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View Michelle Rempel Garner Profile
CPC (AB)
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Foothills.
In Alberta, I am giving this speech from my riding in Calgary Nose Hill. What I would like everybody listening to this speech tonight to understand is that Alberta was in a very bad spot prior to the pandemic. We were in a severe economic downturn, and that really exacerbated part of the problem that we have faced here over the last year and a half. I would argue that in a lot of ways it has been worse.
I know that there has been a lot of conversation, and I have watched the media narrative play out over the last 72 hours, with comments like “Why are restrictions not working in Alberta like they are in other places?” with the implications that Albertans are not following the rules. Here is the reality from Calgary: People need to eat. Therefore, it is very paternalistic to say just that people who might not be following restrictions are doing so from a place of bourgeois contempt for the law.
There are so many people in my province, I would argue most people in my province, who want to do everything possible to abide by public health rules, and they are doing their best, but they are also really struggling. There are a lot of people in my community who do not have the luxury of being able to stay at home and work from home and self-isolate or wait for the disastrously termed “preferred vaccine”. That is just not the reality. Lockdown is a luxury for a lot of people in my community. That is the reality for gig economy workers, taxi drivers, people who were in the resource industry; they are the Alberta economy. We do look different economically than other parts of the country do, so yes, measures are going to affect how people respond differently. That is a reality that I just do not feel has been adequately acknowledged by policy-makers.
We need to start there. We need to start understanding that a year and a half into this, people want to do everything they can to observe these measures, but they also feel like there has to be an end in sight; they need to work—
View Mario Simard Profile
BQ (QC)
View Mario Simard Profile
2021-05-05 20:23 [p.6726]
Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the charming member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. It is a pleasure for me to do so.
First, I would like to say that I completely understand the heartfelt concern of the member for Edmonton Strathcona. I was listening to her earlier, and I understand her concerns because we experienced something similar in Quebec during the first wave, when the situation in our long-term care facilities was very troubling, very worrisome. Today, we see that there are 23,600 active cases in Alberta compared to 8,800 cases in Quebec. Demographically speaking, we see that the situation is very worrisome.
As legislators, what should we do in a growing pandemic? This situation is not good.
I would say that the first thing to do is not to give in to the instinct we have as politicians. It is unfortunate, but often as politicians, our instinct is to look for a scapegoat. I am saying that because we often get into the habit of pointing the finger rather than looking for solutions.
I would like to say that I have a great deal of sympathy for Albertans and for what they are going through. I may have a little less for Jason Kenney. Perhaps his handling of the crisis was not totally perfect, but that is not for us to say. It is not the House of Commons' job to judge Jason Kenney; that is the Legislative Assembly of Alberta's job. It is the opposition parties' job to do that and to show that there were perhaps some serious flaws in the way he managed the crisis. To sum up, it is not our job to put Jason Kenney on trial.
Although I say that, I am also aware that the preferred attitude during a crisis is, in my opinion, a responsible one. I think that responsibility dictates that we listen to science. We have an obligation to listen to science, especially in a pandemic. Perhaps that is not what Mr. Kenney did. He will have to answer to his fellow Albertans. However, science tells us that lockdowns can be useful.
Earlier, I heard my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill say that the lockdown was an issue in her riding, that it was unfair, that not everyone was being treated the same during lockdowns.
I do not know if this is the case in Alberta, but I can say that during the lockdown in Quebec, grocery stores and essential services remained open. We debated that at length in the House of Commons. There were benefits for people losing their jobs. There is a social safety net that lets us keep a roof over our heads and food on the table during a pandemic.
I find it most unfortunate to let our constituents believe that there is a magic solution that does not require lockdowns. What science is telling us and what public health is telling us is that this dreaded lockdown is necessary. In Quebec, it is very well managed by public health authorities.
At this time, we know that the situation is alarming. There is one thing that will surely make an appearance again and that is the Emergencies Act. Ontario invoked the Emergencies Act to get help from the federal government. Quebec did the same thing for its long-term care facilities and the army came to give us a hand.
Personally, I can see how this would be a useful tool, but it up to the provinces to use it. It is not up to the federal government, which does not have jurisdiction or expertise in health matters, to tell the provinces how to manage the pandemic. If the Emergencies Act were to be invoked, it would have to be in response to a formal request from the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. The federal government has no business taking that power away from the legitimately elected members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. I think that, if the government wants to do something useful in terms of pandemic response, the best thing it can do is make sure we have a more robust health care system going forward.
In Quebec, I think most health care providers realized that there were weaknesses in our health care system. Where do those weaknesses come from?
I have to say that for the past 20 years there has been a systemic problem in the Canadian federation, and that is the fiscal imbalance. It is not normal that the level of government with the greatest financial capacity provides just slightly more than 20% of every dollar invested in the health sector and that the provinces are forced—at least that is the case in Quebec—year after year to deal with difficult budget situations because the government's contribution to health care funding is inadequate. In the next few years we may have to face a similar crisis. If we do not have a more robust health care system at that point, then we will not have learned from our mistakes.
If the government wants to be helpful, the best thing it can do is listen to the provinces, like Quebec and Alberta, which have been calling for health transfers of 35% for far too long. That way the pressure and problems that Alberta is currently experiencing with intensive care might be problems that could be dealt with much more easily.
What Alberta is currently going through is similar to the problems experienced in long-term care centres and seniors homes in Quebec. Part of the problem was the burnout being felt by health care staff, who have been overwhelmed for years now. Fewer employees are being hired and more work is being done in mandatory overtime to reduce the financial strain on the system. In the end, it became quite clear that our system is very ill-equipped.
In my view, the best response the federal government could give today would be to better fund the provincial health care systems.
I ask all my colleagues not to give in to the political instinct we all have, as I said earlier, to want to score points by finding a scapegoat for the current crisis. Instead, we must try to respect each other's jurisdictions and ensure that rational political action is taken.
I will close by saying that I encourage everyone to listen to science-based recommendations. We need to follow public health rules and know that this imposes certain limitations on us both in terms of vaccination and lockdown. If every politician would follow the rules and encourage their constituents to do the same, I think that would be a very good start.
View Tim Uppal Profile
CPC (AB)
View Tim Uppal Profile
2021-05-05 21:23 [p.6734]
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin.
It is a privilege to speak on behalf of the constituents of Edmonton Mill Woods. My constituents, like those right across Canada, are having a very difficult time coping with the current spike in COVID-19 cases and the accompanying lockdowns. It is unfortunate that we are even in this position to be having this emergency debate and that we could have so easily been in an emergency debate on many of the cases that we have seen and are currently seeing right across the country.
In the last seven days, we have seen the Atlantic bubble burst, with Nova Scotia seeing nearly 800 cases over the last week. Nunavut, which just weeks ago had zero cases, is now facing its own outbreak. We are still seeing British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec continue to cope and grapple with the third wave. We are in this position today because the response of the Liberal government throughout the pandemic has been slow and confusing at every single step.
Let us go back to the beginning of this pandemic when we were just seeing the reports of the first cases that we all then called the coronavirus. My colleague from Edmonton Riverbend, then our shadow minister for health, had questioned the government consistently on its plans for stopping flights from Wuhan province, when the health minister said that closing the border was not effective at all. On January 28, 2020, over a year ago, we learned from the health minister that the first individual identified with the coronavirus did not self-identify when entering Canada. He had travelled from Wuhan and had a cough. The Minister of Health stated that this individual took exactly the appropriate precautions that he was given at the border, and that the systems were working and were working very well.
One year later, and with more examples than I have time to discuss tonight of the Liberal government's failure, our entire country is facing lockdowns and restrictions over and over again. This stands in stark contrast to places like the United States and Britain where restrictions are being eased and economies are reopening. What is the difference between Canada and those other countries? It is vaccines. While both the U.K. and the United States were rushing to secure vaccines for their citizens, Canada stood at the back of the line, dawdling.
