Madam Speaker, I wish to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Rivière-du-Nord.
After reading the Conservative motion, I cannot say we were surprised that such a motion was moved. For weeks now, we have been disappointed time and time again by the government's failure to act or properly contain this situation. Instead, the scandal continues to grow.
It all began when the Canadian Forces ombudsman approached the Minister of National Defence to inform him about an issue with his chief of the defence staff. The ombudsman indicated that he was in possession of emails and evidence demonstrating inappropriate conduct of a sexual nature by the chief of the defence staff.
Rather than looking into the matter, taking it seriously and examining the evidence, the defence minister decided that he did not want to know anything about it. He therefore chose to turn a blind eye and look the other way. That is when the problem began. Usually, when someone presents evidence and disturbing facts to the authorities, they expect everything to go well and they hope the authorities will take the necessary steps to fix the problem.
What were the consequences? The Minister of National Defence refused to hold any more meetings with the then ombudsman, Gary Walbourne, until the end of his term, so when he left office. The minister looked the other way and did everything in his power to avoid having to deal with the situation. For three years, the minister allowed General Vance to remain at his post despite the allegations that had been brought to his attention. Worse yet, he even gave General Vance a raise.
When the story was reported in the media and everyone started to realize what happened, the minister said that the ombudsman had not talked to the right person. He started blaming the ombudsman. It seems that the ombudsman should not have gone to the minister to talk to him about his chief of the defence staff.
The ombudsman, however, told us that the only person he could go see was the Minister of Defence. That was then confirmed by the next ombudsman, who said that he would have done exactly the same thing in his predecessor's shoes. The minister was in trouble. Then, the minister claimed that he was unaware of the sexual nature of the allegations.
The government was no better. The Prime Minister also claimed he was unaware. In the end it came out that some employees of the Privy Council Office and the Prime Minister's Office were in fact aware. Then the Prime minister reiterated that he was unaware, but we were right to say that his office was aware. Finally, the Prime Minister was unaware, but his office and the PCO were aware. The Prime Minister then clarified that he and his office were unaware of the sexual nature of the allegations. That was also later denied.
Unfortunately, it is all one big mess right now, since the government's story changes as the situation evolves. We keep learning more. Even if it turns out that more people were aware, the situation is still not resolved.
Allow me to give an overview of the situation. The Minister of National Defence was aware, because the ombudsman told him. However, the minister refused to look at the documents, take meaningful action or conduct an investigation. The chief of staff to the Minister of Defence was aware. The clerk of the Privy Council was aware. Elder Marques, an adviser to the Prime Minister, was aware. The Prime Minister's chief of staff was aware, and she was the one who apparently told Elder Marques, according to his testimony. All of these people were aware, but the Prime Minister was not.
It becomes harder and harder to believe the Liberals when this is what they are telling us, especially when they are doing everything they can to prevent people from testifying in committee.
The meeting that the Standing Committee on National Defence was supposed to hold this week was unilaterally cancelled by the committee chair. Before that, the government was filibustering to try to kill as much time as possible in committee so that the chief of staff would not be able to come testify and tell us what she knew.
Every time we invite a new witness, we learn that someone else was also aware of the situation. Perhaps we have gotten to the last step before finding out that the Prime Minister knew as well. Perhaps Ms. Telford would have had no choice but to tell us that the Prime Minister was aware or perjure herself. By all indications, that is where we were headed. It is getting harder and harder to believe that the Prime Minister was not aware when everyone else was. Their whole story is getting harder to believe.
Speaking of hard to believe, it is important that we come back to the Minister of National Defence. When we asked him why he did not act and look at the information being presented to him, he answered that he wanted to avoid political interference. In his view, reading the documentation and the evidence presented to him would have constituted political interference. That is his story.
However, when we heard from the current ombudsman and his predecessor, both said it absolutely would not have been political interference for him to read the information that was being brought to his attention. That is quite the opposite view. We also asked the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service whether reading the information would have been political interference, and we were told it would not.
After that, the minister stated that it was not up to him to conduct the investigation. Members will notice that the story changed slightly again. First, reading the documents was interference, but then ordering an investigation was also interference. He is therefore claiming that looking at documents constitutes investigating. This reasoning is a bit twisted, but that is the Liberals' reasoning at present.
Looking at documents is now considered the same as conducting an investigation. The mere possibility of looking at the documents and calling for an investigation is no longer even being considered. Interference is being confused with all kinds of terms, in all kinds of ways.
We presented all of these twisted Liberal stories to various committee witnesses, including the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service, and, each time, we were told that it absolutely was not interference to look at documents or to call for an investigation. The only interference there could have been would have been if someone had interfered with the investigation in an attempt to undermine it.
By not doing his job, we could say the minister undermined the investigation and prevented the situation from being resolved so we could get to the bottom of this matter.
After attempting to blame everyone except themselves, the Liberals are now trying to use interference as an excuse for sitting on their hands and not dealing with the problem. The minister has done nothing, just as he did nothing with Justice Deschamps' report. That report was placed on his desk in 2015, six years ago, and the recommendations it contained have yet to be put in place.
The frustrating part is that, last week, the government tried to make everyone forget about all that by making a big show of announcing that it was appointing Justice Arbour to do more or less what Justice Deschamps did six years ago. Basically, it is going back to square one and sweeping all that under the rug. That is frustrating because it could have chosen to act on the recommendations in the Deschamps report now. Instead, it is kicking the can down the road and trying to convince people that it is doing something when the truth is that nothing is being done. Ultimately, the minister is refusing to admit that he is responsible for this situation.
One can sense the panic. The government would have us believe it is doing something revolutionary by doing the same thing that was done six years ago. In the end, all of that came to naught. After pretending they had no idea what was going on, the governing Liberals, like the minister, tried to blame everyone but themselves. Now that their backs are to the wall, they are blaming the system and are incapable of taking responsibility for failing to take action. That is deeply disappointing.
I am sure that, when Canadian Armed Forces members and civilians realize the government did nothing and tolerated people doing these things, with all the blame—