Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 7th, 2023

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Chair, it must be understood that this is where we now stand. We've taken a good number of steps. We've met with the ministers, no one has received answers to their questions, and the decision has been based on a sham survey. We have some appallingly opaque issues to clear up.

If the two current ministers can't answer our questions—you've seen it as well as I have—let's bring in the two ministers who made the decision so they can explain the reasoning, if there is any, behind this decision.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Desilets.

I have consulted the clerk, and considering the time we have for this meeting, we would need committee members' consent to continue the debate on the motion that you just introduced.

Since everyone seems to be in agreement, we can continue the debate. I know witnesses are interested in the subject as well, but I nevertheless apologize to them on behalf of the committee as we continue this discussion.

Go ahead, Mr. Paul-Hus.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is a very important motion. As I mentioned earlier, we have to shed some light on this matter. Team Daoust doesn't have the resources to do anything else, having already made a major effort.

We have a responsibility here. I repeat: what bothers me most is the process that was used. Once again, the government is making decisions that run counter to what a government should normally do, as it has done in several files over the past eight years. The Liberals do everything a government shouldn't do.

That's why I think it's important that we get to the bottom of this and acquire the documents we need to get a clear understanding of what happened in this matter, which is extremely important.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Paul-Hus.

Mr. Bryan May is next.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you.

I actually have two questions, and something additional to say after we get the answers.

First of all, I don't know if the clerk can answer this off the top of his head, but how many more meetings do we have until we rise for the Christmas break? Even an approximation would be fine.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Alexandre (Sacha) Vassiliev]

It's four weeks total, so it's eight meetings—

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

With four weeks in total and eight meetings, how many more meetings do we have left for the current study on women in the military?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

We have about eight.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

I mentioned this last time when the motion for this meeting came up. I would have liked to see us get to completion of the women's study to allow the analysts to take advantage of the Christmas break. This is becoming mission creep, in my opinion, in terms of this study, and I think it disrespects the current study that we are engaged in.

Also, Mr. Chair, do we have witnesses today for that study now as well?

We do. Okay. What I would ask is if we could dismiss the current witnesses and go directly to the study that we are engaged in.

I think we have a responsibility on this committee to stay on mission. I think we agreed to this women's study. If we want to continue to push that further down the line, that's the decision of this committee. My preference—and I would hope it's the preference of everyone in this room—would be that we get to the women's study and finish it so that we can come back with strong recommendations in the new year for the government for it to solve some of those critical problems.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. May.

Now I would like to invite Mr. Boulerice to take the floor.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think Mr. Desilets' motion is important for two reasons.

The first is transparency. We have to get the documents we need to get to the bottom of this issue and gather the necessary information. All too often, certain departments are not transparent enough. This motion covers the transparency aspect.

The second is the principle of ministerial responsibility. We have to speak to the ministers who were in place at the time and who made those decisions. If we summon ministers who are occupying new positions and who say that they weren't there and that they're sorry, who aren't really aware of what happened and who slink out the back door, we won't get real ministerial responsibility or accountability.

For the moment, the people from all the parties around the stable have spoken. For all these reasons and out of respect for the witnesses we have invited to appear, I request a vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Boulerice

We will now vote, but please allow me to release—

[An hon. member]

No—

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Yes, but if someone asks for a vote....

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

No, no. I've got mine listed. As long as there's a speakers list, until you exhaust the speakers list, someone cannot, procedurally.... You cannot—

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

All right.

Please allow me the time to say goodbye to the witnesses because they may have other commitments, including Mr. Le Moine and Mr. Chupin, who is a professor. Please allow me the time to say goodbye to them. If they want to stay, that's fine. Then we'll continue the discussion.

Members of the committee, in this hour, we will have with us François Le Moine, lawyer; Francyne Lord, public art consultant; and Jean-Pierre Chupin, holder of the Canada Research Chair in Architecture, Competitions and Mediations of Excellence and full professor at the Université de Montréal, by videoconference; and, from Team Daoust, Renée Daoust, founding partner, architect and urbanist, as well as Luca Fortin, artist and architect.

