Status of Women Committee on April 8th, 2021

[Stéphanie Raymond]

Yes, it would be important to have an organization or a team that is truly independent of the Forces to direct, support and assist victims and answer their questions. It would also be important to have adequate support in French. I personally noticed that it was very difficult to obtain resources for francophones. This problem already exists everywhere in the Forces health care system, and the care for victims of assault is no exception.

Personally, I feel strongly that sexual assault cases in the Forces, which are criminal acts, should be tried outside the Forces, not by court martial. That's my battle cry. There's no good reason for these cases to be tried by court martial.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Do you feel there are major gaps in the services offered in French? If so, is it in victim services or in services in general?

Can you elaborate on the support offered in French to victims?

[Stéphanie Raymond]

I am going to try to choose my words carefully.

As a francophone, I have experienced discrimination during my career. It happened especially when I was working in the regular force at Valcartier, even though the city is predominantly francophone. I experienced discrimination from a medical standpoint. When I called the ombudsman, for example, I had to call back later or wait for someone who spoke French to call me back. In the end, no one could serve me in French, and I had to manage in English. Often only one French speaker was working per shift and they had to serve all of the Canadian Armed Forces.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

What changes do you feel would be important in order to encourage more survivors to come forward with their stories or to file complaints?

Could you answer my question in 30 seconds?

[Stéphanie Raymond]

At the moment, victims are not speaking out because of the negative impact it has on their careers. We already have statistics on the release of defendants. However, not enough attention is paid to the number of women who are kicked out after reporting their attackers.

Unfortunately, that's the problem: women know that if they speak out, their careers will be over.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

All right.

Thank you very much for your service.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Ms. Larouche, you have the floor for six minutes.

We can't hear you, Madame Larouche.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

You are on mute.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

There's still nothing.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Stephanie Bond]

Can we please suspend?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Yes, let's suspend while we fix this technical issue.

We can hear you now.

You can start over. You haven't lost any of your time.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

As I was saying, Ms. Raymond, your testimony helped to cast light on assault cases, at least in Quebec. Thank you very much.

As a result of your testimony, we had Justice Deschamps' report. Your battle got a lot of media attention in Quebec thanks to the efforts of some reporters and yourself. I'm thinking in particular of the 2014 article by Noémi Mercier and Alec Castonguay in L'actualité, which led to the Deschamps report. When you blew the whistle, it helped expose the assault cases.

In your opening remarks, you also talked a lot about processing times. As you point out, you began this fight over 10 years ago. The court process takes far too long.

Before I ask my questions, would you like to take a moment to tell us more about how long the process takes?

[Stéphanie Raymond]

In my case, the process took as long as it did because the Canadian Armed Forces had been unwilling to lay criminal charges against my attacker. According to the military police and the military prosecutor, it wasn't a sexual assault, but simply what they called “transactions” that stopped as soon as I said no.

After a complaint was filed with the military police, the investigation was reopened. It reached the same conclusion: it was not an assault. The investigation was then closed again. Then the article came out in L'actualité, and charges were laid. My attacker was acquitted, which was to be expected, because the jury was made up of five military men.

Those 10 years brought not only periods of inactivity where things came to a standstill, but also delays related to legal and administrative issues. Actually, they were trying to put obstacles in my way. It took me almost 10 years to get through all that.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

As you said, the two people directly involved however, were members of the Canadian Armed Forces and the alleged assault occurred in military facilities.

A panel of five military men found Mr. Gagnon not guilty of sexual assault. In other words, some men tried another man in a sexual assault case. It's as if the investigation was conducted by his own peers. That can influence the outcome.

As you say, the Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada then overturned the warrant officer's acquittal and ordered a new trial. The verdict was then upheld by the Supreme Court in fall 2018 and the case was transferred to civilian court.

Can you remind us why it was important that your case be taken out of the military justice system so that they could ultimately reach a different verdict?

[Stéphanie Raymond]

That was critical. That choice was not available at the outset, and when I was offered it in January 2020, I immediately said yes. From that point on, the defendant pleaded not guilty again, but there were other delays, including COVID-19. More than a year later, as we got closer to the cutoff date, he decided to plead guilty. If the trial had been held as a court martial, it would have been different. I'm not able to get inside their heads, but I feel they were playing a different game. The rules and laws were not the same. He knew he had less chance of winning. Otherwise, he would have pleaded not guilty again.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Once again, this demonstrates that it was important to get your case out of the military justice system and that it's imperative to establish an independent body that can adjudicate sexual assault cases.

As you mentioned, from the time you filed your complaint in 2012, your superiors made your life much more difficult, until you were dismissed in late 2013.

Can you tell us more about the consequences of whistleblowing in the Canadian Armed Forces, because you experienced them firsthand?

[Stéphanie Raymond]

There are all sorts of consequences. They range from intimidation and psychological harassment in the workplace to payroll consequences. Personnel played around with my benefits again [Technical difficulties], for example, and deducted $5,000. After that, I was denied my annual leave, even though it had been approved for all other members of the regiment.

Those are just a few examples. I was no longer allowed to work out during my work hours, while all my colleagues were allowed to. I was no longer allowed to wear civilian clothes when I did fundraising for the United Way on Fridays, while everyone else could, because supposedly I was liable to provoke attacks. It just kept piling up. I was issued a written warning and placed under surveillance.

There are countless measures that I have forgotten over time, but they led to poor mental health. Derogatory comments were also made about me and I was subjected to really unhealthy treatments by military doctors.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

It's much harder to report sexual abuse in the military than in civilian society. That's what I'm taking away from your testimony today.

[Stéphanie Raymond]

Yes, absolutely.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

It's hard enough for victims to do it in civilian society.

[Stéphanie Raymond]

Yes. It's because military men feel like they're under attack. They feel that they and their profession are the ones under attack. So they attack the person who is speaking out.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We'll go to Ms. Mathyssen for six minutes.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you so much for your testimony today.

I also want to build off what Madame Larouche was doing.

You specifically said that, in your case, people who tried to report.... And you had several instances, unfortunately, but during that time, there was direct interference by the chain of command. Can you talk about those examples that you saw directly?

[Stéphanie Raymond]

I was not kept up to date on the progress of my assault complaint with the military police, but I was hearing discussions in the hallway between my superior and his superior about my complaint and the details of what had happened. They were saying that it wouldn't go far. So I saw that my superiors knew about it.

A captain in my unit met with me to say that they had discussed what had happened, because the police had called them to tell them the story. To cut a long story short, everyone knew about it. I even got an intimidating call from a military police officer I did not know. He told me that the complaint would not be reviewed again because he had just learned that I had made a complaint about the military police to the Provost Marshal. The harassment investigators and the police officers also discussed it.

They were all talking to each other, actually, because I tried knocking on every door I could, even the sexual harassment response team. They were all talking to each other and they were all being ordered to stop talking to me and giving me information.

I'm having a bit of trouble summarizing, because so many things happened.