The government pursued a dubious vaccine partnership with CanSino, a Chinese state-owned company. The deal fell apart almost immediately after the Prime Minister made the big announcement about it. It took only a week for the Chinese communist government to stop necessary materials from being exported to Canada so research and production could happen. It was the only leading vaccine that the Liberal government was pushing to be made in Canada. Instead of working with the private sector to build vaccine production capacity right here in our own country with companies like Providence Therapeutics, just one of the 17 companies that have submitted proposals to build and roll out pharmaceutical strategies in Alberta, the Liberal government decided to build a new vaccine facility which will not be ready until 2022 at the earliest, well after the pandemic should be under control.
The government's failure on procuring vaccines is shown with the wait times between the doses. The four-month wait period is longer than that of any other country in the world and contrary to the advice of the developer and manufacturer of that vaccine. The Liberal government has forced an off-label usage of vaccines only because there is insufficient supply. The NACI has acknowledged it would not be recommending a four-month delay if there were sufficient supply. This, of course, is leading to more COVID cases, more vulnerability. This is the result of the government's failures.
As I mentioned earlier, another massive failure by the Liberal government has been in being very slow on closing the border. For more than a year, we have been calling for greater border measures to protect against COVID-19 and ministers of the government said that we were spreading fear and scaremongering.
More recently, we saw the ravaging effect that the variants of the virus were having. The double variant in India was first identified in October. The government continued to see variant cases pop up right across our country, most notably in British Columbia and Ontario. Now we are seeing the effects of these variants right across the country. Today, nearly 60% of the active cases in Alberta are variant cases. Simply, we needed the government to listen to our calls to secure the border. Its slowness is why we are here today.
Despite all of that, the Prime Minister has come out and said he has no regrets regarding his leadership throughout this pandemic. That is astonishing. He has no regrets that the government shut down our pandemic early warning system months before COVID-19 happened. He has no regrets that the government sent hundreds of thousands of masks, gloves, gowns and the government's own reserves to China, leading to our own health care professionals and first responders being forced to ration their own PPE and recycle masks. He has no regrets on telling Canadians that the risk was low at the beginning of the pandemic. He has no regrets about not securing our border at the beginning of the pandemic or stopping flights from hot spots earlier as variants were ravaging countries across the globe. He has no regrets about the mental health crisis that my community of Edmonton Mill Woods and communities right across Canada have been struggling with as a result of lost lives, livelihoods and more lockdowns.
For us to prevent the surge in cases we are seeing right across Canada, we needed to vaccinate Canadians in January and February, like the United States did. By the end of February, only 4% of Canadians had received their first shot, while 10% of Americans were fully vaccinated. From the very beginning, the Liberal government has been slow and confused at every step, leading us into this situation. Its slowness to procure the vaccines that we needed was a major contributor to this third wave. Its slowness to close the borders as highly contagious variants were emerging across the globe left us vulnerable to the same variants that are driving the third wave today. My constituents in Edmonton Mill Woods and all Canadians deserve better.
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Pickering—Uxbridge, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health.
It is an honour to rise today to talk about such an incredibly important issue.
The member from Edmonton asked why I was taking the approach that the Conservatives are being overly partisan about this. It is because they have come into the House, and every Conservative, one after another, has only talked about vaccines. Yes, vaccines are very important. They are important to getting through this. They are important to getting through to the other side, but there are other important things too.
When the Conservatives come in here and only talk about vaccines, it makes me wonder why they will not talk about things that the provincial governments are responsible for, or other things the federal government could be doing. I think there is a lot of criticism to go around.
As we look back on this years from now, we will be able to say the federal government should have done this, or the federal government should have been more prepared. I hope we learn from this. If we do not learn from this, then what will we have accomplished?
First and foremost, I hope we learn that we need to do something about our vaccine manufacturing in this country, our biomanufacturing of vaccines. We need to make sure that when the next pandemic happens, because history tells us it will at some point, we are better prepared.
I am willing to let that responsibility go around, and I am willing to say that Liberals were just as responsible for that as Conservatives were in the past, but I do not think anyone saw it coming. Therefore, there was not an urgent need placed on it. Yes, we do need to do something about making sure that it is better.
When history looks back on this, we will also look at ourselves and say, when we were weighing the options, did we put too much emphasis on the economy and not enough emphasis on the advice of medical professionals? I really get a kick out of some of the stuff I have heard, not just today in this debate, but over the last number of weeks and months, and how sometimes there seems to be a complete disregard for the experts and for science.
It is based on emotion. I do not want to say ideology, but it is based on emotion. I want this to be over too, but that does not mean I should believe everything I see on the Internet that suggests there is an easier way.
From the beginning, I have always said I will take my health advice from the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada and, more importantly, the medical officer of health in my riding of Kingston and the Islands, Dr. Kieran Moore, who has done a phenomenal job of taking care of our community. For some reason, there has been this desire out there to disregard experts. If we do not shut that narrative down, we are only complicit in helping that narrative snowball and build momentum. I think that people in the House are responsible for allowing narratives to continue on.
Who else should we trust? If I am on an airplane and the pilot suddenly passes out, and we are looking for someone to fly the plane, and someone says they are a pilot, I am going to tell them to get in the cockpit and land that thing. Likewise, I am going to believe the experts and the medical officers of health, the people who have studied pandemics and have planned for them, and take their advice.
When they say lockdowns are important, then I am going to believe them. I do not understand how a body such as this, the House of Commons, has come to a place where we regularly disagree with medical experts. It absolutely boggles my mind.
When the Conservatives come in here, they are only talking about vaccines. Yes, there is a lot we could have done to do a better job of making sure we were prepared, and that includes Conservatives, Liberals and opposition parties pushing the agenda.
I know there were no Conservatives before March 2020 asking why we were not making more vaccines in the country or where our manufacturing is for this. Nobody was saying that over the last five or 10 years. No Liberal was saying it when Stephen Harper was the prime minister either because we did not see this coming.
In the same regard, we have to respect the fact that we can criticize this government's approach and delivery of vaccines as a result of the infrastructure and resources that were in place. We can criticize that. It is fair to criticize. I think history can look back on that and see where we went wrong, where we went right and how it played out.
What we cannot be critical about is that the government did lay out the exact plan. The provinces knew what the timeline was going to be. They were told in the late fall what they should expect in terms of vaccines coming along.
The only part of that plan that had a hiccup was the 10 days back in February, which the Conservatives keep talking about, when one of the primary delivery manufacturers of vaccines retooled its plant so that it could produce more vaccines, but we still ended up getting caught up very quickly.
By the end of March, provinces received more vaccines than they were told they were going to have. They were originally scheduled to get 29 million vaccines by the end of June, but now they will be getting closer to 50 million. They are getting more vaccines than they were told they were going to get.
Yes, we can be critical, but the provinces knew this was the schedule. In Ontario, and I am sure it is the same in Alberta, the province, on February 11, had its projection of the third wave and knew exactly what it would be getting and when it would be getting it. The federal government delivered more than it promised, yet the provinces still did not use other measures in order to curb the third wave. Instead, they relied on hoping that maybe, miraculously, things would go even better than the schedule, which was a horrible plan.
I regret that we are here and having this conversation, as I am sure everybody does, but at the end of the day, I genuinely believe that, if a province wants to work with the federal government, it has to take the information we have been giving it on vaccines and plan according to that. They need to understand that medical experts are going to give them advice, and they could say the vaccines we are going to get will not get us beyond the third wave. They could say we better do something about this now and start talking about other measures, such as lockdowns.
I have yet to hear a Conservative tonight say that they support lockdowns, which I cannot understand because they have happened throughout the entire world, and they have been shown to be effective. This is just like two years ago when they could not utter the words “climate change”. They cannot even utter the words because they are afraid of saying it, and I do not know why.
View Damien Kurek Profile
CPC (AB)
View Damien Kurek Profile
2021-05-05 22:25 [p.6741]
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Calgary Midnapore.
