House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2021, with 49% of the vote.
National Defence May 10th, 2021
Mr. Speaker, Canada is contributing to the greater peace and security in the world and remains a strong partner in the fight against Daesh. We are committed to meeting our obligations under international and domestic law.
Our government takes allegations of this nature extremely seriously, and we are actively looking into this troubling allegation, which we just heard of now.
National Defence May 10th, 2021
Mr. Speaker, any time, if ever, information is brought forward, immediate action is taken.
As I stated before a number of times, when the information was brought forward, immediate action was taken. It was provided to the non-partisan, public officials at the Privy Council Office to take the appropriate action. No politician or political staff should ever be involved in any type of investigation. The previous government also followed the same process.
Nonetheless, we know that we have a lot more work to do. We can get this done. I look forward to hearing the recommendations from the NDDN committee on this matter. As parliamentarians, by working together, we can rebuild the confidence for the women in the Canadian Armed Forces.
National Defence May 10th, 2021
Mr. Speaker, the member opposite stated that they investigated, but they also still appointed General Vance at that time for chief of the defence staff.
When it came to the specifics of the case, we did not receive the details. We immediately forwarded it to non-partisan, public officials at the Privy Council Office to take the appropriate action. Action was taken, but clearly more work needs to happen.
We are currently working to regain the confidence of the survivors. We have been listening to the survivors. The work that Lieutenant-General Carignan will be doing will be absolutely instrumental in this case.
National Defence May 10th, 2021
Mr. Speaker, when information was brought forward, it was immediately acted upon. It was given to non-partisan public officials at the Privy Council to take appropriate action. No political staff or politician should ever be involved with an investigation. It is the exact same process that the member opposite's government also followed when allegations were brought forward.
We know that we have a lot more work to do. I ask the member opposite for us to be able to work together to find the right solutions so we can rebuild the confidence for our survivors. We have a lot more work to do. We know that by working together we can get this done.
National Defence May 10th, 2021
Mr. Speaker, as I stated, the nature of the specifics and the details was not provided, but action was taken immediately. Advice was given to make sure that Mr. Walbourne was contacted by the Privy Council Office. In this case, the very next day we made sure that non-partisan public officials from the Privy Council Office contacted Mr. Walbourne. Action was taken immediately. Politicians, or political staff, should never be involved in any type of investigation.
We know we have a lot more work to do to rebuild the confidence with the survivors who are coming forward, and we will get it done.
National Defence May 10th, 2021
Mr. Speaker, when it comes to any type of allegations that are brought forward, no politician or political staff should ever be involved in any investigation. The information was sent forward immediately to the Privy Council officials, who are non-partisan, to look at the complaint.
We know that we have a lot more work to do, and we are going to get it done.
National Defence May 10th, 2021
Mr. Speaker, as I stated earlier, we did not know the nature of the specifics or the details of the information that was brought forward, but action was taken immediately and given to non-partisan public officials to take the appropriate action. No politician should ever be involved in an investigation.
We take incidents like this very seriously, and this is why we are working extremely hard to make culture changes not only inside the Canadian Armed Forces, but widely throughout government as well.
National Defence May 10th, 2021
Mr. Speaker, we have been taking action since we formed government. As I stated, we passed Bill C-77, the declaration of victims rights, which puts victims first, at the core of the military justice system. We created the sexual misconduct response centre and “The Path to Dignity and Respect”. We also put in place a response and support coordination program for CAF members who experience sexual misconduct.
A lot of work has been done, but at the end of day, more work needs to move forward to make sure that women in the Canadian Armed Forces have the confidence to come forward when misconduct is done. Our goal at the end of the day is to prevent this from happening in the first place, and we will get this done.
National Defence May 10th, 2021
Mr. Speaker, our government takes the allegations of sexual misconduct very seriously. No one should feel unsafe at work. That is why we passed Bill C-77, the declaration of victims rights. It puts victims at the core of the military justice system, which reviews unfounded cases. We created the sexual misconduct response centre, which provides confidential 24-7 support to CAF members anywhere in the world.
We know that we have a lot more work to do, and that is the work that we are going to get done. We are going to listen to survivors, and we are going to make sure that a zero-tolerance policy is enforced and that we give confidence to women in the Canadian Armed Forces.
National Defence May 10th, 2021
Mr. Speaker, as we stated before, no specific details were provided on this case, but action was immediately taken. A process was followed, the exact same process the former government had followed when information was brought to it. We know there is a lot more work to do. This is the reason we have appointed Madam Arbour to give us recommendations on the way forward, when it comes to the independence of the complaints process, so that women can feel confident to come forward. Harassment-free workplaces that have zero tolerance for any type of misconduct is our goal and something that we are committed to.