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Results: 16 - 30 of 242
View James Bezan Profile
CPC (MB)
Madam Speaker, if the member really wants to help victims of sexual misconduct in the military, she would quit obstructing the national defence committee's work.
There is a growing wave of consensus that the Minister of National Defence is ill-suited to implement the changes needed to end sexual misconduct since he has already failed to protect our women and men in uniform. Military sexual assault survivor Stéphanie Raymond said the defence minister “has missed too many opportunities to act. Unfortunately, he too is part of the problem [if] he continues to camouflage, or to be complicit by omission.” She also states, “The minister, basically, I think he should perhaps leave his functions.”
When will the Prime Minister do the right thing and show the defence minister the door?
View Anita Vandenbeld Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Anita Vandenbeld Profile
2021-06-18 11:30 [p.8769]
Madam Speaker, we will take no lessons from the Conservatives, who, while under the Harper government, appointed a chief of the defence staff who was under active investigation by the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service. If the Conservatives were serious about this issue, they would support budget 2021 and the $236 million dedicated to combatting and eradicating sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces.
As for the committee, Liberal members have asked 20 times for the committee to adjourn debate so we can move on to the reports, but the opposition has refused.
View James Bezan Profile
CPC (MB)
Madam Speaker, a scathing Toronto Star editorial said, “One of the minor mysteries of Ottawa in the spring of 2021 is why on earth [the defence minister] is still Canada’s minister of national defence. [His] credibility has been so thoroughly shredded by the sexual misconduct scandals paralyzing the Canadian Forces”. Sexual misconduct expert Megan MacKenzie from Simon Fraser University said the defence minister has “zero credibility” on sexual misconduct.
Why will the Prime Minister not fire the Minister of National Defence?
View Anita Vandenbeld Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Anita Vandenbeld Profile
2021-06-18 11:31 [p.8770]
Madam Speaker, the Minister of National Defence is an inspirational trailblazer and ally who we are absolutely proud to have on our team. He has spent his career breaking down barriers to inclusion. The minister has lived a life of service to Canadians, whether that was during his time in the Canadian Armed Forces, as a member of the Vancouver Police Department or now as a cabinet minister.
This House and Canada are better for the service of the Minister of National Defence.
View Cheryl Gallant Profile
CPC (ON)
Madam Speaker, the defence minister has been without honour from the start.
First he let the Prime Minister destroy Vice-Admiral Norman, then he falsely claimed he was the architect of Operation Medusa. He took the honour out of the operation to combat sexual misconduct in the military, and now he has put the honour of our country at risk by claiming he did not know about our soldiers being ordered to train war criminals, when the report about it was sent three years ago.
Why won’t the Prime Minister do the honourable thing and fire this minister?
View Anita Vandenbeld Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Anita Vandenbeld Profile
2021-06-18 11:51 [p.8774]
Madam Speaker, I am very disappointed by the viciousness of the tone in the House we have seen yesterday and today. I would like to review the track record of service to Canada and Canadians of this Minister of National Defence. He has over two decades of service in the Canadian Armed Forces, including four tours of duty, with three in Afghanistan, for which he was awarded the Order of Military Merit, the Meritorious Service Medal, the NATO Service Medal and others. He also served for over a decade as an officer in the Vancouver Police Department. I thank the Minister of National Defence for his service.
View James Bezan Profile
CPC (MB)
moved:
That, given that the Minister of National Defence has clearly lost the respect of members of the Canadian Armed Forces, including those at the highest ranks, for, amongst other things,
(i) misleading Canadians on the withdrawal of fighter jets in the fight against ISIS,
(ii) misleading Canadians about his service record,
(iii) presiding over the wrongful accusation and dismissal of Vice-Admiral Norman,
(iv) engaging in a cover-up of sexual misconduct allegations in the Canadian Armed Forces,
the House formally censure the Minister of National Defence to express the disappointment of the House of Commons in his conduct.
View James Bezan Profile
CPC (MB)
Mr. Speaker, I hope this is the final time I will have to address the House virtually. I look forward to being in Ottawa next week and hope very much that we will be back to normal sessions come the fall.
I will be splitting my time with the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.
I just have to say that this is a rare measure that we are requesting of all members of the House of Commons to censure the Minister of National Defence. The last time anyone was censured in the House was back in 2002, and it has come to this point, because the Minister of National Defence has refused to do the honourable thing and resign, and the Prime Minister has refused to do the right thing and fire the Minister of National Defence. Essentially, that leaves it up to us in the House of Commons to censure the minister going forward, until the voters of Vancouver South have an opportunity to express their displeasure in the upcoming federal election.
I also just want to say to the Speaker, who has stepped into the chair, knowing that he has announced that he will not be running in the next federal election, how much I have appreciated his strength in the chair and his friendship over the years as we served together. I wish him all the best in his future endeavours, enjoying more time with his family.