As I enter into the emergency debate related to the crisis that is taking place here in Alberta, I want to acknowledge that there are a number of friends of mine currently in the hospital. It appears that they are going to pull through, but it has been a challenging time for many Albertans and many, many Canadians. Certainly it drives home the seriousness of what we are discussing in this place. I also want to acknowledge the 24,000 or so Canadians who have passed away because of COVID and COVID-related complications. I was reading an article earlier today about the so-called “COVID long-haulers” and the challenges they have.
On the other side of that issue are the millions of Canadians who are facing significant impacts, as well as businesses. As I was getting groceries earlier today, a business owner came up to me asking if there was anything I could do to help him get support as his business fell through all the cracks, in terms of qualifying for support. It did not quite meet the income threshold on the months that were prescribed, but had zero income in certain other months. It speaks to the significant challenges that all Canadians have faced in the last year and a half.
When I learned that this debate would be taking place, I thought of a couple of main subjects that I want to touch on: one, the challenges that many Canadians are facing as this third wave has gripped Alberta and gripped our country, and to ensure that there is some context provided with some of the challenges that certainly my constituents are facing in Battle River—Crowfoot, and then to talk about some of the other challenges and the reason why we are here.
I found it very interesting listening to some of the Liberal members. The Prime Minister was asked a number of weeks ago whether there was anything he regretted. There have been a number of analogies used in this debate this evening, so I will use another one: When a sports team, be it someone's favourite hockey team or favourite football team, makes some mistakes, the people who take responsibility are the captain of the team and the coaches. They take responsibility for their mistakes and they commit to do better.
I heard for the first time a number of Liberal members admit their failures, because the captain of their team, the leader of this country, refuses to admit mistakes. Unfortunately, it is not surprising. I have been a long-time political observer and a member of Parliament for a year and a half. Seeing the Prime Minister's personality, it is unfortunately not surprising that he refuses to take responsibility for some of these clear failures.
View James Maloney Profile
Lib. (ON)
View James Maloney Profile
2021-05-05 22:56 [p.6745]
Madam Speaker, I am sharing my time tonight, although I will be honest that I do not know who I am sharing it with.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Canadians have come together, made sacrifices and done their part to help limit the spread of the virus. Public health experts have provided Canadians with important information and advice on COVID-19.
At the same time, the Government of Canada has taken steps to help Canadians stay home, put food on the table, keep their jobs and help businesses stay afloat. Canada's COVID-19 economic response plan has helped protect millions of jobs, provide emergency support to families and keep businesses afloat throughout the pandemic. Healthy people are at the centre of a strong economy. That is why the health and safety of all Canadians remains our top priority.
The situation remains challenging in some parts of the country. As COVID-19 activity continues in Canada, we are tracking a range of epidemiological indicators to monitor where the disease is most active, where it is spreading and how it is impacting the health of Canadians, and public health's laboratory and health care capacity.
Alberta is in the middle of a third wave right now. The situation regarding COVID-19 in Alberta is of utmost importance to the federal government, and although I am an Ontario member of Parliament, I understand the predicament, because we are experiencing the same thing here at home. I would like to note the current situation to give some context to this debate.
As members know, Alberta currently has the highest active case rate in either Canada or the U.S. The current active COVID-19 case total stands at 23,623, which is the highest ever. The daily COVID-19 case counts have topped the 1,000 mark for almost a month. Alberta's test positivity rate is now 13.2%, its highest ever, which means one in eight Albertans tested positive for COVID-19.
Yesterday, Alberta reported 1,743 new cases, including a very large percentage of variant cases. This is a situation that is very serious, to put it mildly. We are greatly concerned to see that Alberta currently has the highest per capita case rate anywhere in Canada. In Alberta, elevated infection rates continue to impact COVID-19 severity indicators, particularly in areas with sustained high levels of disease activity.
We are monitoring the spread of new variants in the province, as well as the strain put on public health resources with nearly 700 people in hospital with COVID-19 and more than 150 of those in intensive care.
Premier Kenney announced new COVID-19 restrictions yesterday. These included transition to restaurant takeout service only, closure of personal care businesses and a shift to online learning for all students from May 7 to May 25.
View Carol Hughes Profile
NDP (ON)
I want to interrupt the member for a second. I do not know if I was sidetracked, but I do not remember him saying he was sharing his time, so I was wondering if he is or if he is taking the full 20 minutes, just so I can pace myself.
View Garnett Genuis Profile
CPC (AB)
Madam Speaker, I was of course intending to say that I was splitting my time. I was saving that for the ninth minute, just to make sure Sean and Sebastien are still awake.
There has been much passing back and forth of responsibility throughout this. It goes without saying that there have been mistakes made at lots of levels, but what we need now is to stop this extended process of finger pointing, and for someone to finally stand up and say, “I am responsible and I have a plan to get us out of this.” That person, the person we need to show national leadership, take responsibility and give us a plan for getting us out of this pandemic is the Prime Minister. He has the opportunity, better late than never, to step up and work to unite this country and work to build a safe recovery by leading from those critical areas of federal responsibility.
In my view, the most critical actions required for a long-term solution to this pandemic are all in federal jurisdiction. Therefore, I want to give the Prime Minister some suggestions about what a path would look like to get us out of this in federal jurisdictions.
Making vaccines available to Canadians is critically important. Much has been said, I think very well, by my colleagues about the government's failure to do that. However, as we have also discussed, vaccines are not the whole picture.
We live in an increasingly interconnected world where pandemics are going to become more and more common. Locking ourselves down and bringing our nation to the precipice of a debt crisis every time there is a novel virus outbreak or a vaccine-resistant variant, and then waiting for vaccine development is likely not going to be a viable strategy in the 21st century.
We need to learn how and act to build a system that allows us to stay safe and stay open during pandemics like this. Some countries have done that. Some countries beat COVID-19 long before there was a vaccine. I spoke about that in a question that I addressed to the health minister on March 25, 2020, well over a year ago. Here is what I said at the time:
Madam Chair, Canada must look at international comparisons and copy strategies used by countries that have been successful in controlling COVID-19. South Korea provides one such example. Its approach emphasizes widely available testing and tracking of the spread of the virus, making people aware of specific places where they might have been exposed and providing them with the test results as quickly as possible. This targeted testing and tracking approach has helped South Korea turn the corner. Taiwan's approach has been similar and similarly effective.
Has the government studied, and is the government preparing to adopt, the very successful containment model used by Asian democracies which also have more experience at pandemic control?
I asked the health minister that on March 25, 2020, more than a year ago, and the health minister replied that yes, they were looking at these models and different experiences around the world, and yet, we still have not seen the plan to implement some of those successful measures.
Earlier than that, on March 11 of the same year, I tabled a petition in the House calling on the government to strengthen border screening, including having effective temperature testing at the border. Because the federal government has responsibility for developing and approving new testing technology, for coordinating national systems of tracing, for securing our borders and, yes, for providing clear and accurate advice on masking, something else that the government unfortunately failed to do, it has failed to act and has, in many cases yet to act, in terms of putting in place the systems and charting the path that is going to get us out of this. That points to why we are still really in the midst of a third wave that has not hit many other countries around the world, a third wave that is in Canada and it is hitting every province at different magnitudes in different provinces. We have a third wave hitting this country because of a failure of the federal government to act in areas of its jurisdictions.
I agree strongly with my colleagues about the vital necessity of making vaccines available. The Province of Alberta has been rapidly deploying vaccines as they have been made available, but we also must develop systems of effective border control, testing and tracing, things that the federal government must lead on.
On the issue of responsibility, it is important to say that it is not just about government. All of us are responsible. For our collective response to COVID-19 to work, citizens must choose to be engaged and there has to be a level of social trust.
People have to listen to health directives and follow them. It goes without saying that the spread of COVID-19 is determined by the practical actions of people on the ground, and it is only affected by the regulations that are in place insofar as those regulations are followed. However, trust also has to be earned. When we have a national government that has been inconsistent in the advice it has given, and that is routinely attacking the Province of Alberta and other provinces, it unfortunately undermines trust. The government, in addition to the policy measures, needs to work to rebuild trust with people on the ground, especially people in my province.
