National Defence committee  Yes, it's a huge question. I don't think I can entirely do justice to it. Let me interject a couple of things responding to the exchange with Mr. Lick. Obviously, you have to get things in the right order. The Rideau Hall investigation was in 2020, and was not known or could not

National Defence committee  I think there are other timelines that PCO could have pursued had we acquired more information at some point in the process, after March. We did not forever close the file. Had other information come in, we would have sat down and tried to figure out a process going forward, and

National Defence committee  I don't know about other conversations. The Prime Minister and the minister would see each other every week at cabinet, and every week at the Liberal caucus they would run across each other, so I cannot vouch for conversations I wasn't part of. He may or may not have asked the mi

National Defence committee  Well, it's a bit hypothetical. What I remember of the note was that it was extremely clear. There was basically a four-year option and a five-year option. The issue of whether his candidacy for NATO was a factor is in the note he received. I don't know when that note actually mad

National Defence committee  I don't believe I can really give you a full answer. I was not the clerk at that time. I was appointed in January 2016, so I was not involved in the process of selecting or appointing General Vance. The previous government, Prime Minister Harper's government, was in power, and my

National Defence committee  There was no explicit decision not to act. It was simply that the note sat and sat in the Prime Minister's Office and didn't come back. My recollection is—and Janine could confirm this—that everybody else was getting their economic increase and performance pay by the fall of 2018

National Defence committee  That's the order in council—if I could just finish the thought. The performance pay cycle was finished after I left, in May 2019. General Vance would have got a reset on his salary and a cheque for the performance pay for that year.

National Defence committee  Yes, not specific allegations, but there was an open bracket about—

National Defence committee  Yes, performance pay was given that year, the 2017-18 year, based on all the other factors, which I mentioned in an answer a little while ago.

National Defence committee  I think I have covered them. You'd tell me if I'd missed any, in some ways. For the 2017-18 performance rating cycle, I've clarified when those conversations took place, and I gave you some sense of all the other factors that would have gone into the performance rating that year.

National Defence committee  You may be pulling me out of my depth, but I think the core would be a reset on the legislative framework, and it would take a bill to do that. There would be a whole set of administrative practices within the Department of National Defence and within the Canadian military. Ther

National Defence committee  I don't want to diminish the seriousness of any individual behaviour, particularly of somebody who is in a position of trust and leadership responsibility. Conduct and behaviour at the top matter a great deal. I'm not trying to deflect from the seriousness of the issue and why th

National Defence committee  These positions are chosen by the Prime Minister on the recommendation of the Minister of National Defence, yes.

National Defence committee  This was the note that combined the recommended performance rating with the issue of when a change of command should take place. My recollection of the note is that it must have gone in early July, although that's just out of my memory. The Privy Council Office can easily confir

National Defence committee  It went to the Prime Minister, but all notes go from the Privy Council Office floor at 80 Wellington Street to the Prime Minister's Office floor at 80 Wellington, so it would have been taken in somewhere in the Prime Minister's Office. They do the triage and sorting of what note