Evidence of meeting #14 for National Defence in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was victims.
A recording is available from Parliament.
As an Individual
In my particular case, I am a class action member. I had no choice at the time I served. We were not given the choice to even report without retaliation, so I cannot speak to that.
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Thank you.
Ms. MacDonald, do you want to address that?
Master of Social Work, As an Individual
I reported. First I had to mandatorily report through the military system. Everything was dealt with by the military. Whenever the government opened it up to reporting through the civilian system, I moved into the civilian system. I also used the civilian system because the chain of command was refusing to write down allegations because they wanted to mark everything as sexual harassment from the beginning. I gave my allegations to the RCMP and made a statement with them, and then I was interviewed again and I gave another statement to the Canadian Forces national investigation service.
November 20th, 2025 / 9:05 a.m.
Conservative
Master of Social Work, As an Individual
The issue with it was that the civilian police also relied on evidence gathered by the CFNIS that had to do with rape-supportive attitudes regarding consent. Civilian police need to be trained in how to deal with that.
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
I wanted to ask Ms. Vanderveer about that as well.
You said that Bill C-11 won't fix it, and you mentioned three things, including closure. Specifically on the legal aspect of it, what changes do you think would help fix it?
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
I respect your opinion. Because you've worked with so many survivors, you could probably provide us with some excellent insight.
As an Individual
I'm hoping I can. The hope is that, again, we can educate the civilian court systems on how to accept these survivors; that is the big thing. As to what that looks like, I really don't know. I think back to the case we're all aware of involving the Calgary judge who said to a sexual assault survivor that she should keep her knees together. I do worry when I hear those particular cases going into civilian courts. Are we going to have judges who are trained to deal with this?
I'm sorry; what was the rest of it?
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Thank you.
I'm probably out of time, but I would like to add that you mentioned some of you have statements beyond your opening remarks that you wished to provide. I'm sure that if you submitted them through the chair, he would accept those statements.
Thank you very much for your honest answers.
Liberal
Liberal
Viviane LaPointe Liberal Sudbury, ON
Ms. MacDonald, I want to thank you for the depth and the clarity of your submission and for the strength it takes to walk through these experiences to ensure that no CAF member should ever have to face this.
I also want to express how very grateful we are to all of the witnesses for your courage and your continued engagement with this process so future members may be better protected. Thank you for all of that.
Ms. MacDonald, Bill C-11 aims to ensure that sexual offence investigations are independent of the chain of command. When you first reported harassment and confinement, were any immediate protective measures put in place to separate you from the individuals involved or even to ensure your safety within the unit?
Master of Social Work, As an Individual
No, and the military police investigation verified that the unlawful confinement involving my being locked in a sea can happened. They then used that to send me for a medical examination to discredit me, and that, which was a human rights violation, was supported by the military police officer who wrote the report.
Liberal
Viviane LaPointe Liberal Sudbury, ON
Your submission describes a pattern where civilian police redirected you back to military police and then the military police deferred to your chain of command. Bill C-11 seeks to eliminate this kind of jurisdictional back-and-forth. If your sexual offence reports had gone directly and exclusively to civilian police from the outset, do you believe key evidence, timelines and the quality of the investigation would have looked different?
Master of Social Work, As an Individual
Yes and I wouldn't have been sexually assaulted as many times as I was. I was raped twice and I had a breast groped in basic training, which was used to scare me for trying to report what was going on in basic training.
If I had been allowed access to outside authorities, they wouldn't have been allowed or permitted to use rape and sexual assault as a tool of control.
Liberal
Viviane LaPointe Liberal Sudbury, ON
It's so difficult to hear this testimony. I'm going to say thank you again for your courage and your strength to share these experiences with us.
Master of Social Work, As an Individual
I also want to mention that because none of my perpetrators or any of the human right violators were ever disciplined, they've moved on to different careers in the public service.
The doctor who conducted the mental health investigation now works for the same detachment in Oromocto that did the civilian police investigation, which relied on information that was from the military. That needs to be addressed; it needs to be specialized investigators who understand the chain of command and are willing to do something about it.
