Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my great colleague from Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes who not only serves as a member of Parliament but has also served in the Canadian Armed Forces. I thank all of those who have served.
I am truly honoured to speak to this important opposition day motion. As the former chair of the status of women committee in the 42nd Parliament and a portion of the 43rd Parliament, and former shadow minister for women and gender equality, I say that this motion today is extremely important.
The investigation into General Vance, the treatment of our men and women in the Canadian Armed Forces and the culture of sexual misconduct must be investigated thoroughly. This begins at the very top, and that is exactly what we have brought forward today. Today's motion reads:
That, given that:
(a) women and all members of the Canadian Armed Forces placed their trust in this government to act on claims of sexual misconduct;
(b) the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff was informed about a specific sexual harassment allegation against General Jonathan Vance three years ago;
(c) the Prime Minister asserts that this sexual harassment allegation was never brought to his attention; and
(d) the Prime Minister said that those in a position of authority have a duty to act upon allegations, the House call upon the Prime Minister to dismiss his Chief of Staff for failing to notify him about a serious sexual harassment allegation at the highest ranks of the Canadian Armed Forces and for being complicit in hiding the truth from Canadians.
We can talk about timelines, which I know that many of the members speaking to this motion today will do. They will talk about the promotion of General Vance and former investigations, but most importantly they will talk about the top office in our country knowing of these allegations and doing nothing.
To begin, when we first started hearing about these allegations months ago following media reports, the PM indicated that his office knew nothing. We know, after testimony presented at the defence committee by a former adviser to the PMO, that this was not true. Katie Telford, the chief of staff to the Prime Minister, was aware of the allegations and was aware of the sexual nature of these allegations. The person who came forward as having an intimate relationship with General Vance was aware of the mindset, his personal views of his position and status within the Canadian Armed Forces, and the leadership within our country. She came forward to speak about what she saw and what she thought.
An article written by David Pugliese on April 22 is titled, “Gen. Vance boasted he was 'untouchable' by military police, Commons committee told”. This article states:
Canada’s former top soldier boasted that he was untouchable and that he “owned” the military police who are investigating allegations of sexual misconduct made against him.
We know, following testimony by military ombudsman Gary Walbourne in 2018, that an allegation of inappropriate behaviour was brought forward, and that chief of staff Katie Telford and the Minister of National Defence were both aware of this claim. Although the Prime Minister is indicating that nobody knew this was a #MeToo moment, email threads disprove that. Sexual harassment does equal a #MeToo moment.
I want to go back to my role as the chair of the status of women committee and the work that we had completed in a study tabled in June 2019. Unfortunately, I do not have a response from the government or from the minister on this. They were allocated 120 days to respond. We were short by a few days because we had gone into an election, so we never received a response on this. I would be very interested to hear what the defence minister would have to say about this.
I share with members some of the testimony, and why an allegation that was taken to the top office of our country and not acted upon was truly negligent. I want to talk about Operation Honour. Throughout the study on the treatment of women within the Department of National Defence, we heard a lot about this program and that it was a clear mandate. It states:
1.6. Operation HONOUR is the mission to eliminate sexual misconduct in the CAF. It is based on the principles that:
a. every member who serves their country deserves to be treated with dignity and respect—anything less is simply unacceptable; and
b. any attitudes or behaviours which undermine the camaraderie, cohesion, and confidence of serving members threatens the CAF’s long-term operational success.
1.7. Operation HONOUR seeks to achieve a positive institutional culture change in the Canadian Armed Forces through four lines of effort:
a. understanding the issue of sexual misconduct;
b. responding more decisively to incident;
c. supporting affected persons more effectively; and
d. preventing incidents from occurring.
General Vance, addressing the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence in June 2018, stated:
Leaders need to drive change by providing vision and a consistent personal example that empowers and inspires subordinates to set the conditions for the elimination of sexual misconduct.
We listen to those words now, reflect on what we are talking about today and wonder who was in charge of that candy jar.
In the manual for Operation Honour under “Bystander Intervention Training”, it states the following:
[Canadian Armed Forces] Bystander Intervention unit-level training helps CAF members recognize and react decisively to sexual misconduct and harassment when they see it. This program illustrates to bystanders and leaders that if they fail to act when faced with an incident of sexual misconduct, they are perpetuating the behaviour. The program also explains the power that bystanders and leaders have to take positive action to stop sexual misconduct and support CAF members. In short, it demonstrates why it is crucial for witnesses to sexual misconduct to speak out against it, rather than stay silent.
The most ironic thing about all this is that this program was launched by General Vance. This program about what we needed to do when our members were facing sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces was led by General Vance. We heard from many former members of the Canadian Armed Forces who described their time in the forces and their own personal experiences. Why do I want to bring this forward? I want trust and confidence in our government, accountability and assurance that this will never happen again.
In testimony brought forward by former Canadian Armed Forces member Paula MacDonald, she stated the following:
When I was in basic training, I called the Canadian Armed Forces sexual response centre to ask them to help me. All they did at that time was the same thing that the ombudsman would do, which was to direct me back to the mechanisms within the Canadian Armed Forces that would deal with the abuse, so they directed me back to the individuals who were sexually harassing me to resolve the issues. There is no way you can resolve the issues with someone who is trying to do that to you.
Paula is no longer a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, but she does continue to have these conversations with members. She is quoted in that testimony also indicating the following:
It's still that way. I've asked them, and I've been following along with the changes to see how it's been evolving. The sexual response centre still refers the information to the chain of command. The individuals who were involved in direct positions that created incidents that I think are considered human rights violations.... They did a cabinet shuffle and moved them into positions that were to deal with Operation Honour.
Paula MacDonald's resolution would be to have a new reporting structure and to have people report “directly to the Minister of National Defence, as opposed to the chain of command in order to ensure that the harassment policies and procedures are being followed through.”
We look at this and understand that there has been so much discussion on this. There have been so many changes and so much socialization over the last number of years. We recognize that. I am looking at the fact that we are not doing anything right now about what is negatively impacting our men and women in the Canadian Armed Forces, and we should be doing more.
I wanted to quote something that Dr. Alan Okros stated during the committee. He said:
A common phase among young Canadians these days is “check your privilege”. An old phrase among military officers is “RHIP”, which means rank has its privileges. There's a culture clash.
This is important. We know, as members of Parliament, that there are issues with reporting. Why is this? It is because nothing ever gets done. We have studied this and talked about violence against women. We have talked about sexual harassment in the workplace and we have talked about #MeToo. When this is taken up to the very highest level of our government, when this is taken to the PMO, nothing is done.
Of General Vance, Major Brennan said, “In my experience, in many different areas, the law does not apply to him.” When someone like General Vance is in charge of a program, why would people not feel that they have no option but to take it to the Minister of National Defence or to the Prime Minister's Office? When they know that this is not working they have no other options.
Why does this land at the Prime Minister and Katie Telford? We know that individuals had gone there and that they were looking for assistance. They needed to bring this to the PMO, and the PMO did nothing. I bring us back to the operation and the top of the chain of command at the Canadian Armed Forces: The chief of the staff for the PM knew and remained silent, according to the Prime Minister, as he was not aware of this.
The bottom line is the Prime Minister's Office failed our Canadian Armed Forces. It failed Canadians and ultimately failed any woman here in Canada. It has turned a blind eye, and I believe that the Prime Minister's Office should speak and be open about this finally.