Debates of June 2nd, 2021

Airline Industry

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the government decided back in October that it would support Air Canada.

The first thing that the freeloaders at Air Canada decided to do was to pocket $20 million, knowing that it would ultimately be replaced with taxpayers' money. Public funds were going to be used.

What did they do in the meantime? They laid off 20,000 people, workers who lost their jobs and became unemployed. They refused to refund regular folks' plane tickets. The worst thing is that the government let them do it. Way to go.

What does the Prime Minister plan to do today to ensure that these freeloaders pay back the $20 million?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I completely understand why many Canadians are feeling confused or even angry in response to this news about Air Canada.

Air Canada executives certainly owe Canadians some explanations. Why is that? It is completely unacceptable that executives received bonuses like that while many workers, such as in-flight staff and mechanics, were laid off and left struggling.

We all expect Air Canada to provide an explanation.

Public Safety

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Mr. Speaker, today the Canada-China committee received more illegally redacted documents from this government. It also got a letter from the president of the Public Health Agency of Canada that included the government talking points. Canadians do not want talking points. They deserve answers.

Why are they getting more black ink and more whiteout from this government?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, we can all agree that parliamentarians deserve to be able to look into all sorts of different facets of what the government does, including, and particularly, around issues of national security.

When I was in opposition, we were not able to do that because the Conservative government had a secretive approach that refused any sort of oversight. This is why we brought in the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, which would allow parliamentarians from all parties to get the kinds of clearances involved to be able to follow up. That is the right venue for that level of transparency, and we hope that parliamentarians will use it.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians send us here to get accountability from the government, and the Prime Minister is very careful in his words. That is a committee of parliamentarians, not a committee of Parliament. A committee of Parliament has legally ordered those documents. This government even saw fit to redact the lines for the media that were included in the package today. That is how far the Liberals will go to hide the truth from Canadians.

Is the Prime Minister going to be voting today for the motion to have the documents handed over to the committee, or is he going to continue his cover-up?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, again, these issues came up many times when Stephen Harper was prime minister because on issues of national security, there was very little accountability. There was no oversight and there was no transparency.

We created a National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians on which sit members from different parties who are given security clearances so that they can look into the most sensitive issues around national security. They have done extraordinary jobs and put out many important reports, and that is exactly the way for all parties to get accountability and insight into—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it does not sound like openness by default, as this government promised us. It sounds like the Prime Minister should be charging Stephen Harper rent for living inside his head for the last six years.

The documents show that this government refuses to answer very simple questions. We know that Dr. Feihu Yan was a Chinese national associated with the Chinese military. We know that the students who were escorted from the lab were also reported to be Chinese nationals.

Why is it that the passports of the two scientists who were walked out are all of a sudden a national security concern?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, we all understand that there are certain elements that are at the level of national security interests. Governments deal with those around the world all the time. What Canada has finally done since 2015 is equip itself with the same kind of oversight by elected parliamentarians that other countries have long had.

We have looked at the ways that the U.K., the U.S. and others handle sensitive national security issues. We created a national security committee of parliamentarians to do just that. That is the oversight that we have provided.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Mr. Speaker, allow me to educate the Prime Minister. The U.K. uses a committee of Parliament, not a committee made of parliamentarians that reports only to the Prime Minister. Let me offer a quote from the Chief of Special Pathogens at the lab in Winnipeg: “Historically, it has also been easier to obtain material from us, as opposed to U.S. labs.” Do not worry, he is only talking about why China would ask Canada for the Ebola virus. The government's approach to China from the beginning has been incredibly naive.

Is all that black ink just covering up the government's biggest national security failure?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, again, issues of national security are of utmost importance to all Canadians. That is why they elect parliamentarians to hold governments to account, but on issues of national security, it is important that there be higher levels of clearance given to parliamentarians who can properly dig into them and ask all the right questions. That is why we moved forward on creating a National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians so that they could do the excellent work they have been doing over the past many years, including with outstanding representation from the Conservative Party of Canada.

Indigenous Affairs

[Jagmeet Singh, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, today the United Nations is calling for investigations into the deaths of indigenous students at residential schools, maybe because the United Nations does not have confidence in the government because of its lack of action. In over six years of being in government, the Prime Minister has only implemented a fraction of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action. Maybe if the Prime Minister was not so busy fighting indigenous kids in court and fighting indigenous survivors of residential schools, he would have more time to implement the calls to action.

When will the Prime Minister implement all 94 calls to action?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, when we came into office we accepted all of the recommendations: all of the calls to action by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We have been working on moving forward on all of them, recognizing that a number of them are in areas of provincial jurisdiction. One of them is for the Vatican to do, but we have been moving forward in a strong way in partnership with indigenous peoples on getting these things done. It obviously takes time.

I am impatient. Indigenous communities are impatient, but we are working together to get them done right, and we will continue to. Canada needs to recognize the past. We need to act now to protect the future.

