National Defence committee  Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I want to begin by thanking you and the committee for the invitation to appear before you today. I'm happy to help support the committee's study into these issues, because they are of the utmost importance, not only to the Canadian Armed Forces but, frankly, to all Canadians.

National Defence committee  I did not. I am happy to be here, because I can understand the reason the committee is exploring these issues. I think understanding this chronology is important. I'm happy to be helpful to the committee, and I hope I am today.

National Defence committee  I'm happy to give you my best recollection to try to be most helpful. I am really on this point going from my recollection that my contact with the minister's chief of staff came following a request from someone in my office, who I believe was the chief of staff or her assistant, to call her.

National Defence committee  I can't be a hundred per cent certain. I expect—because my recollection is that it was either late on March 1 or early the next day—that it was probably a phone call, and that she would have told me on the phone what had happened and expressed a desire to make sure that the right steps were now taken to follow up with that information—

National Defence committee  I would assume that. My sense was that the.... I don't want to speak here for the minister or his chief of staff at the time, so I want to be a little careful. I'm just trying to be accurate to be most helpful, but I understood that in the face of receiving that knowledge from Mr.

National Defence committee  I believe I was told that the issue was an issue of personal misconduct. I have to say in the context of hearing that I think my presumption was certainly that it could be of a sexual nature, but I don't think I was actually given that information specifically. Again, in the absence of knowing what it was and whether it was serious or not, we operated on the assumption that it was serious and could be a very serious allegation, and acted accordingly.

National Defence committee  Unfortunately, I can't say. I would have remained in touch with her to the extent we were getting any sense of what the next steps were—things like that. She would have been engaged, because we both at that time appreciated that, one, this could be something very serious, and that there was some urgency.

National Defence committee  Again, I can't say exactly how many times. Katie was an accessible member of the team. I would have understood, given that we all appreciated the sensitivity of this issue, the need to get an answer out quickly. I would have reported back pretty quickly to say, here's where we're at and here's what the next steps look like.

National Defence committee  Again, I wish I could pinpoint it a little more clearly. I just don't want to say anything that isn't accurate. It either would have been March 1...which I understand is the day the ombudsman had his meeting with the minister. I was asked either on that day directly—I imagine late in the day, given that the meeting had already happened—or early the following morning.

National Defence committee  I was. I think I did that in person, in his office. We didn't have a scheduled appointment. I went up and asked if he had a few minutes to see me, and I spoke to him that way.

National Defence committee  I think everyone who was involved in this appreciated that it was important that the next steps be the right steps, that it be done appropriately and responsibly, but there was initially, at the very beginning, also an urgency that I think was important to say that if Mr. Walbourne has asked for some kind of assistance or advice, we can't....

National Defence committee  I think there is probably more than one way to handle what you do with a situation of that sort, who you talk to and who you engage, but in my mind, you can't go wrong by taking it to the Clerk of the Privy Council. The clerk, in our system, wears a lot of different hats. He runs the Privy Council Office, which is effectively the Prime Minister's department.

National Defence committee  Thank you for your question. I have to say, being in government was a real privilege and I was very happy to be able to play the roles that I played, but being out of government also means I don't get involved in those types of issues, and I'm happy not to be involved in them. Therefore, I will leave that to the very capable members of this committee and commentators.

National Defence committee  Listen, yes, I was very fortunate, and this is not always the case in politics, to have a longer run than I think I expected when I came in. When I joined the government, this was not, for me, meant to be a career change. I meant to come in and play a role, and I ended up playing three different roles at different times, each of which was really an honour to be able to—

National Defence committee  I have not discussed my testimony with anyone in the government, anyone who was involved or anyone otherwise in the government. I've tried to recreate as best I can for you the events based on my own recollection and a very limited couple of documents that were disclosed to the committee that helped me make sure that my recollection was accurate.