John McKay

[Military Justice System Modernization Act, September 19th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I am as interested in getting this bill to committee as the hon. member is. I chair that committee. Insofar as I have any authority in that committee, it will move as quickly as we can move it. I am looking forward to the co-operation of my colleagues.

[Military Justice System Modernization Act, September 19th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, we would all wish to move more rapidly; that is a given. Even Madam Justice Arbour, who is very familiar with how legislation gets created and implemented, recognized this was going to take time. I am rather pleased that during the interim, the government has, in many instances, responded quite significantly to the other recommendations that Madam Justice Arbour put forward and that have been in various stages of implementation. It is legitimate on the part of the hon. member to continue to call the government to account for the recommendations she has made.

[Military Justice System Modernization Act, September 19th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, a proper reading of the bill deals with the concern raised by the member. There is a concerted effort to simply treat this kind of incident in the same fashion as a civilian incident, period; end of sentence. I encourage the hon. member to read the response of the defence department in the final paragraph. The ministers and the governments have made efforts to make what appears to us to be a simple change, but it actually turns out to be fairly complicated and with some resistance on the part of civilian courts and the various governments they represent.

[Military Justice System Modernization Act, September 19th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, on one level, this is a relatively simple bill that would transfer the issues of sexual offences from the military's jurisdiction to civilian jurisdiction so that military personnel are treated in the same fashion that civilians are. This flows from a rather lengthy response.

No bill nor change in culture happens quickly, whether it is in the military or otherwise, but in the “House Standing Committee on National Defence (NDDN), MND Update to Parliament on Arbour Recommendations”, from December 13, 2022, on the last page of the 50- or 60-page document, is recommendation number five, which is that the Government of Canada proceed with this bill. It goes into some detail, which is not necessary, but I am happy to table it. It also outlines the implications of the efforts the government has made to complete this recommendation, including consultations with territories and provinces, and ministers, such as the national defence minister, public safety minister and justice minister, meeting with all the provinces and territories.

I will not detail all of the work that has gone into responding to this recommendation. It may well appear that it is a simple thing to take the jurisdiction from the military courts and put it into the civilian courts, but it is a lot of work, and I want to commend the ministers who have worked diligently on bringing us to this point today.

I understand that this bill will gain a lot of support in the House, and so it should. It is in some respects symbolic of what has been a slow and painful culture change in the military. It is a very symbolic bill, in that it is a particular marker of response by the military.

Canada's military today is not our fathers' military and it is certainly not our grandfathers' military. It is a far more sophisticated organization, and it calls upon a range of talents and abilities that probably could not have been dreamed of even 10 or 20 years ago. Therefore, Canada's military needs to be a welcoming and inviting organization for all of Canada's citizens to participate in.

I will point members to the first recommendation of the defence committee, from June 2022: “That the Government of Canada take decisive steps to transform the institutional culture within the Canadian Armed Forces to ensure an inclusive, safe and respectful workplace for all Canadian Armed Forces and Department of National Defence personnel.” That is the core reason this bill is in front of the House. It is because we need to change.

The threat environment, even in the last two years, has dramatically changed. We can think of Ukraine. We can think of the South China Sea. We can think of Palestine. This morning we had a threat briefing from three very able individuals, and I must admit that all of my colleagues on the committee came up to me afterwards and said that it was really excellent.

Because the threat environment has changed and we need a whole-of-society response to this change in culture, this bill needs to be passed, as it is essentially treating these kinds of offences in the same manner that offences would be treated in a civilian court. There should be no difference. There are difficulties with the military justice system. If there is an incident of some kind with two uniformed personnel, somebody is saluting somebody, and after the incident takes place, people still have to carry on their regular business of the day. It is extremely awkward and difficult. While we properly focus on the victim, we also need to keep in mind that there is justice on both sides.

In the Canadian military, we need a wide diversity of skills. I want everyone to think for a moment of a young woman or man contemplating a career in the Canadian military. In the past, and I hope no longer, there was a perception that over the course of a career, there was a high percent chance that a sexual incident would happen. Think of a young woman or man being invited into an organization where there is a significant chance that something will happen and, if something happens, there is a significant chance that the resolution will be unsatisfactory. They are not going into the same justice system as they would if the exact incident happened on the street, for want of a better term. That is going to affect their career, and the discharge arrangements for their career will not be as satisfactory as they otherwise could be. We should ask ourselves how that works for a military that is trying to recruit people. If we think of it from the standpoint of a young woman or man, that aspect of a career in the Canadian military is not attractive, but we need their skills.

In some respects, this bill would deal with one of the more egregious aspects of recruitment and retention. The Canadian military is significantly undermanned, somewhere in the order of 16,000 people. When I asked General Allen how many people were applying, she said 70,000 people. I then asked how many we are processing and she said about 4,000 or 5,000 a year. That is not a great outcome.

We need to up our game. The threat environment has changed dramatically. This bill would be a symbolic and real response to the need for culture change. We need skills available to the Canadian military, and I am rather hoping that with the co-operation of our friends and colleagues, we will move on this legislation so that we can demonstrate that we are serious about making this cultural change and reflecting it.

