Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to speak in the House. Before I get into the substance of the bill, I would like to spend some time talking about the context in which this debate is taking place, because the legislative route that this bill took to get to this moment says everything about the tired, old, incompetent government. It is really worth taking a moment to examine that.
This bill is the second attempt to finally, after over 10 years, implement the recommendations of the Deschamps report to transfer the criminal prosecution for sexual offences to civilian court. This was contained in the report and recommendations made to the Harper government in the spring of 2015. That was just before Parliament adjourned ahead of dissolution for the 2015 election. The Harper government accepted the recommendations, and had the Conservatives been re-elected that fall, we would have had the opportunity to table the appropriate legislation to implement the Deschamps report.
Instead, we have had three entire parliaments during which the Liberal government failed to make this legislative change and implement the recommendation that Justice Deschamps made in March 2015. From 2015 to 2019, the government took exactly zero steps to implement the recommendation to address sexual misconduct in the armed forces. However, then minister Harjit Sajjan did take time to cover up the sexual misconduct of the then chief of the defence staff, Jonathan Vance, and during that Parliament, the government did take the time to engineer the frivolous and vexatious politically motivated prosecution of Vice-Admiral Mark Norman.
During the 42nd Parliament, the Liberals also expended no resources to try to deal with procuring important equipment. They did spend time, though, buying rusted-out Australian F-18s while delaying a decision to replace our own fighter jet fleet. They squandered the entire four-year majority Parliament without addressing sexual misconduct in the military or making progress in procuring ships, jets, other aircraft, submarines, land vehicles, artillery, ammunition and base housing.
Then from 2019 to 2021, the Liberals continued to ignore victims of sexual misconduct, although the resignations of senior officers piled up during that Parliament. They continued to delay procurement, as worsening morale began to foment a crisis of recruitment and retention that would start to jeopardize Canada's force posture and readiness to respond to requests from allies on the eve of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and respond to China's explicit challenges to Canada's Arctic sovereignty and security.
Then in the last Parliament, between 2021 and 2025, Canada's lack of military preparedness became undeniable and unignorable. In 2023, it became known that there were 16,000 vacant positions in the Canadian Armed Forces and that another 10,000 force members were undertrained and undeployable. It was what kept then chief of the defence staff Wayne Eyre awake at night, according to his own committee testimony.
In 2023, after eight years of neglecting and ignoring the armed forces, other than the occasional morale-sapping pronouncement lamenting military culture, the Liberals finally tabled Bill C-66 but did nothing to advance it for an entire year. They finally introduced it in the House of Commons in the spring of 2024, and as my colleague from Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke pointed out, in the fall of 2024, they spent their entire legislative agenda avoiding compliance with an order of this House and not advancing this legislation.
Let there be no doubt about the government's lack of seriousness about the Canadian Armed Forces in general and the problem of sexual misconduct in the military specifically. Its track record over the past 10 years speaks for itself.
Right now, as I speak in this chamber, ships are rusting out at sea. Fighter jets that should have been ordered and delivered by now have still not been delivered. We would be lucky right now if we could get one submarine in the water for a handful of days per year, and there is no replacement ordered. We have only a handful of operational tanks, barely any available for training. We do not have air defence systems. New transport and refuelling aircraft have been ordered with no plan, no hangars built to house them and no base location decisions made.
Howitzers and artillery pieces are entirely lacking, as well as adequate shells. The government let a production line of artillery shells mothball in an emerging threat environment, and now, as Canada and its allies desperately need this ammunition, we do not have the production capacity. We do not have the production capacity to supply ourselves and our allies with desperately needed 155-millimetre artillery shells. That is a World War I munition, the production of which the government partially shut down on the eve of the Ukraine war.
Base housing is in a deplorable condition, with houses falling apart and a 7,000-unit backlog of personnel waiting to access base housing. Barracks are in horrific unsanitary conditions. Health care is also lacking for many military families. This bill would address a well-known and well-documented problem with sexual misconduct in the military, which is a factor in the recruitment and retention crisis we face and a factor in morale at a time when we desperately need to fill vacancies for almost every single position in all branches of the Canadian Armed Forces.
As I have said before, let me say something about the men and women in our armed forces. They are among the very best people in this country. I have travelled and visited foreign bases of operations in Latvia and England, and these people are the best. They are extremely young people with extraordinary responsibilities. I met a 19-year-old in Latvia who was responsible for training and helping allied soldiers. He was a kid from northern British Columbia with enormous responsibility, and he was so positive and full of energy and enthusiasm for his work.
These are incredible people, and they deserve our support. They are the best, and they deserve protection. They deserve access to justice when sexual misconduct happens.
We have already heard in debate a lot about culture and culture change in the military. Part of the culture change that needs to happen is overcoming the culture of secrecy and the culture of cover-up. That culture has permeated to the very top levels. We saw the former minister of national defence covering up the sexual misconduct of the former chief of the defence staff. We have seen this type of behaviour at the highest levels, and we see it at the unit level, as my colleague said earlier today.
We have had testimony at the defence committee from victims of sexual assault who say they cannot access justice because of the lack of access to the civilian system, which this bill would ultimately change, and because of the inability to get information about themselves to file a complaint. The reflexive secrecy around even members of the Canadian Armed Forces accessing their own information is part of the problem. This bill would not fix that, so there is a long way to go to ensure justice for members of the Canadian Armed Forces who are victims of sexual misconduct.
It is not like civilian access to justice for sexual assault victims is assured. It is far from it. We see over and over again how repeat violent offenders are automatically granted bail as a result of the Liberals' so-called bail reforms of Bill C-75, and earlier this afternoon this very Liberal bench voted entirely against replacing and repealing that law.
We have seen under the current government an erosion of effective law enforcement and justice for victims. We see crime levels that we have not seen in decades. We see an acceleration in crime. We see a lack of urgency in appointing judges so that assault victims can get access to trial, and this bill would not fix all of these problems. This bill contains an important long-standing 10-year-old recommendation, and I hope this Parliament will debate this bill and that we will have a proper debate so we can come to the bottom of this and conclude it.