With that, I look forward to responding to questions.
View Candice Bergen Profile
CPC (MB)
View Candice Bergen Profile
2021-05-04 10:07 [p.6583]
moved:
That, given that:
(a) women and all members of the Canadian Armed Forces placed their trust in this government to act on claims of sexual misconduct;
(b) the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff was informed about a specific sexual harassment allegation against General Jonathan Vance three years ago;
(c) the Prime Minister asserts that this sexual harassment allegation was never brought to his attention; and
(d) the Prime Minister said that those in a position of authority have a duty to act upon allegations,
the House call upon the Prime Minister to dismiss his Chief of Staff for failing to notify him about a serious sexual harassment allegation at the highest ranks of the Canadian Armed Forces and for being complicit in hiding the truth from Canadians.
She said: Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time this morning with my colleague, the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman.
I am going to be beginning debate today on our opposition day motion and, to be frank, I wish this was not a topic that we were discussing. There are a lot of very important and pressing issues that are facing the country today, issues such as vaccines, and the fact that we do not have enough vaccines and that there are very mixed messages coming out from the government about vaccines. There are also issues like the economy and jobs, and the fact that Liberals have no plan to secure our future.
At the foundation of those and other issues really is the question around trust and confidence that Canadians can put in their government; trust and confidence that their Prime Minister is telling them the truth; trust and confidence that the Prime Minister is acting in their best interest and not in his own; trust and confidence that when people do the wrong things at the highest level, they are held accountable.
That is why today we are debating the cover-up of sexual misconduct allegations against the chief of the defence staff by the Prime Minister, by his office and by his Minister of National Defence, and the fact that the cover-up needs to be brought to light and that people need to be held accountable to ensure that it never happens again.
Our men and women in uniform serve our country every day with honour and integrity, many times sacrificing not only their own lives, but their mental health, their own emotional and physical stability and health. They sacrifice their time with their families. They even sacrifice their relationships.
Women in military, women in uniform, have a unique sacrifice. They give up time with their own children, sometimes their very young children. They give up their own time to even have children. They give up so much to serve this country and they expect and they want to have confidence that their government will serve them with the same integrity, honour and sacrifice. Our women in uniform put their faith in their government to protect them from harassment, from sexual misconduct, from having their superiors being able to take advantage of their position of authority. Sadly, the Liberal government has failed them in doing so over the last number of years.
Today, we are going to be talking about what happened. We are going to talk about who knew, who did not know and who should be held accountable. We know the Minister of National Defence knew. We know that the ombudsman testified that he brought specific allegations of sexual misconduct to the Minister of National Defence back in 2018. We know the Minister of National Defence, at the time, told the ombudsman he did not want to hear about it, and he turned a blind eye. Unbelievably, he even refused to speak to the ombudsman again. I am sure throughout the day, we are going to hear more about what the Minister of National Defence did and did not do.
What I would like to focus my remarks on at this point is what happened in the Prime Minister's Office, the highest office of this land, and who should be held accountable for covering up those serious allegations.
We are being told to believe that the Prime Minister did not know. He has told Canadians, he has told the media and he has told this House that he did not know about the allegations until just recently when all of us learned about them just a few months ago. We are told through testimony that the Prime Minister's chief adviser knew, as well as his chief of staff, Katie Telford, but apparently they did not tell him. They withheld this important information from the Prime Minister. That is what we are being told that we should believe.
For context, and this is important, let us remember that in March 2018, the Prime Minister and his office would have known that the evidence of him inappropriately groping a woman in 2000 was going to be brought to light. I personally recall the spring of 2018. It was one of the worst-kept secrets in Ottawa. There was an article circulating written by a young reporter detailing her very unpleasant experience with the Prime Minister when he was 28, in the Kokanees. If so many of us knew about this article, the Prime Minister and his office would have to have known.
He must have known that at some point it was going to be made public and he was going to be asked about it. In that context, it is important to consider what the Prime Minister could have reasonably been thinking and what his state of mind could have been. He could have been thinking that if he fired General Vance for allegations of sexual misconduct, he was also going to have to hold himself to the same standard when the evidence of his more egregious conduct came forward.
I am sure the Prime Minister would have been faced with a very serious personal choice had he known about the sexual allegations against General Vance, a choice of either dismissing the chief of the defence staff for what he had done or ignoring the allegations, thus protecting himself. When the Prime Minister was confronted with the groping incidents, he skated around it by saying that some women experience things differently. He gave himself a pass on his conduct, which I believe in and of itself shows how far away the Prime Minister is from being a feminist. It is classic misogynist behaviour to blame and dismiss the woman. Looking back now it all makes sense as to why the Prime Minister would have known about Vance but covered up the allegations.
In that same context, let us follow the Prime Minister's assertion that he did not know, that everyone around him knew but he was kept in the dark. Let us pretend that is reasonable, which I personally do not see as believable. That would mean the Prime Minister's chief of staff, Katie Telford, knew and she did not tell him. It means that Katie Telford knew of these allegations yet allowed the Prime Minister to go ahead between the course of 2018 and 2020 and not only praise General Vance publicly for his good work on Operation Honour, but also make him the longest-serving chief of the defence staff and give him a $50,000 raise. To me, it just does not seem believable that a competent chief of staff would allow her boss, the Prime Minister of this country, to put himself in such a vulnerable position and set himself up to be so badly embarrassed, discredited and disbelieved. If that was true and I was the Prime Minister, I would say with friends like Katie Telford who needs enemies? I would be furious with her, but I note the Prime Minister does not seem too furious, does he?
View Xavier Barsalou-Duval Profile
BQ (QC)
Madam Speaker, I wish to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Rivière-du-Nord.
After reading the Conservative motion, I cannot say we were surprised that such a motion was moved. For weeks now, we have been disappointed time and time again by the government's failure to act or properly contain this situation. Instead, the scandal continues to grow.
It all began when the Canadian Forces ombudsman approached the Minister of National Defence to inform him about an issue with his chief of the defence staff. The ombudsman indicated that he was in possession of emails and evidence demonstrating inappropriate conduct of a sexual nature by the chief of the defence staff.
Rather than looking into the matter, taking it seriously and examining the evidence, the defence minister decided that he did not want to know anything about it. He therefore chose to turn a blind eye and look the other way. That is when the problem began. Usually, when someone presents evidence and disturbing facts to the authorities, they expect everything to go well and they hope the authorities will take the necessary steps to fix the problem.
What were the consequences? The Minister of National Defence refused to hold any more meetings with the then ombudsman, Gary Walbourne, until the end of his term, so when he left office. The minister looked the other way and did everything in his power to avoid having to deal with the situation. For three years, the minister allowed General Vance to remain at his post despite the allegations that had been brought to his attention. Worse yet, he even gave General Vance a raise.
When the story was reported in the media and everyone started to realize what happened, the minister said that the ombudsman had not talked to the right person. He started blaming the ombudsman. It seems that the ombudsman should not have gone to the minister to talk to him about his chief of the defence staff.
The ombudsman, however, told us that the only person he could go see was the Minister of Defence. That was then confirmed by the next ombudsman, who said that he would have done exactly the same thing in his predecessor's shoes. The minister was in trouble. Then, the minister claimed that he was unaware of the sexual nature of the allegations.
The government was no better. The Prime Minister also claimed he was unaware. In the end it came out that some employees of the Privy Council Office and the Prime Minister's Office were in fact aware. Then the Prime minister reiterated that he was unaware, but we were right to say that his office was aware. Finally, the Prime Minister was unaware, but his office and the PCO were aware. The Prime Minister then clarified that he and his office were unaware of the sexual nature of the allegations. That was also later denied.
Unfortunately, it is all one big mess right now, since the government's story changes as the situation evolves. We keep learning more. Even if it turns out that more people were aware, the situation is still not resolved.
