Madam Speaker, the motion in front of us today reads, “That the House has lost confidence in the Minister of National Defence's ability to carry out his responsibilities on behalf of the government since, on multiple occasions the Minister misrepresented his military service and provided misleading information to the House”, and has made false statements in the public domain.
I would like to structure my remarks as follows.
First, I would like to prove to my colleagues of all political stripes that the minister has in fact misled the House and why this is a cause for concern in carrying out legislative responsibilities as well as providing the resources and sound decisions that are required to lead Canada's military.
I want to start, as many of my colleagues have, by expressing our deep sense of gratitude and appreciation to all those who have served Canada as part of the Canadian Armed Forces. It is with that thanks that I want to separate out, as my colleague just mentioned, the fact that we are not evaluating the Minister of National Defence based on his service record in the Canadian Armed Forces; we are evaluating his capacity to lead in the position of Minister of National Defence.
First, has the minister in fact misled or misrepresented the House? That evidence is very clear. A lot of time has been spent today talking about his misrepresentation with respect to his role in Operation Medusa. If I have time, I will get back to that. However, it is very important to look at some of the other factors that have led to this motion being put forward in the House. This is not a motion that is made lightly.
I took umbrage with a comment made by the member for Brampton North. She said that the opposition had been trying to downgrade and diminish the reputation of the Minister of National Defence. To be clear, the opposition does not have any issue with the minister's service record prior to entering politics. The minister, in his own role, has diminished and downgraded his reputation. That is why we have the motion in front of the House of Commons today.
In late 2015, the minister said, “I haven't had one discussion about the CF-18s”. This was in The Globe and Mail on December 21, 2015. However, emails sent by officials at the Department of Foreign Affairs state, “the Iraqi Minister of Defence was clearly focused on Canada's decision to withdraw its CF18 fighter jets from the coalition air strikes, asking [the defence minister] to reconsider this decision on numerous occasions...” A month later, the Minister of National Defence said that the Iraqi defence minister was ecstatic with the role Canada was playing. This is a deliberate misrepresentation of facts. This is incident number one where the Minister of National Defence has misled the House.
As well, Liberal budgets under the Prime Minister have cut billions of dollars from our defence budget. Budget 2016 cut $3.7 billion from capital equipment projects and budget 2017 cut $8.48 billion. The only budget increases the Canadian Armed Forces has seen in the past two years have come as a result of the defence escalator, which was a policy put in place under the previous Conservative government.
Under the watch of the Minister of National Defence, the Department of National Defence released classified information regarding Canada's military response to a 9/11-style attack.
There has been so much talk about procurement today, and one of the examples I find absolutely egregious is that in justifying the government's plan to break down its campaign promise and undertake a sole-source purchase of 18 Super Hornet fighter jets, the Minister of National Defence has repeatedly insisted that the RCAF faces a credibility gap. However, Lieutenant-General Michael Hood, commander of the air force, provided a statement to the House Standing Committee on National Defence in which he stated, “there is sufficient capacity to support a transition to a replacement fighter capability based on the ongoing projects and planned life extension to 2025 for the CF-18.”
The comments the minister made about his role in Operation Medusa, when there were so many Canadian Armed Forces members who had a significant impact on actually building that mission out, I think was the straw that broke the camel's back. My concern, now that I have shown a record of how he has mislead the House, is what impact that has on our men and women in uniform.
Much has been made by my colleagues opposite about the defence review. I do not think there is a single person in this House of Commons who is going to stand up and say that the military is where it needs to be in terms of provisioning or funding. We need to do more for the military, and it needs to be done in a very strategic way.
I also feel that there needs to be an entire rethink on how procurement looks, because it is this inertia, this bureaucratic craziness that really requires a lot of goodwill with the public service and a lot of commanding presence to be able to see change. That is something that needs to happen. A lot has been made about the defence review, and so forth, but it is now about the minister's ability to implement those changes.
The member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill wrote her speech for a reason. To me, many of the talking points that were in her speech sounded like what typically happens on a day like this, which is that the departmental staff from whatever department is involved have to spend probably two days writing speeches for government members. Members will notice that she also did not say who wrote her speech. Imagine being the Department of National Defence staff who had to spend the weekend writing speeches to defend the minister's record.
If we push that forward, nobody in this House can argue that there has not been so many former members of the armed forces or people who are in the armed forces right now who are not happy with the situation and who cannot write to members of Parliament or speak out. I could read quote after quote in that regard. How is the minister going to have the political capability, the will, or the social licence within his own department to oversee the changes that he needs to make?
I believe the member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill also said that the Prime Minister has full confidence in the minister. If the Prime Minister has full confidence in the minister right now, the Prime Minister's judgment also needs to be called into question. If he cannot look at the minister and say, “I am sure you have had an excellent service record, but this is over 18 months of poor performance in your role as a cabinet minister”, then I think the Prime Minister's judgment also needs to be called into question.
My colleague from Chilliwack raised a question in the House of Commons last week for the Prime Minister with respect to the many other members of the Liberal caucus who have served in the armed forces, and who have both significant operational experience and leadership experience. If the Prime Minister wants to put somebody into the Ministry of National Defence who has a background in our armed forces, he has some people to choose from, such as the former government whip, which I believe is what the member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill just said. There are people within his caucus who have this expertise. I do not understand why the Prime Minister and his caucus continue to stand up here and speak from a bunch of talking points on why the minister should have his job after it is very clear that this information has been misleading.
I expected the defence minister to stand up in this House this morning and refute some of the assertions that I had outlined in the front end of my speech, because I know my colleague from Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman had done that. I expected him to be somewhat contrite, especially with respect to overstating his role in Operation Medusa. Instead, it was this bizarre jumble of talking points, which I think was probably the worst response he could have given in terms of addressing a House of Commons that is essentially assessing his capability to do the job going forward.
Today I had the opportunity to look online at our Department of National Defence and Canadian Forces Code of Values and Ethics. Under section 4 in Annex A, it talks about public sector value, and 4.1 is “Respect for Democracy”, which talks about the importance of the Canadian parliamentary system, and so forth. It states, “Public servants recognize that elected officials are accountable to Parliament, and ultimately to the Canadian people....”
We have seen the Minister of National Defence refuse to allow the House of Commons to debate whether or not we send troops to other areas. Under “Integrity” it states, “integrity is to have unconditional and steadfast commitment to a principled approach to meeting your obligations while being responsible and accountable for your actions.” Why has the minister not done this?
In closing, it is for these reasons that I believe the House should support this motion.