Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure today to speak to Bill C-25.
The Esquimalt base is in my riding of Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca. Marine Pacific command is in my riding and as such provides me with an enormous amount of information and insight into what is taking place within the military today. As the No. 1 employer in my riding, the number of constituents dependent upon the military is vast. Therefore the bill is exceedingly important to the constituents of Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca.
We are disappointed because Bill C-25 had an enormous opportunity to make some substantive changes within the military that would enable men and women in our fighting force to be able once again to do the best they can in an institution that traditionally has served our country exceptionally well.
Parliament as an institution has not served the military well. We have not provided the military with the tools to be able to do its job. Bill C-25 was an opportunity to enable us to give the military the tools to do its job, to strengthen the faith it has within its own institution, but unfortunately again we failed.
We ignored the recommendations of the $30 million plus Somalia inquiry. We ignored the recommendations of many learned people within and without the military to build a stronger Canadian fighting force. This cannot be a witch-hunt. We must focus on the constructive solutions that would enable the Canadian military to be the best that it can become.
We have put forward a number of constructive suggestions regarding the military police. We suggested that it be taken out of the chain of command and be given more independence. It should report directly to the military attorney general. This was ignored.
We asked that the office of the judge advocate general be split into defence and prosecutorial roles. Judges should not come from the same office and probably should come from the federal court trial division. Removing the judicial role of the judge advocate general would allow for the offices to be renamed the attorney general with the responsibilities of policing and prosecuting.
The Somalia inquiry recommended the creation of an independent inspector general. We believe this was ignored because the inspector general would be independent. If we believe in transparency, if we believe that we should have independence and the ability to investigate potential problems within the military, as in any other organization we should give this group independence.
The Somalia inquiry recommended numerous things. It recommended that the Minister of National Defence report to parliament by June 30, 1998 on all actions taken in response to the recommendations by the inquiry.
Is the Somalia inquiry to be just another study that is tossed under the table and forgotten? We repeatedly do this, be it the inquiry into aboriginal affairs, the Somalia inquiry or committee reports. After they get their day of media attention the vast majority of committee reports, which contain superb ideas and suggestions, are merely tossed under the carpet and forgotten. This is an enormous waste of opportunity. It is also an enormous waste of taxpayers' money.
Bill C-25 also failed to address the suggestion that action be taken regarding witnesses who lied or broke officers trust or oath. It ignored twelve recommendations addressing the creation of the office of the inspector general. It ignored five recommendations charging the CDS with clarifying and strengthening the change of command. It ignored eight recommendations charging the CDS with more effective screening with respect to promotions, self-discipline and how personnel impose discipline on others. Bill C-25 ignored twelve recommendations charging the CDS with applying merit as the prime factor in promotion through improving the performance and evaluating reporting system.
Today in the military, as in other organizations, people are not necessarily promoted on the basis of merit but on the basis of some other characteristic. That is not fair. It erodes the very essence of any organization.
When people, regardless of where they happen to be from, say that they cannot ascend through the ranks of an organization on the basis of merit, why should they improve themselves? Why should they give the best performance? Why should they be the best they can become?
They are not being promoted on the basis of merit. They are being promoted on the basis of some other characteristic. That erodes the very heart and soul of the system and what we get is an organization that is far less than what it could be.
The bill has ignored numerous recommendations. I will not go through the rest of them because my colleague has eloquently spoken about them. There are numerous other things that the military has failed to deal with. One particularly important situation is what has been occurring in my riding on the dockyard and in the depot.
A few months ago military personnel heard through the grapevine that roughly 18,000 jobs were to be lost. Can we imagine being people in the military and hearing that our jobs might be lost?
I told the Minister of National Defence that these rumours were flying around. The NDP asked questions, as well they should and should be commended for doing so. When we asked these questions of the minister he said that they were just rumours, that they would not really lose 18,000 jobs. I then asked the minister to tell the personnel on these bases what would or would not happen. Have we heard anything? No, we have not.
Representatives of the Union of National Defence Employees have asked the minister what is going on. There might be some reallocation of jobs through the alternative service delivery plan. How many jobs will it be? Who will have to do this? Will personnel be allowed to bid for their jobs on a fair and level playing field? These are important issues.
I would like to point out the backdrop against which this takes place. In my riding men and women at the base service depot have gone through the downsizing. In fact they are a model of downsizing in the country. They have cut where they have needed to cut. They streamlined where they needed to streamline. They improved their efficiency where they needed to improve their efficiency, so much so that they are a model of downsizing. They have been held up as a model of downsizing.
For over 10 years many of those personnel have been working at a wage level with no raises that is less than they would make on welfare. Some people for 12 of their 14 years in the military have been working at a wage less than they would make on welfare. They stuck out the job because they felt it was the right thing to do. They felt committed to the institution. They wanted to make a contribution. They liked their job. They felt strongly about the military. They felt the military was a part of Canada. They felt it was a duty and responsibility to the country to support the institution even though they could have made more money not working.
Against this backdrop the ministry said to them that their jobs may be cut. They have also not said to them that they could apply for their jobs if it is under the ASD or bid for their jobs in a fair and equitable fashion.
