadian soldiers, including interpreters, leaving them behind since the resources to evacuate them were extremely limited. At best, this has led to questions, but especially to outrage.

We have suggested a list of witnesses to discuss this issue. It includes the current Minister of National Defence, since we would like to understand how orders to special forces in similar situations are sent and how the minister considers them to be perceived. We also included the Minister of Foreign Affairs because, at the time, lists of other priority evacuation options had been drafted and submitted. We would like to know what other groups were prioritized for evacuation and, ultimately, how the former minister analyzed them, if he did.

We would obviously like to hear from the former minister of defence for two hours so that he can explain the considerations that were taken into account in arriving at this decision with regard to other considerations concerning priority groups, but also with regard to Canadians and Canadian military allies in Afghanistan. We would like to know what he thought about limiting resources to evacuate everyone.

The chief of the defence staff at the time of the events, Jonathan Vance, is also on the list. We want to know, among other things, how the order was received. Of course, other questions will follow.

So we are talking about all the witnesses deemed necessary to conduct a proper study of this issue. So that's the essence of the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Is there any debate?

Mr. Bezan.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

We have an amendment to the motion. I believe it has been circulated.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Andrew Wilson]

Not yet, but it will be.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

We printed it off. Just make sure everybody gets it here.

What we are suggesting is there. What is highlighted are additions. What is with a strikethrough is to be deleted. Once everybody has it, I'll speak to that motion because it is disturbing with the news reports that were out there. There's also been work that has been done on this in the previous part of this Parliament.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Chair, if I may, I see that the French and English versions of the motion are not identical. In English, part of the motion is deleted, but there is no equivalent in French.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Okay. Let me speak to it, and interpreters are looking for it as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Can we get one to the interpreters?

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

If you look carefully, Ms. Normandin, they just took that part out.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Is everybody literally on the same page?

Go ahead, Mr. Bezan.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

The first amendment would be to add “a special” before “evacuation operation”, and then delete from after “August 2021” to the end of “allied Afghans”. Delete that, and add, “that the Special Committee on Afghanistan's Report 1 - Honouring Canada's Legacy in Afghanistan: Responding to the Humanitarian Crisis and Helping People Reach Safety was tabled in June 2022 followed by a Government Response tabled in October 2022”.

Then in the next paragraph, after “the committee's questions”, add “on the implementation of the recommendations made in the above report and new information that came to light after the study”.

Those would be the additions. We'd remove everything between “August 21” and “allied Afghans”.