James Bezan

[Strengthening Canada's Immigration System and Borders Act, October 20th, 2025]

Madam Speaker, I have gone through Bill C-12. I appreciate the fact that the minister took the Conservatives' advice, listened to Canadians and took out the sections of Bill C-2 that were egregious and violated the charter rights and civil liberties of Canadians right across this country.

The government is talking about moving the Coast Guard to the Department of National Defence. However, part 4 does not name the Department of National Defence or the Minister of National Defence. It is rather open-ended on the Coast Guard still being under the control of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Minister of Fisheries since its creation under the Oceans Act.

Will the Liberals formally announce or put in place the legislative powers to make sure the Canadian Coast Guard is part of the Department of National Defence and under the control of the Minister of National Defence, not make some ambiguous statement within the clause itself?

Will they also ensure that, since the Coast Guard is going to be asked to take on the role of security, its members will be given the tools to defend themselves when they are doing interdictions, along with the ability to encounter ships at sea when they are doing border security? That is very important since, right now, they are unarmed. When doing surveillance, all they can be are eyes and ears. Even the Canadian Rangers are allowed to carry guns, whereas the Canadian Coast Guard cannot.

[Military Justice System Modernization Act, October 8th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, I first want to point out that the member erred in his speech. Conservatives supported the Deschamps report, and that was 10 years ago. It took 10 years since the Deschamps report, and the Jonathan Vance scandal, for the Liberals to finally bring this forward.

He also erred in saying that the sexual misconduct support and resource centre was opening up a section to help victims navigate the legal system in civilian courts because of Bill C-11. No, it was already doing that before Bill C-11 was brought forward. That again is something that was brought forward in the Deschamps report, as well as the Arbour report.

Lastly, I would like to point out that this bill would give direction to the Minister of National Defence because of the cover-up by the Liberals with Harjit Sajjan, which the member for Waterloo helped cover up when she was House leader. She always defended Harjit Sajjan for refusing to investigate Jonathan Vance.

[Military Justice System Modernization Act, October 8th, 2025]

The standing orders say that members cannot be informing the House of what is not in the bill. They are making stuff up, so—

[Military Justice System Modernization Act, October 8th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, this is not debate; this is fact. It is not in Bill C-11. Bill C-11 does not provide that support.

The Canadian Armed Forces is doing that through the Department of National Defence through the sexual misconduct support and resource centre—

[Military Justice System Modernization Act, October 8th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned, just a couple of minutes ago in his speech, that Bill C-11 would provide officers to victims.

[Military Justice System Modernization Act, October 8th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend and colleague, the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, for his excellent speech, for his service to Canada as a member of the Royal Canadian Navy and for being there to hear the stories and support those members who have been victims of military sexual trauma. He got quite emotional in that, when we hear these stories and hear how the chain of command did not want to prosecute certain individuals because it might mess up those individuals' chances for career advancement, we can see why the bill is necessary. It is sad that it has been 10 years since we first learned about this, and the Liberals are bringing this forward only now.

Could the member address whether or not the bill would deal with the issue of information sharing, when we transfer these cases to the civilian courts, between local police agencies and the courts with the Canadian Armed Forces so that the code of service discipline and the ethos that is supposed to permeate throughout the entire military will be properly enforced at the military level while individuals are seeking justice in the civilian system?

[Military Justice Modernization Act, October 8th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the Bloc for her work with veterans. When she is at the national defence committee, she always has a lot to contribute to the discussion.

I would like to ask the member whether she has some of the concerns Conservatives have, which are that the civilian criminal justice system has been undermined by the Liberals, and because of Bill C-75 and Bill C-5, when someone is charged with sexual assault, sexual exploitation or sexual human trafficking, they can serve their sentence under house arrest.

Would the requirements for lax sentencing given out by the civil courts, whether provincial or federal, undermine the ability to get justice for victims of military sexual trauma as we move cases from the military court to civilian courts?

[Military Justice System Modernization Act, October 6th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his great speech today laying out all the problems and laying out why we do not trust the Liberal government and why Canadians do not trust it either to deliver for our Canadian Armed Forces.

The member used to sit on the defence committee, and we sat there and watched the Liberals try not to let the committee study why Harjit Sajjan, Jonathan Vance, Justin Trudeau, Katie Telford and Zita Astravas covered up Jonathan Vance's sexual misconduct against another serving member of the Canadian Armed Forces.

I would ask the member to speak to why the Liberals would cover this up rather than deal with it, waiting 10 years to finally come forward with a bill.

[Military Justice System Modernization Act, October 6th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her intervention. She had over two minutes left. She needs to talk to her staff or to the minister's staff, whoever wrote her speech for her. They could have filled it in a bit more.

I wonder if the member wants to comment on the concerns we have on our side with the soft-on-crime policies the Liberals have brought forward, which are permeating our civilian courts. They are putting everybody out on bail with the lowest conditions possible. We also see that perpetrators of sexual assault, sexual interference and sexual exploitation get to serve their time under house arrest. Those who commit those crimes within the military would have access to the civilian largesse that is coming from the government. I would ask the member if she agrees that civilian penalties should be applied to military members.

[Military Justice System Modernization Act, October 6th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, it has been a problem. We know that those who brought complaints against Admiral Art McDonald were reprimanded by their superior officers. We know they were coerced. They were scared to come forward and it took, in some cases, years before they did. We created a safe space at committee, allowing them to speak and share their stories where there was no opportunity for retribution by their superior officers.

This is one of the reasons we are supporting parts of Bill C-11. It is to make sure we can take parts of this out of the chain of command and allow victims to stand on their own two feet without fear of repercussion.