Allow me to give an overview of the situation. The Minister of National Defence was aware, because the ombudsman told him. However, the minister refused to look at the documents, take meaningful action or conduct an investigation. The chief of staff to the Minister of Defence was aware. The clerk of the Privy Council was aware. Elder Marques, an adviser to the Prime Minister, was aware. The Prime Minister's chief of staff was aware, and she was the one who apparently told Elder Marques, according to his testimony. All of these people were aware, but the Prime Minister was not.
It becomes harder and harder to believe the Liberals when this is what they are telling us, especially when they are doing everything they can to prevent people from testifying in committee.
The meeting that the Standing Committee on National Defence was supposed to hold this week was unilaterally cancelled by the committee chair. Before that, the government was filibustering to try to kill as much time as possible in committee so that the chief of staff would not be able to come testify and tell us what she knew.
Every time we invite a new witness, we learn that someone else was also aware of the situation. Perhaps we have gotten to the last step before finding out that the Prime Minister knew as well. Perhaps Ms. Telford would have had no choice but to tell us that the Prime Minister was aware or perjure herself. By all indications, that is where we were headed. It is getting harder and harder to believe that the Prime Minister was not aware when everyone else was. Their whole story is getting harder to believe.
Speaking of hard to believe, it is important that we come back to the Minister of National Defence. When we asked him why he did not act and look at the information being presented to him, he answered that he wanted to avoid political interference. In his view, reading the documentation and the evidence presented to him would have constituted political interference. That is his story.
However, when we heard from the current ombudsman and his predecessor, both said it absolutely would not have been political interference for him to read the information that was being brought to his attention. That is quite the opposite view. We also asked the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service whether reading the information would have been political interference, and we were told it would not.
After that, the minister stated that it was not up to him to conduct the investigation. Members will notice that the story changed slightly again. First, reading the documents was interference, but then ordering an investigation was also interference. He is therefore claiming that looking at documents constitutes investigating. This reasoning is a bit twisted, but that is the Liberals' reasoning at present.
Looking at documents is now considered the same as conducting an investigation. The mere possibility of looking at the documents and calling for an investigation is no longer even being considered. Interference is being confused with all kinds of terms, in all kinds of ways.
We presented all of these twisted Liberal stories to various committee witnesses, including the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service, and, each time, we were told that it absolutely was not interference to look at documents or to call for an investigation. The only interference there could have been would have been if someone had interfered with the investigation in an attempt to undermine it.
By not doing his job, we could say the minister undermined the investigation and prevented the situation from being resolved so we could get to the bottom of this matter.
After attempting to blame everyone except themselves, the Liberals are now trying to use interference as an excuse for sitting on their hands and not dealing with the problem. The minister has done nothing, just as he did nothing with Justice Deschamps' report. That report was placed on his desk in 2015, six years ago, and the recommendations it contained have yet to be put in place.
The frustrating part is that, last week, the government tried to make everyone forget about all that by making a big show of announcing that it was appointing Justice Arbour to do more or less what Justice Deschamps did six years ago. Basically, it is going back to square one and sweeping all that under the rug. That is frustrating because it could have chosen to act on the recommendations in the Deschamps report now. Instead, it is kicking the can down the road and trying to convince people that it is doing something when the truth is that nothing is being done. Ultimately, the minister is refusing to admit that he is responsible for this situation.
One can sense the panic. The government would have us believe it is doing something revolutionary by doing the same thing that was done six years ago. In the end, all of that came to naught. After pretending they had no idea what was going on, the governing Liberals, like the minister, tried to blame everyone but themselves. Now that their backs are to the wall, they are blaming the system and are incapable of taking responsibility for failing to take action. That is deeply disappointing.
I am sure that, when Canadian Armed Forces members and civilians realize the government did nothing and tolerated people doing these things, with all the blame—
View Lindsay Mathyssen Profile
NDP (ON)
View Lindsay Mathyssen Profile
2021-05-04 11:37 [p.6596]
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for North Island—Powell River.
I have spent the last few months as a member of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women hearing powerful testimony from many survivors about their experiences within the Canadian Armed Forces. Sadly, I have also heard from those in positions of power that the systems, which have let so many women down, are in place and they are working. We have heard both in contradiction.
Earlier this year, after hearing brave servicewomen publicly share their stories, I felt compelled to bring forward a motion at the status of women committee that started the study of sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces. I knew that the defence committee was studying the specifics of what happened regarding the Minister of National Defence's refusal to act on the allegations against General Vance and what went wrong with the process. With my motion, we on the status of women committee would focus on the women. We would hear their voices and work to put together what they needed to be able to truly serve their country equally.
We heard some heartbreaking evidence. We learned some gut-wrenching details. We heard witnesses openly contradict each other. We heard people in leadership deny that there is any problem. We also heard from some willing to work for change. So many people wrote to me desperately looking to me for that change and I desperately want to get it for them. However, will this motion today provide them with what they deserve and need? No, I do not believe it will. Do not get me wrong, I believe wholeheartedly that sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces needs to be openly discussed. It is our job in this place and in committees to ensure that we work toward a new culture for servicemen and women. That is why I brought forward that study at status of women committee.
The issue of sexual misconduct in the Canadian Forces is fundamentally about equality. As long as the sexualized culture that tolerates sexual misconduct remains in place, no one can serve equally. I and my New Democratic colleagues cannot support this Conservative motion because it would let the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence off the hook for their failure to act in 2018 until this date and would place the blame on one woman, saying she was responsible for the entire failure.
The defence committee needs to hear from the Prime Minister's chief of staff. Hearing one final witness will not unduly delay the work of the committee, especially if the result is that either the Minister of National Defence or Prime Minister finally takes responsibility. Pinning all of this on one woman is not right. In our democratic system, we elect political officials whose job it is to take responsibility. I cannot begin to express how incredibly disappointed I am to see how something that originally came to our attention from a brave woman trying to have her voice heard and her request for justice has devolved into a competition between the Liberals and Conservatives of who is worse when it comes to following an investigative process, a process that is clearly broken. Whenever the Liberals and Conservatives get involved in a debate about who failed survivors first or who failed survivors more, this does not serve the interests of survivors.
I am so proud to serve in this Parliament and to work with my colleague, the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, on this issue. He serves on the defence committee and I want to quote him from last Friday's meeting because I cannot express it any clearer than he did when he said:
We have failed the survivors of sexual assault in the Canadian military. All of us have failed them by not getting policies in place not just to support them—because I think that's looking at the wrong end of the problem—but to change the culture and prevent there being such an inordinately large number of victims of sexual assault in the Canadian military.
When it comes to the issue of sexual misconduct, trust in the leadership of the Canadian Forces and the government is broken, but without restoring that trust, women in the forces cannot have confidence that true change will occur. Political leaders must show that they understand sexual misconduct and they will take action against it, but, sadly, we have seen no such leadership and no such action.
In fact, no action was taken against General Vance when he faced multiple allegations of sexual misconduct. Instead, he was appointed chief of the defence staff by the Conservatives and his term as CDS was extended by the Liberals, who also gave him a positive performance evaluation that resulted in a pay raise. The Conservatives placed him in charge of Operation Honour, the program that was supposed to root out sexual misconduct. He was left in charge of the program by the Liberals for three more years after they learned of sexual misconduct allegations.
No responsibility was taken when the Minister of National Defence was offered evidence of sexual misconduct by Vance from the military ombudsperson. Instead, he refused to look at it and referred it to the Prime Minister's Office, but no investigation took place and Vance remained in office. No amount of arguing about whether procedures were followed can disguise that fact.
The government failed to implement the key recommendations of Justice Deschamps' 2015 report, it failed to listen to the report from the Auditor General in 2018, and it did nothing with the report on this same issue from the Standing Committee on the Status of Women in 2019. The question is now whether the government will listen to and implement the recommendations from a second review of sexual misconduct.