[Jagmeet Singh, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in six years, having a fraction of the calls to action be done is not “moving forward in a strong way”. It has been two years since the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls inquiry put forward calls for justice. There is no national plan to implement those. It is so bad that the Native Women's Association of Canada says that it is going to have to come up with its own plan, citing the Liberal government's approach as “toxic and dysfunctional”.

How can the Prime Minister claim to take reconciliation seriously when he continues to fail indigenous women and girls?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, when we took office in 2015, we launched the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls after many years of inaction by all different stripes of government. This is something that we have been committed to and something that we continue to work with as we stand with survivors and families of missing and murdered indigenous women, girls, two-spirit and LGBTQQIA people.

In response to the first-ever national public inquiry into this ongoing tragedy, we are working with provinces and territories, indigenous leaders, and survivors and families to ensure that indigenous women and girls are safe. We will continue to do that work in partnership with them.

Women and Gender Equality

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is 2021, yet there are still those who would debate a woman's right to choose what happens to her own body. Today we will be voting on a Conservative MP's bill, Bill C-233, which is yet another attempt to police women's bodies. It is an attack on women's autonomy over their bodies by the Conservatives.

Canadian women need to know. Will the Prime Minister stand against Bill C-233 and stand up for women's rights across our country?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Mississauga—Erin Mills for her leadership of the Liberal Women's Caucus.

Let me be clear. Women and women alone have the right to make decisions about their own bodies. It is disappointing, but not surprising, to see Conservative politicians try to open this debate once again, for the seventh time since 2007. Our government will always defend a woman's right to choose. The Liberal caucus will be voting against this harmful attack on women's rights and I encourage all parties to do the same.

National Defence

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, Justice Fish's report on the Liberal government's failure to protect our women and men in uniform was scathing and to the point. He said sexual misconduct in Canada's military is “as rampant in 2021 as in 2015”. This is a direct result of the defence minister's failure to follow the Prime Minister's 2015 mandate letter, which directed him to implement the recommendations of the Deschamps report.

Why did the Prime Minister ignore the Deschamps report instead of standing up for victims in the Canadian Armed Forces?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, we know that our institutions are not living up to the needs of those who have experienced misconduct, including our military justice system. We have taken concrete actions to address this. We named Lieutenant-General Jennie Carignan as the Chief, Professional Conduct and Culture. We appointed Louise Arbour to conduct an independent review of the treatment of sexual misconduct and we will be immediately implementing dozens of recommendations from Morris Fish's review of the military justice system.

These are just some of the first steps. We know there is much more to do.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, this is more Liberal dithering and delaying.

Justice Fish’s report yesterday and Justice Deschamps’ report in 2015 clearly stated the sexual misconduct response centre had to be independent and outside of National Defence. After five years and two reports, the Liberal government now wants to rag the puck and wait for a third opinion from a third retired Supreme Court justice. Our soldiers, sailors and aviators have been calling on the government for results, not more reports. The Prime Minister's cover-up of sexual misconduct by our top generals has gotten so bad his Liberal MPs are now obstructing the defence committee to stop its investigation.

What is the Prime Minister trying to hide?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, let me be clear, as I have been from the very beginning. Every woman or man who serves in our armed forces or works anywhere across the country deserves a safe work environment and deserves to be supported with the proper resources if they ever need to come forward to report misconduct or misbehaviour.

This is something that we have made significant progress on over the years, but as we have seen recently there is so much more to do. That is why we have taken strong steps to continue to move forward and to make sure that we transform the culture of our military and demonstrate proper support for all who serve.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, that is all talk and no action.

Justice Fish explicitly calls on the government to implement the Victims Bill of Rights provisions in Bill C-77. It is a bill that was passed by this Parliament two years ago this month and still has not been brought into force. He states that until those victims' rights are put in place, “sexual assaults should not be investigated or prosecuted under the National Defence Act”.

Why has the Prime Minister dragged his feet for years and failed to implement the rights for victims of sexual assault so they can finally get justice in our armed forces?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, over the past number of years, we have taken significant steps to improve support for women and men in our military coming forward with allegations of misconduct, but we know there is much more to do. That is why we thank Justice Fish for his report and will be moving forward immediately on a number of those recommendations, but it is also why we have tasked Lieutenant-General Carignan to be there to support anyone who has issues right now, while at the same time we have moved forward with actions by Justice Arbour to ensure we are changing the culture for good.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that report will just collect dust on the Prime Minister's desk like the last report.

Justice Fish’s explosive report shows that only 25% of regular force members who were victims of sexual assault stated someone in authority found out about the crime, and 57% said no one in authority was even aware. The morale of our women and men in uniform is at an all-time low and their trust in reporting sexual assault to the military is abysmal. The Prime Minister's fake feminist credentials are on trial.

Will the Prime Minister immediately implement a military Victims Bill of Rights and make the sexual misconduct reporting centre truly independent?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, this is why we moved forward immediately with appointing Lieutenant-General Carignan to be someone who people in the military can turn to to start the change right away, but we know that to change the culture of the military, which has for far too long tolerated misogyny, sexual harassment and abuse, we need to go deeper than that. The work that Justice Arbour is doing will be that transformative element necessary to change our military for the better and support the women and men who serve.