Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the Conservative House leader.
Today, I will talk about three key issues. First, as the previous speaker just talked about, is accountability. The next is the actions we need to take to better understand where the process failed and how we collectively move forward. Finally, I will talk about leadership and unfortunate leadership failure in dealing with this situation.
I will talk about the accountability aspects first for both the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence.
The government has gone to great lengths to talk about ministerial accountability. I agree. Being accountable includes taking ownership of a respective department, office or staff.
When we talk about the Minister of National Defence, he is the one responsible for the whole of the department, including being the direct supervisor of the chief of defence staff and the ombudsman. He has talked at length about not interfering politically and respecting the independence of any investigation. I fully agree. I have personally been very vocal about the current Prime Minister's political interference historically with the independence of the prosecution and judiciary with the SNC-Lavalin affair, and how this was a great failure and should have never happened.
However, in the case we are debating today, the minister has forgotten that, as the direct supervisor of both the chief of defence staff and ombudsman, this goes beyond just the political realm. Further, there is a fundamental difference in ensuring that an investigation occurs and interfering in said investigation or even doing the investigation themselves.
The parliamentary secretary in her speech earlier during the debate, as other Liberal members have, stated that the Liberal government apparently followed the exact same process as the previous Conservative government. This is absolutely false.
Under the previous Conservative government, both the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service and the national security adviser were both involved, and investigations actually did occur in response to rumours. This did not happen at all with this current case with the Liberal government. The only thing that happened was a passing of the buck to the PCO and the clerk of the Privy Council, and nothing further occurred despite actually having an actual allegation presented to the ombudsman. In fact, the only thing that did occur was the chief of the defence staff getting his mandate extended, getting a raise and eventually becoming the longest-serving chief of defence staff in history.
The bottom line is that the Minister of National Defence admitted on March 12 in committee that he was responsible for the failures of these allegations being investigated, and the minister is accountable. However, really what we are here today for, and the what the motion before us is about, is to debate the lack of accountability in the Prime Minister's Office.
I have had the fortune and privilege of commanding hundreds of Canada's finest. I have been a chief of staff both in Afghanistan and Iraq along with holding other key staff appointments. When I was in charge, I always reminded my staff that I could only do my job if they kept me in the loop. The line I used to use was, “I can only stop the manure from rolling downhill if I know about it. If I don't know about it, it is really hard to stop it.” However, when I was the chief of staff, my primary job was to keep the boss, the commander, in the loop, and this is what we are really talking about today.
In fact, we all know in this specific case that the office of the Minister of National Defence, the Privy Council Office, the Prime Minister's Office and the Prime Minister's chief of staff all knew about sexual misconduct allegations, yet somehow we are led to believe that the Prime Minister himself did not know. Based on this, I think we are faced with only two possible conclusions: either the Prime Minister did know about these allegations or his chief of staff failed to do her job to keep the Prime Minister in the loop. Either way, it speaks to incompetence within the Prime Minister's Office, and the victims of sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces are suffering as a result of these leadership failures.
Next, I want to focus on briefly the way ahead and why it is so important that these failures to hold those accountable are so important to the members of the Canadian Armed Forces.
I have been hearing from countless former colleagues within the forces. They are primarily concerned about the senior leadership both politically and militarily being held to account. They are concerned that if we do not fix it and we do not understand where those actual failures occurred, that there is no moving forward. We can ultimately put any process in place, but if somehow the senior leadership, especially the senior leadership politically, refuses to take action, then I do not know how anything will change moving forward.
It has been talked about before. The Canadian Armed Forces has the Deschamps report. I was there when it came in. Frankly, I was shocked at the length and depth in it of some of the details that occurred. One of the first things I did, being a serving member at the time, was talk to the female colleagues of mine and ask if it was true, if there was that much rampant sexual misconduct.
To be frank, I was shocked and disappointed that in so many cases within the leadership of the Canadian Armed Forces we were still allowing this to occur. I can only speak to the specific positions I was in, and I did everything in my power, but at the same time, I fully admit that I should have done more to create an atmosphere and environment where anybody could come forward with any type of allegation.
Ultimately what we are debating today is that if these allegations, especially against somebody like the chief of the defence staff, do not get properly investigated and concluded, then we cannot move ahead. This is not about pronouncing guilt or innocence; this is about actually doing a proper investigation. It is all about this cover-up that is creating all the problems.
I do not disagree with the previous member's comments that the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence are ultimately responsible. However, in this case, if we take the Prime Minister at his word that he did not know, ultimately he needs to now show leadership, make the tough choice and remove those within his office who are preventing him from doing his job as the Prime Minister.
This is all about trust and accountability. The members of the Canadian Armed Forces, particularly the victims of sexual misconduct and harassment, need to know that they can have faith in both the senior political and military leadership to ensure this does not happen again going forward.
I do agree with the member for North Island—Powell River that more action is required. However, first, leaders, in this case the Prime Minister, need to show leadership, be accountable and find out why this failure occurred from his chief of the defence staff.