Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Kingston and the Islands.
I want to rise in the House today to speak about the Minister of National Defence in light of this very unfair opposition motion. I want to talk about who he is as a person and what he has done to serve Canada alongside so many others.
Like so many of our friends and neighbours, the Minister of National Defence came here as an immigrant. His mother came to our country in the hopes of building a better life for the minister and his sister. His parents left India because Canada was a place where they believed they could find the opportunity and that success. They left behind their family and their community.
This story is likely familiar to you, Mr. Speaker, and to many others here in this House. It is a story of countless immigrant families from across this country. It is a story of sacrifice. Unlike the Leader of the Opposition, the Minister of National Defence's father was not a politician who served for almost two decades in the provincial Legislature. Instead, the Minister of National Defence stood beside his mother as a child in the blueberry, raspberry and strawberry fields, from Richmond to Abbotsford in British Columbia. He would wake up at 5:00 a.m. and join his mother and his sister, packed in a van with 30 other field labourers, for a long day of work.
It was in these fields where the Minister of National Defence realized that racism could be met with deadly consequences. As the minister said last year in an interview with CTV, one of his co-workers, a man in his 20s, did not show up to work one day.
Later on, we found out that it was actually an attack based on race – and he was killed.
The minister has spoken many times of his experience with racism. He has worked his entire life to end this discrimination. Unlike the Leader of the Opposition, the Minister of National Defence had to work in a country that was hostile, is still hostile, to Black and brown bodies. It is a fight that he has had to endure his whole life. It is a fight that he continues to endure.
In fact, the Leader of the Opposition and many others from the opposition still do not bother to pronounce the minister's name correctly. Maybe I will take a moment to say that the minister is “Sajjan,” which means honourable, respectable in Punjabi. For over six years, the Leader of the Opposition and the members opposite have had the opportunity to learn how to pronounce his name, and they have chosen not to. People who are visible minorities know what this is. These are microaggressions, and they are not mistakes. These microaggressions are racism, pure and simple.
The Minister of National Defence has devoted his life to service, service to his community, service to Vancouver and service to Canada. He served over a decade as an officer in the Vancouver police force, working in the riding that he represents today, Vancouver South. He fought against the scourge of organized crime and drug trafficking, protecting the community that he still serves and protects today.
Like thousands of other Canadians, he put up his hand and served this country in the Canadian Armed Forces. While he served in uniform, he experienced discrimination there as well. Let me quote again from the minister's interview with CTV.
I remember one person…saying to me “I let you join my military.” Just that position of power and privilege that he was throwing in my face, it just upset me so much.
Despite the racism that he has faced, he still served. He served in Bosnia. He served three tours of duty in Afghanistan.
He has been awarded numerous military medals for his service, including the Order of Military Merit, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Canadian Forces' Decoration, the South-West Asia Service Medal, the General Campaign Star, the commendation medal, the NATO service medal and the Canadian Peacekeeping Service Medal. Now, the opposition has the audacity to question his service by bringing up questions about the Minister of National Defence's service in Afghanistan.
Why do we not hear from the people who actually worked with him in Afghanistan, like Colonel Chris Vernon, chief of staff to the Coalition Task Force Headquarters who led Operation Medusa? He stated:
[The minister] was a major player in the design team that put together Operation Medusa. He was able to put together an intelligence picture of the Taliban and the tribal dynamics west of Kandahar, without which we probably wouldn't have been able to mount Operation Medusa. So that's what he did. Pretty significant stuff.
Why do we not hear from Major-General David Fraser, then head of NATO regional. He described the minister as having “remarkable personal courage...often working in the face of the enemy to collect data and confirm his suspicions, and placing himself almost daily in situations of grave personal risk.” He also went on to say, “I must say that [the Minister of National Defence] is one of the most remarkable people I have worked with, and his contribution to the success of the mission and the safety of Canadian soldiers was nothing short of remarkable.”
The opposition members sit there and continue to question the minister's commitment and his service record. That is shameful. They question his work as the Minister of National Defence.
Why do we not take into account the opinion of David Perry, a senior military analyst at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute? He said, about the minister, “In terms of actual results that have been delivered for defence since he's been a minister: on that front I think it's pretty fair to say that he's done very well.” He went on to add that, “Under [his] time as defence minister the government has committed to spending more money on the military in real dollars than at any time since the Korean War.”
This opposition day motion is very troubling. It ignores the fact of the minister's service to his community, to Vancouver and to our country. I know and Canadians know that, time and again, the minister has stepped up and served his country. Despite the opposition's attempts, Canadians will remember this motion as exactly what it is: a petty, personal attack on Canada's first Minister of National Defence of colour. It is an attempt by the Conservative members to whitewash the actions the Minister of National Defence has taken to support those who serve Canada each and every day.
The members have heard my colleagues speak of our investments into the Canadian Armed Forces after a decade of darkness because of the cuts from the Harper Conservative government. Members have heard my colleagues speak of our commitment to building a more inclusive and diverse Canadian Armed Forces, and they have heard my colleagues speak about our commitment to building a Canadian Armed Forces that is free from sexual harassment and assault.
The Conservatives might stand up and say they have been champions for women and for minorities. Nothing can be further from the truth. When the Leader of the Opposition had an opportunity to stand with our friends and neighbours in the Muslim community—