Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Calgary Nose Hill.
I am pleased to speak to this motion. While the Prime Minister continues to say things in his speeches that are not true, we need to continue to tell the truth about him. There is no doubt that over the past six years, this Prime Minister, who calls himself a feminist, has shown Canada that he definitely does not put his money where his mouth is. It is astounding to see how the Prime Minister tells everybody that he would open the door for the cause of Canadian women, yet he never misses an opportunity to throw them under the bus.
The first sign of his duplicity was his treatment of women in his own caucus. Since becoming Prime Minister, he has kicked three women off his team simply because they were not prepared to blindly copy his corrupt ways. They had enough character to say no, while the other members of the Liberal caucus remained silent to avoid being kicked out as well.
Then he dragged his feet when it came to getting answers about the murder of Marylène Levesque, because he knew that the people he appointed to the Parole Board of Canada gave a violent murderer permission to solicit women for sexual services while out on parole. Parliament has been waiting in vain for answers in that case, because the Prime Minister has made sure that we will never get any real answers.
His most recent insult to Canadian women is his statement to the effect that, even though everyone in his entourage knew about the allegations of sexual misconduct against General Vance, he did not. Well, I have no choice but to take his word for it, because we know that this Prime Minister never lies, or so he says.
To help people understand what we are talking about today, I would like to read our motion. It says, and I quote:
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.
As members know, Canadians were shocked to learn about the allegations of sexual misconduct against the former chief of the defence staff and the ensuing cover-up. Once again, the Prime Minister claimed that he had no prior knowledge of these accusations, despite testimony indicating that his chief of staff, Katie Telford, had known about it for years.
To add insult to injury, instead of doing the right thing for the women who serve our country in the Canadian Armed Forces, the Prime Minister has decided to bury the file until the next election. After months of reports of sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces and Liberal attempts to cover them up, the Prime Minister is now announcing an external review of sexual harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces. We will have to wait at least a year to see the recommendations that come out of that review. This is an insult to the women and men of the Canadian Forces because they know that former justice Marie Deschamps already reviewed this issue and produced a report in 2015. There is no need to redo work that was skilfully done by former justice Marie Deschamps.
I do not know Katie Telford personally, so I cannot say if she tends to lie or tell the truth. However, for more than six years now, the Prime Minister has been telling the House that he always tells the truth. Of course, his title includes the words “Right Honourable”, so we have no choice but to believe him. If the Prime Minister is telling the truth, and if we assume he never lies, he must fire his chief of staff if he wants Canadians to believe him when he says he was not aware of the evidence of General Vance's sexual misconduct.
Why? If he is telling the truth, that means Katie Telford not only neglected to inform him about a serious sexual misconduct allegation, but also orchestrated a cover-up to hide the truth from Canadians. If the Prime Minister does not fire Katie Telford, that would be an admission that he misled Canadians about his knowledge of the allegations of sexual misconduct against General Vance and that he is complicit in the cover-up.
I am sure members will agree that it is time for the Prime Minister to stop hiding the truth from Canadians and to take responsibility for things that were done in his own office.
Last week's announcement by the government is not action. It is another attempt to take the pressure off the Liberal cover-up. Canadians are not fooled. They have had enough of the Prime Minister's imaginative speeches. They know a lie when they hear one.
They will have the last word the next time they are called upon to vote. In the next election campaign, the Prime Minister will once again ask Canadian women to vote for him. They will answer that he is asking for more than they can give.