The government has brought in task force after working group after committee, and now a review. This is a diversion. I certainly respect Justice Louise Arbour and have no doubt she will make a useful contribution, but there are outstanding recommendations by Justice Deschamps that could be acted on now. The issue of sexual misconduct is getting the attention it deserves finally. I have heard from current and former women members in the Canadian Armed Forces, and they hope now is the time there will be action. It amazes me that, after what these women have experienced and currently experience, they still have so much hope. They have made it clear we do not need more reports, more task forces or more empty apologies or promises. The only direction the government can take now is action. The current government has never seen a problem it cannot fix with a report. It believes that with one or more studies the problem is solved.
We all know, and I hope members of the government know as well, that only action will solve this problem. To my Conservative colleagues, I want to say that the firing of Ms. Telford will not solve this problem either. Only political will, leadership and courage to take action will create the change our servicemen and servicewomen in the Canadian Armed Forces need and deserve.
At the centre of this scandal and this problem is power. There is a quote from Aung San Suu Kyi: “It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.” We have a government that will do anything to hold onto power, that will hide behind others and behind processes, that will use excuse after excuse, and that will not take responsibility, because it may limit their power or they may lose it. We have leadership at the top of the command structure of the Canadian Armed Forces who thought they were untouchable, and this is not just about General Vance, but about that entire culture and the generations that have seen its growth and that scourge of power spread.
Now, it seems impossible to change, for so many have been subject to it. That power has infected all relationships and workplaces. Sexual misconduct is about power, fear and punishment, but it is clear to me that the harder we cling on to power for the sake of power, the more we lose and that the only solution for us is to redistribute that power. The path toward equality in the Canadian Armed Forces, for women to be able to serve their country equally, is for all to share power. That is a culture change we need to see in both institutions: the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Parliament. When the Conservative party introduces that motion, I will support it.
View Alex Ruff Profile
CPC (ON)
View Alex Ruff Profile
2021-05-04 12:06 [p.6601]
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the Conservative House leader.
Today, I will talk about three key issues. First, as the previous speaker just talked about, is accountability. The next is the actions we need to take to better understand where the process failed and how we collectively move forward. Finally, I will talk about leadership and unfortunate leadership failure in dealing with this situation.
I will talk about the accountability aspects first for both the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence.
The government has gone to great lengths to talk about ministerial accountability. I agree. Being accountable includes taking ownership of a respective department, office or staff.
When we talk about the Minister of National Defence, he is the one responsible for the whole of the department, including being the direct supervisor of the chief of defence staff and the ombudsman. He has talked at length about not interfering politically and respecting the independence of any investigation. I fully agree. I have personally been very vocal about the current Prime Minister's political interference historically with the independence of the prosecution and judiciary with the SNC-Lavalin affair, and how this was a great failure and should have never happened.
However, in the case we are debating today, the minister has forgotten that, as the direct supervisor of both the chief of defence staff and ombudsman, this goes beyond just the political realm. Further, there is a fundamental difference in ensuring that an investigation occurs and interfering in said investigation or even doing the investigation themselves.
The parliamentary secretary in her speech earlier during the debate, as other Liberal members have, stated that the Liberal government apparently followed the exact same process as the previous Conservative government. This is absolutely false.
Under the previous Conservative government, both the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service and the national security adviser were both involved, and investigations actually did occur in response to rumours. This did not happen at all with this current case with the Liberal government. The only thing that happened was a passing of the buck to the PCO and the clerk of the Privy Council, and nothing further occurred despite actually having an actual allegation presented to the ombudsman. In fact, the only thing that did occur was the chief of the defence staff getting his mandate extended, getting a raise and eventually becoming the longest-serving chief of defence staff in history.
The bottom line is that the Minister of National Defence admitted on March 12 in committee that he was responsible for the failures of these allegations being investigated, and the minister is accountable. However, really what we are here today for, and the what the motion before us is about, is to debate the lack of accountability in the Prime Minister's Office.
I have had the fortune and privilege of commanding hundreds of Canada's finest. I have been a chief of staff both in Afghanistan and Iraq along with holding other key staff appointments. When I was in charge, I always reminded my staff that I could only do my job if they kept me in the loop. The line I used to use was, “I can only stop the manure from rolling downhill if I know about it. If I don't know about it, it is really hard to stop it.” However, when I was the chief of staff, my primary job was to keep the boss, the commander, in the loop, and this is what we are really talking about today.
In fact, we all know in this specific case that the office of the Minister of National Defence, the Privy Council Office, the Prime Minister's Office and the Prime Minister's chief of staff all knew about sexual misconduct allegations, yet somehow we are led to believe that the Prime Minister himself did not know. Based on this, I think we are faced with only two possible conclusions: either the Prime Minister did know about these allegations or his chief of staff failed to do her job to keep the Prime Minister in the loop. Either way, it speaks to incompetence within the Prime Minister's Office, and the victims of sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces are suffering as a result of these leadership failures.
Next, I want to focus on briefly the way ahead and why it is so important that these failures to hold those accountable are so important to the members of the Canadian Armed Forces.
I have been hearing from countless former colleagues within the forces. They are primarily concerned about the senior leadership both politically and militarily being held to account. They are concerned that if we do not fix it and we do not understand where those actual failures occurred, that there is no moving forward. We can ultimately put any process in place, but if somehow the senior leadership, especially the senior leadership politically, refuses to take action, then I do not know how anything will change moving forward.
It has been talked about before. The Canadian Armed Forces has the Deschamps report. I was there when it came in. Frankly, I was shocked at the length and depth in it of some of the details that occurred. One of the first things I did, being a serving member at the time, was talk to the female colleagues of mine and ask if it was true, if there was that much rampant sexual misconduct.
To be frank, I was shocked and disappointed that in so many cases within the leadership of the Canadian Armed Forces we were still allowing this to occur. I can only speak to the specific positions I was in, and I did everything in my power, but at the same time, I fully admit that I should have done more to create an atmosphere and environment where anybody could come forward with any type of allegation.
Ultimately what we are debating today is that if these allegations, especially against somebody like the chief of the defence staff, do not get properly investigated and concluded, then we cannot move ahead. This is not about pronouncing guilt or innocence; this is about actually doing a proper investigation. It is all about this cover-up that is creating all the problems.
I do not disagree with the previous member's comments that the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence are ultimately responsible. However, in this case, if we take the Prime Minister at his word that he did not know, ultimately he needs to now show leadership, make the tough choice and remove those within his office who are preventing him from doing his job as the Prime Minister.
This is all about trust and accountability. The members of the Canadian Armed Forces, particularly the victims of sexual misconduct and harassment, need to know that they can have faith in both the senior political and military leadership to ensure this does not happen again going forward.
I do agree with the member for North Island—Powell River that more action is required. However, first, leaders, in this case the Prime Minister, need to show leadership, be accountable and find out why this failure occurred from his chief of the defence staff.
View Brenda Shanahan Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I would like to share my time with the member for Hochelaga.
Every member of the defence team is entitled to be treated with respect and dignity in the workplace. It is also the responsibility of every member of the defence team, regardless of rank, position or title, even the top brass, to treat those around them with dignity and respect. We know now that this expectation is not enough.
Without rapid, decisive action, without strict enforcement and without accountability, sexual misconduct and harassment within the defence team will never be truly eliminated. We need to take a long, hard look at where our policies and initiatives failed. We have to learn from those we failed. We have to listen to them and make changes that really take our people and their needs and diverse backgrounds into account.
Last week, the Minister of National Defence launched an independent, external, comprehensive review of his department and the Canadian Armed Forces. I appreciate this opportunity to share details about this review with the House, including its aim, how it will be conducted and what it means for the defence team.
There is a pressing need for accountability and review at every level of the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence, not only from individual to individual and rank to rank, but also at the organizational level, by reviewing the policies and practices of the defence team and evaluating their efficacy at eradicating sexual misconduct and harassment.