You mentioned documents in your remarks. If you have them with you, I would ask you please to hand them to the clerk so they can be distributed to committee members.

With that, I want to thank you for your presence here in committee.

We will continue the debate.

I see that Mr. Richards and Mr. Casey want to speak.

Go ahead, Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

There are a couple of things I want to touch on. One thing I wanted to discuss is very similar to what Mr. Boulerice just had to say, so I won't spend a lot of time on it.

I think it was clear to everybody that there was a lack of due process followed here in this situation. I heard some statements today from some of the witnesses that were, I think, incredibly shocking to hear.

I heard statements about an exceptional lack of ethics by the government, that no artist is going to wish to take part in future competitions, that they've never seen outside experts disregarded, that it will tarnish the government's credibility, that it undermines confidence in the government. I heard that although competitions can be cancelled, in everything they've ever seen, generally the jury's decision is received and then conveyed to those who would put it in place. They talked about people being discouraged from entering future competitions and people being discouraged from being a part of juries. We had a witness say that Canadians need to be told why such a decision was made. I heard a lot of statements today that concern me.

I think what Mr. Boulerice just said was very accurate. The idea that somehow, just because the government changed ministers a few months ago, they can come in and say that they don't really know what happened and avoid accountability for what we're hearing is an incredibly unusual, if not unprecedented, situation in a jury's decision being completely disregarded. Whatever one thinks about the monument that we will have is irrelevant; there is a need for people to follow a process and for the government to follow a process.

From that perspective, I think it is important that we do hear from them, because accountability does rest with ministers who were in place when the decisions were made. We need to follow that line.

Had I not heard the kinds of things I heard today, I might have viewed this motion differently. Hearing those kinds of things and seeing ministers shrugging off accountability because they weren't there at the time the decisions were made tells us that this is a pretty important thing for us to hear.

The idea was put forth by one of the government members that this would somehow make us disregard our current important study that we're doing on women veterans. We have nine meetings left. We have eight meetings left in our study on women veterans. Hopefully, that means we can complete it by Christmas.

I know there are other things. I don't know if there will be supplementary estimates or anything like that, but there's a chance that other things will come up. Even if that were to occur and we're one or two meeting shy of being able to complete it, we could give the instructions to the analyst to start preparing a report based on everything we have heard, which would be 95% of the testimony we will hear. Then we finish the last couple meetings and the analyst can add in from those meetings, and we really wouldn't be delaying at all our ability to have a report.

We're going to hit Christmas. We're going to have six or seven weeks when the analyst can work on the report. He can do that either way. Either way, early in the time period after we come back from that break, we can review that report and have it completed. The report would not be delayed by more than maybe by a couple of days. Given that we've given it such a thorough study, I think taking a couple of extra days to finish a report won't be the end of the world. I think we can still do it the justice it absolutely deserves and also ensure that we're doing this the justice it deserves as well.

If you have ministers coming in and saying, “Well, I wasn't there, so I'm not accountable”, then we need to hear from those who were there.

I'll leave it at that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Richards.

Now I would like to invite Mr. Sean Casey to take the floor.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The last time this committee pushed back the women's study for something that was a political priority of one of our members or one of the parties here, we became the subject of an awful lot of angst in the women veterans community, and the lack of sensitivity exhibited by this committee in pushing back the women's study in favour of something else was front page news.

I'm concerned about a repeat of that. When that happened, Mr. Desilets very wisely put an end to the debate on the motion out of respect for the witnesses. I therefore move that the debate on this motion now be adjourned.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I heard the words “demande d'ajournement”; I must go to the vote.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I have a point of order before that vote, Mr. Chair.

My understanding is that the speakers list was now exhausted, unless you had someone added to it in the time Mr. Casey was speaking. Therefore, we could have had a vote on the actual motion. We can obviously choose to defeat his motion and then have the vote immediately.

It looks to me like Mr. Casey's just trying to avoid accountability on the part of the government.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

First of all, as I said, I didn't hear anyone asking for a vote on that motion, but we just heard “adjournment”.

[An hon. member]

The speakers list is exhausted, so we vote—

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

No—

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.