Mr. Speaker, today I rise in the House to speak on the motion, but I would really rather be in my riding, where I have spent the last three days with 600 of my closest friends, filling sandbags and looking after community members. However, I thought this was such an important discussion that someone had to rise in the House to talk to this with a degree of understanding of the situation.
There are many veterans in the House, on all sides. I was one of the veterans who had the opportunity to serve in Afghanistan. I have a very interesting perspective on what was happening.
It is important that we all take the time, especially the veterans who are in the House, to understand what we are doing when we conduct this kind of motion, especially when we use language that is beneath the honour and the dignity that is inherent in the House. We can have discussions and we can have disagreements, but this is the House of Commons, the people's House, and we need to set the example and have those kinds of discussions in such a way that Canadians can have pride in what happens in this room.
I thank all the members who are here, especially those with military service. I am truly proud to have a minister of national defence who brings decades of experience, both as a reservist and as a police officer. He has served with such dedication in his career and has received so many accolades.
The minister's deep understanding, his ability to co-operate, to collaborate, to work with academics, foreigners, experts, and members of the House from all sides is exactly the kind of person we need to be acting as our Minister of National Defence. I will discuss this more in detail later. However, it is really important to hear the words of others who have served with this man.
Brigadier General David Fraser has said he is “one of the most remarkable people I have worked with”. He goes on to say that he was one of the best single Canadian intelligence asset in theatre:
Through his courage and dedication, [he] has single-handedly changed the face of intelligence gathering and analysis in Afghanistan...tirelessly and selflessly...his analysis was so compelling that it drove a number of large scale theatre-resourced efforts...I rate him as one of the best intelligence officers I have ever worked with...
We have heard these words before: “fearless, smart, personable, dedicated”. That is an incredible endorsement. We do not hear that every day. It is only the best of the best who get that kind of ringing endorsement. The minister has earned the high praise of our coalition partners.
I love the article by Chris Vernon. If members have not read the article, they need to read it. He is a British army officer who served as General Fraser's chief of staff in Afghanistan. He says:
[He] was a major player in the design team that put together Operation Medusa. He was able to put together an intelligence picture of the Taliban...without which we probably wouldn’t have been able to mount Operation Medusa...but he was . He worked hand in glove with the Australian lieutenant colonel who was the lead planner.
He continues, calling our minister's role at the time “more than integral” and “a critical member of the planning and design team”. He goes on to say, “It was quite a small discrete group because we didn’t want it too wide in the early stages.” He says that without his input as a critical player, a major player, a pivotal player, Medusa would not have happened. He said that he also played a big part in the execution of the operation on the ground, again, to great effect.
The role of our Minister of National Defence was so critical to this mission that the chief of staff to the ranking officer said that Medusa would not have happened without the work of the Minister of National Defence.
I am very proud of our Minister of National Defence and so are Canadians.
Later, I will check my Facebook and come up with a list of the names of people who have contacted me and said “Give the MND my best” or “Tell him we have his back.” Maybe my hon. colleagues opposite and I can compare numbers, because I am not hearing the same thing they say they are hearing. Our minister is dedicated to our women and men in uniform. That is indisputable. His actions speak louder than words.
I am proud to be a member of this government. We have a lot of work to do and the present Minister of National Defence is exactly the man we need to do that work.
I will end with a couple of wise words from my mother, because I learned a lot from my mother. She said to me that the only people who did not make mistakes were people who did not do anything. She said, “Get out there girl” and that when I made a mistake, to stand up, own it, take responsibility for it, apologize, and move on.
Trust is like a bank account. We make deposits into that bank account over the years by being credible, by working hard, by being predictable, by being there for people, by serving, by putting other people first. Once in a while we make a mistake. Even when I was a squadron commander, I made a mistake. I had to make a withdrawal from that trust account. Because I had spent years making deposits, I had something to withdraw against.
The Minister of National Defence has accepted his mistake. He has owned it. He has taken responsibility for it. He has apologized for it. Now the most important thing he needs to do is to carry on and do the important work we need done in order to improve the lives of the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces and to better serve all the people of Canada.