What kind of a situation do we have? What kind of a minister do we have? What kind of a ministry do we have that will kick hard-working men and women in the teeth who have done their jobs faithfully? What kind of a government kicks its employees in the teeth when they are down, when they have given more honour, more credibility, more faithfulness to the institution than perhaps the government has?
These people are not asking for miracles. They just want a fair shake. The Union of Defence Employees wants a fair shake. They want to be able to bid for their jobs on a level playing field. They want to be treated fairly. They understand that cuts have to be made. They understand that streamlining has to occur but they do not understand that when they have done this and have done it very well they are kicked in the teeth.
I challenge the minister to speak to the employees in the military, tell them the truth, tell them what is going on, treat them fairly and enable them to compete for their jobs on a level and fair playing field.
If cuts are to take place it would do the taxpayer and the military an enormous disservice if the reorganization is to make the military less effective than it is today. That is also a concern of these people.
If an ASD is to be used, will the people this is being given to be able to do a better job? There are concerns that the people who will be getting these jobs might be friends of the military, friends of the people in power. Will these hard working people who have been working for years for the military be tossed aside because the contract will be awarded to somebody who knows somebody in the ministry or in the defence department? Is that fair?
The truth has to come out and it is the minister's responsibility to do that. There have been no responses to my questions so far. I want those answers and I want them now. The employees of the defence department, members of the UNDE, who live in my riding want and deserve answers. They want them now.
With respect to the soldiers in our defence department, they have been labouring under an egregious situation for years. In a presentation at the defence committee over a year ago to General Roméo Dallaire who was there, along with the assistant deputy minister, I pointed out some constructive solutions from the men and women at the base in Esquimalt. They were solutions that would have enabled them to provide a better standard of living and to improve the situation within the military without costing the military more money.
It could have been a win-win situation. We could have made the accommodation assistance allowance applicable to all members in the military. When someone in the military is moved from an area where accommodation is cheap to an area where it is very expensive, such as Victoria or Vancouver, the person has to bear the cost. There is very little accommodation for that particularly if the person lives off base.
People in the military understand that they can be moved around and that they have no say in where they go. However, these people want to have some fairness built into the system. People who work in an embassy and who are moved to another country where the standard of living is much higher and more expensive are accommodated for that. Our military men and women should have the same consideration.
We can do this by making sure that the accommodation assistance allowance applies to everybody and that the AAA is tax free. It is not much but it would provide them with some money.
The raises the military personnel received were an absolute disgrace. As we have said before, the military has to live within its budget but for heaven's sake, when we are sending people out to fight for our country, we should provide them with enough money to feed their children back home.
Right now a soldier can make $800 a month and an extra $400 a month if he or she goes away. It is clearly to the soldier's advantage to go away. But what does that do to the family? When those soldiers are away they worry about their spouses and children. There has to be some fairness built in.
A large number of our military personnel travel half a world away to fight in areas such as Iraq and they worry whether there is enough food on the table to provide for their children. Our military people are not looking to get rich but they are looking for fairness. If they are going to put their lives on the line, they want fairness.
Another thing which is eroding our military is the inability of our soldiers to move up the ranks based on merit. I and my colleague have addressed this issue before. There is the perception, and I would argue the reality, that members in our military are not moving through the ranks on the basis of merit. Other factors extraneous to merit are taken into consideration.
It is discrimination if someone is not able to move up the ranks because they are not of the right category. A level playing field must exist within the military as in every organization. A person must be able to ascend the ranks of an organization on the basis of merit, competence, experience, on the basis of their qualities, not on whether they fit within a certain demographic group.
Our armed forces demand and deserve a game plan. What is their role in the world? They do not know. The military personnel will do the job they are tasked to do if we task them with it. They will do it with honour and they will do it well. We have to give them direction. Are they going to be a peacekeeping force? Are they going to be a military force that intervenes in active combat? Are they going to be a force that is going to live up to our obligations as a country under NATO?
We know that our individual security as a nation is intimately entwined with the security of other nations. In this era of globalization we have to live up to our obligations in international organizations such as NATO.
If we are going to have security, we have to provide our military personnel with the tools to do their job. There is no compromise on that. We must give them the required tools. This means the equipment and direction. We are not doing that in spite of repeated white papers, commissions and studies that have called for just that. Give our military personnel a game plan. Give them the tools to do their job.
In this era of cutting, efficiency can be put into the military. By giving base commanders the ability to manage their affairs more closely without the intervention of the Treasury Board there will be more money, more flexibility and better bases for the Canadian men and women in the military.
Treasury Board repeatedly meddles in the affairs of the military. It ties the hands of the military. Base commanders cannot actively try to provide support nor can they use their intelligence and abilities to ensure their bases are as good as they can be.
It is true that in the past the minister and the government have done some good things to try to give base commanders some flexibility. It is a significant departure from what occurred before. They can do more. A lot more could be done to give base commanders the flexibility and the ability to improve the social and economic conditions among our military.
The armed forces need our help. Their social and economic situation needs improvement. The government needs to listen to the solutions we have put forward, solutions which have been given by our military, the men and women in uniform and their families. The government needs to listen to our critic. It needs to work with members across party lines. It needs to work for our military.
We will not accept the subterfuge that has taken place for so long. We will not accept the military being ignored. We will not accept that it has not been listened to. The government must be held accountable. It must act on the solutions and suggestions it has on its plate. We will work with the government to help our military become the best it can become.