The review that was announced last week will play a critical role in this analysis. It has several aims. We want to know why harassment and sexual misconduct persist within the Canadian Armed Forces despite considerable, concerted efforts to eradicate them. We want to identify barriers to reporting inappropriate behaviour. We want to know if the response is adequate when reports of misconduct are made. We want this information to be used to make recommendations on preventing and eradicating harassment and sexual misconduct in our armed forces for once and for all.
The Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces have chosen Louise Arbour to lead the review of the defence team's policies and culture. Madame Arbour's review will build on the report prepared by former justice Marie Deschamps, but it is not at all the same thing. Madame Deschamps's report made 10 key recommendations to address and eliminate sexual misconduct and harassment, but that was not enough.
Since then, the defence team has taken many important steps to implement Madame Deschamps's recommendations. Madame Arbour's review will build on the important work done by Madame Deschamps but will examine the issues from a broader perspective in order to help the defence team chart a path forward.
Madame Arbour's experience as a former Supreme Court justice puts her in an ideal position to carry out this review in a completely impartial manner. She will work independently from the chain of command of the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence in order to remain neutral and ensure that the important work she is being asked to do will not be subject to any political influence. I think that we all agree that that would be inappropriate. Do my hon. colleagues not agree with me?
Madame Arbour's review will examine the policies, procedures and practices of the defence team. She will attempt to determine where the defence team's efforts to address and eradicate the problem of sexual misconduct and harassment are falling short. She will determine how these efforts must be strengthened and improved.
As part of her review, she will consider all relevant independent reviews concerning the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces. This includes evaluating the progress made by the defence team in implementing Justice Deschamps's recommendations. This evaluation will be coordinated with the Hon. Morris J. Fish, who is overseeing the review of the National Defence Act. The reports of the Auditor General and other internal audits will also have to be taken into consideration. She will examine their findings and recommendations.
In addition to considering these existing reviews, she will also evaluate organizational practices that, if effectively re-evaluated, could help prevent incidents of sexual misconduct. These practices include the recruitment, training, performance evaluation, posting and promotion systems of the Canadian Armed Forces.
She will also evaluate the policies, procedures and practice of the military justice system dealing with harassment and sexual misconduct.
More importantly, the review will be based on the views, accounts and experiences of current and former members of the defence team. All concerned members of the defence team deserve to be heard. Those who wish to share their experiences will be invited to provide input for Madame Arbour's review. Their names will remain anonymous. Madame Arbour will conduct her review without referring to specific cases of harassment or sexual misconduct in order to protect their privacy.
Her review will focus on women and members of the LGBTQ2+ community so that the defence team gains a better understanding of their perspectives and experiences. She will work with the Advisory Panel on Systemic Racism, Discrimination, LGBTQ2 Prejudice, Gender Bias and White Supremacy to reduce any unintended duplication of efforts.
Madame Arbour will put all this testimony together to identify signs that the defence team's culture promotes silence and complicity, how fear of reprisal acts as a barrier to reporting harassment and sexual misconduct, and any indication that the defence team's policies were applied inconsistently across the organization, as in the case of political influence in the appointment of General Jonathan Vance in 2015. As a matter of fact, even though there were rumours about him being the subject of an active investigation by the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service, the party opposite still appointed Jonathan Vance chief of the defence staff. All these factors will inform Madame Arbour's recommendations to the minister, the deputy minister and the Chief of the defence Staff.
Accountability and transparency are key to changing the culture and eradicating sexual misconduct and harassment in the defence team. These are the guiding principles of Madame Arbour's investigation. She will provide monthly progress reports to the Minister of National Defence, as well as interim assessments and recommendations. All of these assessments will be made public, as will the draft and final review reports.
Madame Arbour's reports will include a review of the defence team's policies and procedures, the causes and effects of barriers to reporting inappropriate behaviour, and an assessment of the sexual misconduct response centre's mandate and activities, independence from the chain of command and response to reports of sexual misconduct.
Madame Arbour will also make key recommendations on the following points: preventing and eradicating harassment and sexual misconduct in the defence team, removing barriers to reporting, and establishing an external oversight body dedicated to resolving these types of incidents.
Once Madame Arbour has submitted her preliminary review to the organization, the minister, deputy minister and chief of the defence staff will have 30 days to respond to her findings and recommendations. Their responses and Madame Arbour's final review report will all be made public.
That is how we are creating the changes needed that—
View Michael Barrett Profile
CPC (ON)
Mr. Speaker, this afternoon I will be splitting my time with the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London.
This subject we are discussing today is of tremendous importance. We are talking of course about the situation arising from an epidemic of sexual misconduct in the Canadian Forces and a failure of government to address it.
We know in 2015 the Deschamps report was released, and after taking government in 2015, the current government was able to act on all the recommendations that were made by retired Supreme Court Justice Deschamps with respect to sexual misconduct in the Canadian Forces.
Here we are six years later, and amidst a political crisis the Liberal government is proposing a new review conducted by another retired Supreme Court judge into sexual misconduct in the Canadian Forces.
In 2018, the ombudsman for the CAF was made aware of allegations of sexual misconduct perpetrated by the then chief of the defence staff, the top soldier in the Canadian Forces, the top of the chain of command, so the ombudsman took these serious allegations to the minister responsible, the Minister of National Defence.
When the ombudsman advised the minister specifically this complaint and these allegations were of a sexual nature, that it was sexual misconduct, the Minister of National Defence heard it and then pushed away from the table. Following that meeting, he then made sure that information was passed to the Prime Minister's Office. We know from documents that the Prime Minister's chief of staff, Ms. Katie Telford, was made aware of the nature of these allegations of sexual misconduct alleged to have been perpetrated by the chief of the defence staff, Canada's top general, against one of his subordinates.
No more grievous a breach of trust or offence against those who have committed to serve could the CDS make than this. Members of our Canadian Forces serve our country under what is known as “unlimited liability”. That means they can be given lawful orders to enter harm's way that could result in their death in service to this country. When they take their oath and agree to serve under unlimited liability, they expect rightly that not only will they be protected with all means possible and available by the chain of command, by the chief of the defence staff, they also rightfully expect their chain of command, Canada's top soldier, will not be the one who is taking action that would injure them or cause irreparable harm. Certainly not that they would perpetrate acts of a sexual nature in an inappropriate way.
The men and women of Canada's armed forces deserve to have a system much like is outlined in the Deschamps report of March 2015 that gives them the assurance they can serve their country without having to be subjected to sexual misconduct, harassment, crimes and other actions of a sexual nature particularly by their chain of command, by those senior to them.
The power imbalance in the military is textbook of course in what a power imbalance looks like because it is codified in the rank of those who serve, with the chief of the defence staff being at the top of that chain.
When those complaints brought to the ombudsman in 2018 were then given to the Prime Minister's chief of staff, action was required. Action was required by the Prime Minister's Office. The Prime Minister's Office had failed to act on those 2015 recommendations.
After years of lessons learned, and victims and survivors having to endure the system in the Canadian Armed Forces, those recommendations were made, and the government failed to act.
Then, in the face of those new allegations, again the government failed to act. What is worse, the Prime Minister has said he was not informed that there was this complaint and that his office did not know that it was a complaint of a sexual nature, that it was a #MeToo allegation. The facts simply do not support that contention. We know that Ms. Telford knew the nature of these allegations.
If the Prime Minister is to be believed, then we understand that along with the Minister of National Defence, the Prime Minister's chief of staff orchestrated a cover-up to protect the Prime Minister and to protect the aggressor, the individual alleged to have committed these offences, the then chief of the defence staff. This is unacceptable.
It is unacceptable that we ask everything, up to and including the lives of those who serve our country in uniform, and the accountability, or lack of accountability, that we are getting from the government does not even amount to a single person being fired for covering up this sexual misconduct.
