Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Canadian Armed Forces is in a crisis. Disappointingly, it is a long-standing crisis that extends back more than 20 years. In four cover stories published in 1998, Maclean's magazine alerted the Canadian public of a deep-seated crisis of rampant sexual misconduct in the Canadian military. Since that time, sadly, little has changed. In response to the 1998 sexual misconduct stories, Parliament, in its wisdom, transferred the powers of investigation and prosecution of sexual assault to the military. Parliament left it to the military to solve their problem internally. This was a huge mistake.
Given the recent revelations, which include the current and former chiefs of the defence staff as well as the commander of military personnel command being investigated for sexual misconduct, it goes without saying that instead of getting better, things got worse—much worse. There have been signs of this current crisis for decades, which should not have gone unnoticed.
In 2010, Colonel Russell Williams confessed to sexual assault of at least four women, the murder of two women—one civilian and one master corporal serving under his authority—and to having illegally invaded the homes and bedrooms of over 80 of his neighbours. In 2014, Maclean's and L'actualité magazines published the results of their investigation into sexual violence within our military, with Stéphanie Raymond, the victim of sexual misconduct by one of her male superiors, on its front cover. In 2015, retired Justice Marie Deschamps published a devastating exposé concerning the sexualized culture of the military. Her report made a number of recommendations, a number of which would be ignored and remain ignored by DND.
There is more. According to a survey by Statistics Canada in 2018, approximately 900 regular forces members were victims of sexual assault the previous year. Just let that sink in.
The following year, the 2019 Statistics Canada survey showed that 68% of Royal Military College students witnessed or experienced unwanted sexualized behaviours in 2018. Also, it reported that more than one in seven female students experienced sexual assaults in 2018, many of which were not reported.
In response to this long-standing crisis, the current senior management team at National Defence, led by the current minister, the current deputy minister and the since-departed CDS General Vance, joined ranks to put into place a program under the exaggerated title of Operation Honour as a means to bring discipline and fundamental respect and safety for women in the military. Truth be told, Operation Honour has proven to be based on conjecture and to be mostly an exercise in hyperbole. It is not working. Since the announcement of Operation Honour, our military's crisis has worsened.
Given my long-standing interest in this matter, over the past decades I have often appeared before parliamentary committees. I have co-authored several legal texts, and I have provided commentary on this subject in which I have proposed reforms to the military justice system.
Following my appearance before the Standing Committee on National Defence on February 22 of this year, in answer to the comments made by the Minister of National Defence before the same committee, and in the absence of any demonstrated proactivity from any of the leaders of our five political parties to deal with this crisis, I felt compelled to co-author a book titled Canada's Military Justice System Is in a Meltdown: Will Government Act? This book proposed some specific legislative reforms to address this crisis. It is produced in bilingual format and is available for free download at www.mdlo.ca.
At its core, this book recommends two things.
First, given the clear and compelling evidence that DND is unable to effectively deal with the enduring crisis of sexual misconduct and the deepening loss of public trust in the military high command, which has been decimated by allegations of sexual misconduct, and in the absence of substantive government leadership and action, Parliament should amend the National Defence Act to return jurisdiction for sexual assaults to civilian courts. This can be done simply and most quickly by amending section 70 of the National Defence Act.
Second, Parliament should appoint a civilian personality as inspector general of the armed forces—who will report to Parliament.
Ladies, I look forward to answering any questions that you may have. Thank you.