[Committees of the House, June 19th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, again, in the interest of time, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the following two reports. The first is the 12th report, entitled “A Time For Change: Reforming Defence Procurement in Canada”.

The 13th report is entitled “Providing Aid to the Civil Power: Disaster Relief and the Canadian Armed Forces’ Domestic Operations”.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to each of the reports.

[Interparliamentary Delegations, June 19th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, five reports on behalf of the Canada-United States Inter-Parliamentary Group: the report respecting its participation at the National Conference of State Legislatures' annual meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America, from August 13 to 16, 2023; the report respecting its participation at the Council of State Governments' eastern regional conference annual meeting in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, from August 20 to 23, 2023; the report respecting its participation at the congressional visit in Washington, D.C., United States of America, from November 14 to 15, 2023; the report respecting its participation at the Council of State Governments' national conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States, from December 6 to 9, 2023; and the report respecting its participation at the Canada Day in Albany hosted by the New York Consulate General of Canada in Albany, New York, United States of America, February 27 to 28.

[Committees of the House, May 30th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 11th report of the Standing Committee on National Defence, entitled “Main Estimates 2024-25: Vote 1 under Communications Security Establishment, Votes 1, 5, 10 and 15 under Department of National Defence, Vote 1 under Military Grievances External Review Committee, Vote 1 under Military Police Complaints Commission, Vote 1 under Office of the Intelligence Commissioner”.

[Privilege, May 2nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a question of privilege that was raised by the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan on Monday. He and I, and my hon. colleague here, belong to a group called IPAC. It is an international group, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, and it appears we have attracted some unwanted attention.

Last Wednesday, the member and I were on a call with IPAC in London and were advised of this form of cyber-attack. I am at an age and stage when I do not pretend to understand exactly what they were talking about, but I am given to understand that a group called APT31, or Advanced Persistent Threat 31, was conducting cyber-attacks against some colleagues here and indeed around the world.

The only reason we found out about it was that the FBI was conducting a surveillance operation a couple of years ago, and we were caught up in that surveillance operation. That was a couple of years ago, so the question becomes this: Why did we not know about it? IPAC contacted the U.S. Department of Justice and asked why we did not know about it.

The U.S. Department of Justice did notify the relevant nations, sovereignty to sovereignty. IPAC then compared the FBI list with its own list, and the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, myself and my colleague here were on that list. The question becomes this: How come we did not know about it?

Since then, we have been advised that the FBI did notify the Canada Security Establishment, or CSE, and CSE, in turn, notified Parliament, or the IT service that runs Parliament. A security check was run in a timely fashion, and the good news is that the system we have here was not breached. In that respect, it worked.

However, at that point, a decision was made to not notify the affected members of Parliament and the affected senators; I think there are about 13 of us in total. That is a bit more problematic, so this is why I support the member's privilege question because I do think this needs to be investigated.

I am given to understand that there are literally hundreds of thousands of attacks on our IT system on a daily basis, literally a massive volume, and it becomes difficult to know, when attacks are unsuccessful, when and how and if members should be notified because our inboxes could be literally filled on a daily basis with notifications of attacks.

On the other hand, if I, as a member who is interested in security matters and defence matters, have an unusual volume of attacks or if other members, for other reasons, have unusual volumes or patterns of attacks, then that seems to be quite relevant to the interests of those individual members.

The reason I am supporting the hon. member's question of privilege is that we need to start to review these protocols, and do it sooner rather than later. I want to make the point that this is not a government issue; this is a Parliament issue.

The government did its job, so to speak, in that CSE reported it to our security services and the people who run them. However, I believe that PROC needs to look at this. It needs to review the sequence of events to make sure that, as I am describing it to the House, they were correct; to examine the decisions that were made when the information became available to Canadian authorities; and to review whether this is the kind of information that should be shared with members and, if so, in what format, how frequently, etc.

I do not think we can take this very lightly. The analogy I have drawn in the past has been that it is like somebody looking at one's mail in the post office. I think we would all be pretty upset with somebody examining our mail. It is a bit of an exaggeration to say that, but it gives the sense in which the emails that are coming into our offices need to have security not only for ourselves but also for our correspondents and our constituents. These are significant volumes of emails.

I just want to raise what I believe is a question of privilege. I hope the Speaker finds it to be a question of privilege and asks the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan to move the relevant motion.

As I said, this is a significant issue. The chamber needs to deal with it in a timely sort of way; I hope PROC ultimately does as well.

[Business of Supply, March 21st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's comments on Jenni Byrne's proactive non-disclosure.

I would like the member to talk about the short-term memory loss of the Conservative Party. Members will recollect that about this time last year, in April, May, June, Ottawa was covered in smoke. There is a clear cause for that. The member knows that in Halifax there have been hurricanes; in Fort McMurray, fires; in British Columbia, flooding; all of which has one cause, all of which need to be addressed. The Conservatives seem to have short-term memory loss on all of those issues.

I would be interested in the member talking about the point of this.

[Business of Supply, March 19th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member on his speech, which had the added bonus of agitating the Conservatives.

The simple question I have is on the PBO's economic analysis. Does he include the ever-increasing cost of insurance for floods and fire?