Thank you very much.
Thank you to all of our colleagues for taking this topic so incredibly seriously.
We have all been overwhelmed by the extent to which we see that perhaps the efforts to address sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces have not been successful. This is something the military has been working on for almost 30 years, yet if we look at the things that have been brought forward in the media, we can understand that whatever it is, it has not worked in the way that we need it to work.
Parliamentarians have a critical role in ensuring that our institutions, our structures and the things we value work the way they're supposed to. The military is a critical element of our defence and security. The armed forces protect and defend our Canadian values, but they must also embody them. As parliamentarians, we need to understand why perhaps they are not, to the extent that we expect.
This study essentially has been 30 years in the making. What has been done over the last 30 years has clearly not achieved the standards, goals and values that we expect of our military and that we expect of our citizens.
This motion today is obviously critically important. There are two elements.
First, we're talking about the “who”. Those we want as witnesses, as we've outlined in this motion, are, with the exception of, I think, only two, all current serving members in the Canadian Forces. As members of the serving Canadian Forces, in the normal course of their duties, they have a responsibility to come and to educate, inform and report to a House of Commons committee and members of Parliament. I don't think there's any argument that doesn't support naming them in the motion and having them come forward.
Another part of the “who” is that at no time when I read this motion did I believe that it was intended to be an exclusive list of witnesses. Therefore, this sets out some very critical key people who need to come and be witnesses because of the role, responsibility and perspective that they bring, but this is not, as I understand it, an exclusive list. Certainly, on the national defence committee, we had motions to outline certain witnesses that needed to come forward, but over time we added to that list, and that very well may be a possibility that we need to pursue in such an important study.
The second element is the “how”. It clearly outlines in this motion that we need one witness on their own for a period of an hour because of the magnitude of what we need to hear from them and the topic that we need to address with them. This motion says who are the critical people that we need to start with—and it's well within their job description roles and responsibilities to appear, for the most part—and, second, we need them to come on their own for an hour because of the breadth and depth of what we need to discuss with them.
I think this motion is a critical starting point in terms of where we need this discussion to go. Then, afterwards, we will more than likely need to have other witnesses so that we can do justice to something that is so serious a topic.
I know we've discussed briefly the point that the national defence committee is also studying this. I would say to the Bloc's point that they are two very different studies.
On one hand we have women not able to equally serve beside men and a culture that is not embodying Canadian values. On the other there are individuals who have breached that trust at the highest level, and processes that have allowed that to happen, as well as the processes and structure that need to be in place, going forward, to change that culture. They are two very separate and distinct things.
We have a responsibility, as outlined in this motion, to review Operation Honour and the culture of equality for women, and why the processes and structures, essentially for 30 years, have attempted to do this and have not been successful. We need to do something different, but we need to understand what those processes were over that time, why they didn't work and what the missing elements are.
That's not what the defence committee is doing. This is a problem or a topic that is highly complex, has been going on for many years and has many aspects. The national defence committee, rightly, is looking at one of those aspects, and we need to be able to look at another aspect. That's why I believe this motion is so important.
To leverage what Anita clearly said, this is a moment in time at which we must say to men and women who choose to serve our country in uniform, as well as to all Canadians, that this is not who we are. This is not the type of behaviour we accept and this is the moment at which we must do things differently. Many men and women in uniform have reached out to me and said, “We are counting on you parliamentarians to be the difference and to show that this time it will be different.”
Again, thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to speak, and thank you to my colleagues for dealing with this serious motion today in such an honourable way.