The women and men in our Canadian Armed Forces deserve better. We owe it to them. We owe it to them to implement the recommendations from retired Supreme Court Justice Deschamps' report in 2015, before we embark on another review. Let us implement those. That is responsible. That is showing that we are listening. That is showing that we are acting. That is showing that are we standing up for victims, for those women and men who come forward, and those who have not come forward.
We know that simply failing to act because there is silence is tacit approval of the behaviour we know is going on behind closed doors. We have seen that with the suspensions and resignations of some of Canada's top soldiers.
The Canadian Armed Forces is a tremendously proud organization, and we should, as Canadians, be so proud of the women and men who serve and who have served. This is certainly the least we can do. We must hold those in the highest offices in this country to account.
If the Prime Minister's chief of staff orchestrated or participated in a cover-up to protect her boss, the Prime Minister, and to protect the Chief of the Defence Staff, so as to avoid an embarrassing political situation, then the Prime Minister must fire her. Then we need to hear from the Minister of National Defence about what he is prepared to do, how he is prepared to be accountable for what has happened.
The recommendations in 2015 were clear, the actions that the government failed to take in response to the evidence that was given to the ombudsman and the action that it did in covering it up is a blight. It is a stain on the government. It is a shame not worthy of the victims and survivors who brought that forward.
We are all very proud, and I am very proud, of our women and men in uniform. However, we need to demonstrate that pride with our actions. We need to demonstrate that this organization, those women and men, are worth protecting, that they are worth acting on the report that came out in 2015, that we do not have a government that is trying to trick Canadians into confusing motion for action. It is inappropriate to commission a new report without acting on the first report that was commissioned in 2015. We owe the victims that much.
It is time to demonstrate our pride and fulfill our commitment to the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces, like they do for us every day. The government needs to do that by taking action and holding people accountable for covering up serious allegations of sexual misconduct in our Canadian Armed Forces. It is absolutely the bare minimum we can do for the women and men of our Canadian Forces, and that is what we will be voting for on this motion.
View Kamal Khera Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Kamal Khera Profile
2021-05-04 13:42 [p.6614]
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my good friend, the member of Parliament for Oakville North—Burlington, whom I have the privilege of working alongside on so many issues, including in committee on public safety.
Once again, I am thankful for the opportunity to rise today to address the House on a subject that concerns all of us: the well-being of the members of our Canadian Armed Forces and those who support them.
In recent months, Canadians have heard the heart-wrenching accounts of Canadian Armed Forces members and civilian colleagues who have been subjected to behaviours, treatment and experiences that are completely unacceptable. For far too long, their accounts have been ignored.
For instance, opposition members knew of the rumours against General Vance in 2015, yet still appointed him. They appointed him while there was an active Canadian Forces national investigation service investigation into him, and appointed him to the most senior position within the Canadian Armed Forces. The current leader of the official opposition said that he passed along sexual misconduct rumours about General Vance in 2015, claiming those were looked into. I ask my fellow Conservative members, how is this possible, if General Vance was appointed at the same time and the investigation was suddenly dropped?
What our members have endured is wrong. The Canadian Armed Forces is entrusted to keep Canadians safe at home and abroad. The organization owes survivors more. Every Canadian Armed Forces member makes enormous personal sacrifices to protect Canadians and, regardless of rank or gender identity, has an undeniable right to serve in safety. We must and we will live up to that expectation.
The Minister of National Defence has always followed the processes that were put in place when allegations were brought to his attention. This is something he has said publicly, in this House, and it is something he will continue to do. However, as members have no doubt heard from my hon. colleagues, our government is taking important steps to address systemic misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces to bring about cultural change within the organization.
The need to change the military's culture is born of the reality that the lived experiences of many defence team members are completely out of line with the values professed within the organization and by the organization, which are values of integrity, inclusion and accountability. That needs to change, and we are committed to bringing about that change.
If we want that change to be significant, if we want it to be meaningful and if we want it to last, then we need to reflect honestly on what has been happening. Where we find failings and fault, we must accept responsibility. Where we are able to learn lessons, we must seize the opportunity to build a better organization. Where members of the defence team share their accounts and experiences, we must listen and we must listen very carefully.
The end goal is simple. It is to ensure that every member of the defence team, every member of the Canadian Armed Forces is valued and respected. Defence culture and professional conduct must reflect the core values and ethical principles our military aspires to uphold as a national institution, which is what Canadian Armed Forces members, veterans, recruits, public servants and Canadians deserve and expect of the organization.
It is clear that the measures we have taken already since forming government have not gone far enough and have not moved fast enough. This is why we announced last week that Madame Arbour will conduct an independent review into the Canadian Armed Forces, including the creation of an external reporting system that is independent from the chain of command and meets the needs of those impacted by sexual misconduct and violence. It is also why, in budget 2021, we committed over $236 million to eliminate sexual misconduct and gender-based violence in the Canadian Armed Forces, including expanding the reach of the sexual misconduct response centre and providing online and in-person peer-to-peer support. All options to create a safer future for women serving in the Canadian Armed Forces are going to be considered to change the culture of toxic masculinity that exists in the Canadian Armed Forces.
Last Thursday, the Minister of National Defence announced the creation of a new organization to lead us there. Among the many other initiatives I just talked about, the Department of National Defence appointed Lieutenant-General Jennie Carignan as DND's new chief of professional conduct and culture. Under her leadership, the professional conduct and culture organization will unify, integrate and coordinate all of the policies, programs and activities that address systemic misconduct and support culture change within the forces. The organization will include a new assistant deputy minister who will directly support Lieutenant-General Carignan. The team will bring together members from all ranks and classifications, reflecting the diversity that Canadians expect. Make no mistake. This is not a generic prepackaged solution to a long-standing problem. Before any future steps are taken, those working to bring about change will actively listen to the accounts of people affected, people at every rank, every level and across all regions of this country.
As so many members of the defence team have already shared experiences and recommendations, we do not have to wait before implementing a number of much-needed changes. Lieutenant-General Carignan and her team will take a number of steps to bring about change right away. To start, they will wrap up Operation Honour. Much has already been said about drawing this initiative to a close, but it bears repeating. Lieutenant-General Carignan and her team will review all of the research conducted under Operation Honour so its findings can inform renewed culture change efforts.
This new team will also develop mechanisms to implement the workplace harassment and violence prevention regulations of Bill C-65. It will also support ongoing efforts to bring the remaining provisions of Bill C-77 into force. This includes introducing the declaration of victims rights into the National Defence Act.
The next order of business will be to form a team to establish a framework that will help achieve a number of longer-term goals. It will realign responsibilities, policies and programs that address elements of systemic misconduct across National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces. It will also simplify and enhance misconduct reporting mechanisms, including for people outside of the chain of command. It will give greater agency to, and strengthen support mechanisms for, those who have experienced misconduct. It will enhance tracking mechanisms, from initial reports of the misconduct to case closures. It will also integrate additional data points, such as intersectionality, reprisals, member satisfaction and retention. Finally, it will lead institutional efforts to develop a professional conduct and culture framework that tackles all types of harmful behaviour, biases and systemic barriers.
So much work has already been done within the department to build healthy, safe and inclusive workplaces. So many organizations are focused on developing programs and policies to move us in the right direction, whether it is the gender-based analysis plus, the integrated conflict and complaint management program, the anti-racism secretariat, the Canadian Armed Forces diversity strategy, Canada's anti-racism strategy or Canada's national action plan on women, peace and security.
The professional conduct and culture organization is being established with the clear understanding that previous culture change efforts have fallen short of what was needed. With the standing up of this new organization, the defence team is taking a fundamentally different approach, an approach that will be more holistic and coherent in addressing the complex challenges faced by the Canadian Armed Forces.
In closing, I would like to reiterate our deepest concern for the well-being of every member of the Canadian defence team. The standing up of the professional conduct and culture organization is a testament to our genuine commitment to protect members of the Canadian Armed Forces. Our government has shown that we are dedicated and committed to creating a lasting culture change across the defence team. That is the goal, and we will do just that.
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