The civilian police officer didn't want to lay charges against my perpetrator, who was a high-ranking military member, because he said that it was a chain of command issue. During the CFNIS investigation, military police officers deferred to the chain of command, who would then have been General Wayne Eyre. He chose not to address the sexual assaults by this commanding officer.
Then the military provost office blamed me for not re-reporting and asking for the military police, which I did. I asked for them through my chain of command whenever I was serving and they refused to give me access to military police. They would send me back into the chain of command, where I was assigned an assisting officer who was a direct subordinate of one of the doctors who wanted to have me declared mentally unfit for service for complaining about the hostile sexualized culture.
It was all a set-up. They knew what they were doing. They used the machinery and the mechanisms within the military judicial system to get away with sexualized violence and criminal sexual behaviour.
Liberal
Viviane LaPointe Liberal Sudbury, ON
I don't have much time.
One of the recurring concerns raised by survivors is the difficulty of simply having their allegations received, documented and acted on consistently. Drawing on your experience across multiple reporting attempts, what do you see as the most important characteristics of a reporting environment that makes survivors feel safe, heard and also believed?
Master of Social Work, As an Individual
I experienced the military police screaming and yelling at me and telling me to stop trying to make a report. I was persistent because I had been a civilian and worked in the civilian system as a civilian social worker prior to enlisting. I was absolutely shocked and flabbergasted by how this was allowed to occur. I actually even contacted retired Colonel Bruce MacGregor and said I had allegations of sexual misconduct to report, hoping that he would put me into a fair system where I would be allowed to report the allegations.
What happened was a member of the military police called me up and screamed and yelled at me and told me to stop trying to make a report. The interesting thing about that is that the Military Police Complaints Commission has verified that they actually documented that incident, which is a clear charter right violation because they're trying to make me scared and intimidated for reporting.
What needs to happen is you need to have professional people who are not going to scream and yell and try to intimidate the victim. They're going to allow the victim to make their statement.
What happens with victims like myself.... Whenever I went in to make a statement, it's like I was being interrogated over and over again. What the system is doing is wearing down the victim. They don't have support because the state is not with them. The whole idea that rape and sexual assault is a crime.... It's not a crime if you're not going to enforce it. We don't have equal benefit of the law because of how the system is set up to process the crimes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Charles Sousa
Thank you.
Mr. Savard-Tremblay, you have up to two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC
My next question is for Ms. Smith.
Ms. Smith, clauses 20 to 22 of Bill C‑11 seek to reform publication bans to better protect victims. At least, that's the goal.
Would these safeguards be enough to protect them, prevent them from reliving the trauma or prevent it from re-emerging, particularly in cases where victims would like to testify anonymously or share their story in a therapeutic setting?
Founder and Host, The Silenced Voices MST
I believe having the protection of being able to report anonymously is huge for victims, because over in the U.S., I believe about 70% of victims are retaliated against. I think just 1% actually get to a conviction. With that knowledge, there's no incentive, really, to come forward.
Any avenue that can be taken that insulates them and helps them understand that they will be believed and protected rather than attacked or retraumatized through being interrogated repeatedly is super important.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC
My question was specifically about the part of the clauses that seek to reform publication bans.
Do you think that's a step in the right direction?
Founder and Host, The Silenced Voices MST
Yes. Having that there is essential to feeling free to speak. In my own assaults—there were numerous—I did not come forward, because I had seen what had happened to other people. My mother was a service member as well. When I called her to say the words that no mother ever wants to hear, she had over 20 years of service at that time, and she didn't know what to do or what to tell me. She was an officer as well.
I think having any kind of reinforcement where it keeps people safe and keeps them from feeling like there will be a target on their back or any means of.... In my case, my car got vandalized. I was completely ostracized from officers' calls. I sat at a table once and everyone got up and moved. Everyone knew what was going on, when no one should have known what was going on.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Charles Sousa
Thank you, Ms. Smith.
Monsieur Savard-Tremblay, thank you.
Mr. Anderson, you have up to five minutes.