Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the committee and colleagues.
Thank you for this opportunity to appear as a witness for this committee's study on the experience of women veterans. I understand this is the first study of women veterans by a House of Commons Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs. If so, I say congratulations and thank you.
I applaud your undertaking this large assignment. I don't think you can cast the net any wider in the scope of issues and experiences this study seeks to understand about what it means for women to choose to serve Canada.
In my presentation today, in the section entitled “recruitment and life in the Forces”, I'd like to respectfully ask and add a parallel question. What does it mean for Canada for women to choose to serve Canada?
What extraordinary talent base do servicewomen represent and offer as a unique cohort for Canada's democracy, defence and security, civil society and economic development, and now environmental adaptation strategic requirements?
Conversely, what happens as a result of the Canadian Armed Forces failing to assess and seize this opportunity for the past 55 years, and repeatedly choosing to not have a dedicated strategic plan valuing and optimizing the inclusion of servicewomen for the past 55 years?
This speaks volumes. In my opinion, it is being represented in witness testimony before you.
On December 13, 2021, the official apologies by the Minister of National Defence, the deputy minister and the chief of the defence staff following the $850-million DND and CAF sexual misconduct class action lawsuit did not include the words “servicewomen”, “servicewoman”, “male” or “female” once. “LGBTQ” was there, yes, but “women” was not there once.
What are they spending $850 million on? I'm sorry. It's minus $50 million for men.
We are an invisible force. What a waste. What a loss to Canada.
The four PowerPoint slide views I provided to the clerk of the committee for you are my very brief representation of key challenges and outcomes I have reported over the past 51 years, understanding and acting on servicewomen's inclusion in the Canadian Armed Forces and the inclusion of women veterans in Canada's larger society.
The one-page bio I submitted to the committee clerk describes some of this involvement as a military researcher in my national, provincial and local community service as founder of Servicewomen’s Salute-Hommage aux Femmes Militaires—which now operates as a proxy military association to know, honour, care for and strengthen the contribution of servicewomen to Canada, because there is nothing else—and as project manager for the past five years at the centre for international and defence policy at Queen's University on the servicewomen's salute portal project.
A second document I provided to the clerk describes the 34 specific problem-solving projects undertaken by Servicewomen's Salute and Queen's University since 2017. Generally speaking, the projects describe the gaps we have identified and the corrective action we have implemented in research knowledge, CAF's lack of record-keeping, the inclusion and valuing of servicewomen, the lack of commemoration and celebration of servicewomen's military service, and the lack of responsive local community services.
I won't be surprised if the four thematic areas chosen by the committee, from women's physical and mental health to initiatives developed in allied countries, focus on and produce recommendations “to implement the best possible support measures for women Veterans”. My expectation is that the recommendations will seek to support women veterans as individuals, as well as their individual well-being. They are laudable. I can only urge the committee, as elected representatives, to think how your recommendations can take on larger strategic value and impact as well.
This is a Canadian problem. This is for Canada. What a waste.
Thank you.