Mr. Speaker, systemic misogyny persists when silence gives cover to the sins of powerful men. I have heard a lot of sanctimony here today, so let us start with the facts. Every political party that has participated in debate today has members who have been silent and given cover for the sins of powerful men, so let us not kid ourselves about that.
We do not need another report to provide justice for women in the military. We need courage, and we need to stop the garbage that is happening here. I have been in this place for 10 years, and I have experienced systemic misogyny. I have had my rear end fondled, I have been called every name in the book and I have watched other women come behind me and have the same experiences. I have publicly called out my party when I have had instances come to light within my own tent, because I have had to, or my silence would have provided cover for the sins of powerful men.
We do not need another report. We need courage. Every single party here has had it happen in their own tent, including the NDP, the Liberals and the Green Party, which had an article in the Toronto Star. It is enough. I am so tired of listening to people finger-point. Are people really going to blame Stephen Harper? Not a single Liberal backbencher has stood up and said that maybe the defence minister did something wrong.
The only way things change is when people have the courage to speak up and demand change within their own tent. I have watched quarter be given for six years, under the watch of the government, to the most senior people in government. I have watched, at the same relative time as the allegations about General Vance came out, the Prime Minister have an unresolved groping allegation. Not a single Liberal has called this out within their own tent, not one, and if one wants to stand up today and talk about Prime Minister Harper to me, they had better start by addressing that, which has never been addressed.
I watched them unceremoniously can the member for Vancouver Granville and Jane Philpott for daring to speak truth to power. Not a single Liberal spoke up for these women speaking truth, not one, so if a Liberal wants to get up and talk about Prime Minister Harper, they had better speak up about that injustice first.
Then we have the member for Kitchener South—Hespeler, who the Liberals allowed to run for them knowing there were substantiated harassment allegations. Not a single Liberal spoke up about that, not one, so if somebody wants to get up and talk to me about Prime Minister Harper, they had better speak out about that. When a similar thing happened in my party, I trotted myself out into the House of Commons and said, “No. No more. This has to change,” so if somebody wants to ask me about Prime Minister Harper, they had better be asking about that.
I am just furious. Can members imagine being a member of the armed forces and watching this debate today? Of course we need to call out the people who are at the highest level of power, because they are the ones who give silence to the sins of powerful men. We should not kid ourselves that the Prime Minister's Office did not know about this. It is just ridiculous. Now there will be another report. What we need to be doing is saying no more silence in any political tent.
There should not be quarter anywhere. I am tired of having to do the heavy lifting, as a woman. It gets really tiring to have to explain to people that silence is complicity and that when we cover it up within our own tent, it tells the people in our tent that there will be no justice. That is what is happening with the defence minister right now. In question period after question period, it is Stephen Harper's fault. Members should look inwardly, and somebody should call it out. Somebody should say this cannot continue.
With every program we put in place we can put hundreds of millions of dollars and ask every Supreme Court justice in the world to do another report, but if silence gives quarter to the sins of powerful men, systemic misogyny persists. I have always put my money where my mouth is on this issue, and I have watched other women in this place do the same. I give kudos to Jane Philpott. She went to the wall for her colleague because she knew she was doing the right thing, but silence is rewarded around here. It is rewarded with promotion. Do members know what is not rewarded? It is courage. Do members know what is rewarded? It is covering up stuff like this.
Honestly, that is what is rewarded. That is what is wrong with government and that is what is wrong with power systems in this country. I cannot believe that we are having a debate when Liberal members have not once had the courage to publicly speak out in any form, even anonymously, by saying, “Hey, I have concerns about the competency of the defence minister” or, “Hey, what about the Prime Minister's chief of staff? Surely she must have known something.” Then people bring her gender into it. That is disgusting too. Come on.
Misogyny knows no gender. There are women who cover up the sins of men with their silence and we should not give them quarter just because of their gender either. Something happened here over the last six years. There is evidence upon evidence. We have someone offering to give a lie detector test. A woman in the Armed Forces watching this says, “Get your act together. I do not need another report, I need safety and I need the people who have covered this up to come to justice”.
I have a stepdaughter who is serving in the United States armed forces and she is incredible. She inspires me every day. She is watching this debate. She is watching one of her allied countries and literally watching members of Parliament talk about some other guy who was not here six years ago. He is not the prime minister any more, okay? He is not the prime minister. Somebody else is, and somebody else was in charge of this.
To keep deflecting this, to not have a way forward, to not hold people to account, to give quarter to this is everything that is wrong with this system and it is every reason why systemic misogyny exists. I am tired of having to stand up here and call people to account. It makes me angry, it makes me frustrated and it makes me sad as a Canadian. Honestly, somebody needs to be fired over this, and systems need to be put in place to make sure that nobody ever gets promoted within a cabinet or within a Prime Minister's Office again who knew about this, for now and forever going forward.
My party is not perfect. The NDP is not perfect. The Green Party is not and the Liberals are not either, but they are in power today and they have the power to change things. They are in power, and if they want to show Canadian women that they have any credibility at all on feminism, they have to deal with the fact that they are continually and perpetually silent on these issues, every single time. Any time there is any sort of sexual harassment or misconduct or whatever it is, there is silence and crickets across their backbench. That is wrong and that is what the report is going to tell us. Liberals do not need to pay somebody else to do that or another five years: They need change.
I dare somebody to ask me a question right now about Stephen Harper. Whoever does that had better stand and say what the defence minister did is wrong right now, and that they stand in solidarity with me across political lines, across partisanship and stand up for justice for the women in the Armed Forces and for every woman who suffers from systemic misogyny and systemic racism in this country. Enough is enough. If we stand here and keep bickering along partisan lines to keep protecting the people up our food chains, nothing will ever change.