Madam Speaker, it is hard to follow a member like the member for Kildonan—St. Paul. She basically made the entire case for this motion. I am not going to repeat what she said because she passionately explained to Canadians and her constituents the exact matter at hand: the minister's dereliction of duty and his failure to take command of the situation, to own responsibility for it and to do the right thing.
This is a motion that calls for the minister's censure. The House of Commons is unsatisfied with the quality of his work. It is not enough to simply keep repeating that he is doing something. I have heard Liberal MPs say this repeatedly. The member for Winnipeg North made the best possible case that could be made in the House, and it is still not enough. I hear from constituents and read in the papers that he is just not doing enough. He has failed. He has not done the job.
The Prime Minister refuses to relieve him of his responsibilities, so we are at a point where we have to censure a member. Earlier today the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman mentioned that 20 years had passed since a member had been censured in the House in this manner for the performance of their duties and responsibilities to Canadians. It has been a very long time.
The issues are the sexual harassment and misconduct allegations in the military, the treatment of Vice-Admiral Norman and the continuing cover-up of what is going on. They include misleading Canadians on the withdrawal of fighter jets in the fight against ISIS. They go on and on. The Canadian Forces are in disarray. The men and women in uniform do not have a leader who is willing to take command. At last count, eight or nine senior officers in the military had either resigned, been fired or been relieved of command duties. That is huge. We have no commander-in-chief and there is no Governor General, either. The minister is supposed to be the one responsible at the moment, and I do not think there is any faith in his ability to deliver on everything that he is supposed to right now, which is why Conservatives are asking for a vote of censure on him.
“The first rule of politics: never believe anything until it's been officially denied.” That is a Sir Humphrey Appleby quote. There will be a Yiddish proverb at some point. I will think of one.
The minister has denied knowing anything, but then there were internal access to information requests that came back saying the minister knew. There was a long chain of information from the Privy Council of what it knew, when it knew it and when it was informed these were #MeToo sexual harassment allegations. Now we have that information and it is unbelievable that we are here, nearing the end of June and still debating who is responsible for the failure to address these systemic problems in the senior ranks of the Canadian Armed Forces.
Brigadier-General Gordon O'Connor served the House very honourably. He was the minister of national defence over a decade ago. He used to say that sexual harassment and misconduct issues in the military were issues of command. There is a command responsibility for senior officers to look after those in the lower ranks, and to make sure they are treated correctly by their commanding officers. Commanding officers who cannot keep control of their troops have failed in their duties of command, in just the way the minister has failed in his responsibilities of command.
The reason I know Gordon O'Connor, a former brigadier-general, former “zipperhead” or tank commander and former minister of national defence in the House, is because I was a junior exempt staffer in his employ. I know exactly what he expected of senior officers in his ranks. That is well over a decade ago now, so I am dating myself. As my staff always remind me, there is a generational divide between them and me.
The Yiddish proverb I am thinking of is, “Words should be weighed, not counted.” The motion has weighty words in it. Conservatives are asking for censure of a minister for his performance and failure in the conduct of his duties. He has a responsibility to the men and women in the armed forces to ensure, first, that their commanding officers do not mistreat them, and second, that he follows through on investigations to make sure they are safe from their own members in their workplace. They expect the enemy on the battlefield to be shooting at them, trying to end their lives and kill them.
What they expect in return is that we have their backs, that the minister has their backs and that when he sends them into harm's way, he sends them with commanding officers who are able to ensure their personal safety from their own. That is a minimum requirement we should expect from the minister and the senior ranks of the military.
I know that the member for Edmonton West will appreciate that I have gone through the minister's departmental plans that he signed off on. After question period I will refer to the departmental plans, but they show that the minister, who signs off on these documents every time they are submitted with the estimates that we have to vote on, and the military have not been taking it seriously.
I read here, “To be determined by March 31, 2021”, and then it defers it until 2022 and future years. There are no targets in place. There is no plan in place in their own departmental plans. They have not said anything in about here fixing actual goals for dealing with the problem. They are literally kicking it down the road. They are waiting for future years to take care of this. There is talk publicly, but as for the actual plans for the civil service and what it is supposed to be doing, there is nothing there.
After question period, I will fill members in on the rest.