When we look at this motion, we have to look at the litany of misleading comments made by the Minister of National Defence over his tenure since 2015. I think all of us are all too familiar with the travesty of the wrongful accusations and the decision by the minister to go on a witch hunt to stop the procurement of the Asterix for the Royal Canadian Navy, and how he threw retired Vice-Admiral Mark Norman under the bus. We know that through 2017 and into 2018, this escalated to a ridiculous level and ended up in the courts. The case, of course, was thrown out by the judge, because there just was not any evidence for it. It was an unnecessary attack on the honourable service and great reputation of a strong military leader, Vice-Admiral Mark Norman.
However, we have to go back to the very beginning of the minister's tenure and look at what happened with his politically motivated withdrawal of our CF-18s from the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The minister was over there meeting with the Government of Iraq, as well as Kurdish officials in Erbil, and he told CBC on December 21, 2015, that he had not had one discussion about withdrawing our CF-18s from the fight. However, an access to information request on the record of a wire message in reference to the Minister of National Defence's meeting with the Iraqi minister of defence on December 20, 2015, just the day before he made that statement, says, “the Iraqi Minister of Defence was clearly focused on Canada's decision to withdraw its CF18 fighter jets from the coalition air strikes, asking [our Minister of National Defence] to reconsider this decision on numerous occasions”. That was the very first step in the minister's very misleading comments to the media and to Canadians.
We should not be surprised, because we also know that the minister, back in July 2015 when he was running to be a member of Parliament for the first time, claimed on a local B.C. program, Conversations That Matter, that he was the architect of Operation Medusa in Afghanistan. He reiterated that in April 2017, when he was at a conference in New Delhi on conflict prevention and peace keeping in a changing world. He again said that he was the architect of Operation Medusa.
Of course, he was a major back then and had numerous members in the command chain above him who were making the decisions, and there is no doubt that he provided great input and intelligence into how Operation Medusa was conducted, but to claim that he was more than the team is something that is not well regarded within the Canadian Armed Forces or by veterans across this country, and the minister had to apologize.
We also saw the minister take a shot at me back in 2017 over the cuts to tax-free allowances for forces members serving in Operation Impact while stationed in Kuwait at Camp Arifjan at that time. He claimed that it was the Conservative government that had taken away the tax-free allowance. I was able to get up on a question of privilege to point out that the initial assessments were made under the current Liberal government, and those cuts were made by this minister to hardship pay that was in effect back in 2014-15. Again, there was a finding that he misled the House.
Now, the most egregious of all of this, and the one that is really rocking our Canadian Armed Forces right now, is, of course, the crisis of sexual misconduct. I will point out and ask the question: What do the Somalia affair, the decade of darkness and the crisis of sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces today have in common? It all comes down to weak Liberal leadership.
We know that when the news broke that retired General Jonathan Vance, the former chief of the defence staff, had issues of sexual misconduct raised in March 2018, the Minister of National Defence said at committee on February 19 of this year that he was “as shocked as everyone else at the allegations that were made public two weeks ago”. He was surprised to learn about these allegations, but then at the defence committee on March 3, 2021, the former ombudsman for national defence and the Canadian Armed Forces, Gary Walbourne, said at committee that “I personally met with [the minister] to address an allegation of inappropriate sexual behaviour within the senior ranks of the Canadian Armed Forces, specifically, against the chief of the defence staff, and to discuss my concerns about this allegation. This meeting happened on March 1, 2018.” That was three years before the story became news, when the minister was briefed by Gary Walbourne.
Gary Walbourne went on to say at committee that:
I did tell the minister what the allegation was. I reached into my pocket to show him the evidence I was holding, and he pushed back from the table and said, “No.” I don't think we exchanged another word.
The minister refused the evidence, and we know that, at the defence committee on March 12, 2021, he then admitted that, “I did meet with Mr. Walbourne”. The ombudsman brought up the concerns, but “He did not give me any details”, is what the minister was claiming. Yet, if we look at all of the information that flowed between the minister's chief of staff, Zita Astravas at the time, up into the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office on March 2, 2018, it all talked about this being a matter of sexual misconduct, which they actually described as “sexual harassment”. Elder Marques, Michael Wernick and Katie Telford, the chief of staff to the Prime Minister, all knew that this was an issue of sexual misconduct.
Therefore, as the minister continues to dodge this and refuses to do the honourable thing and resign, and as long as the Prime Minister continues to back this inept behaviour by the Minister of National Defence and refuses to fire him, it falls upon us as the House of Commons to censure this minister since he has consistently and repeatedly misled the House.
I call upon all members of the House of Commons in all parties to censure this minister for his continued casual relationship with the truth.
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
Lib. (MB)
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
2021-06-17 10:46 [p.8637]
Mr. Speaker, personally, I find it somewhat disgraceful that the opposition Conservative Party would bring a motion of character assassination against someone who I would suggest is a hero.
I will give a specific quote and ask the member to provide his thoughts. Brigadier-General David Fraser, who was in charge of NATO's regional command in south Afghanistan in 2006, said that—
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
Lib. (MB)
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
2021-06-17 10:47 [p.8638]
Mr. Speaker, my apologies to our interpreters.
I want to give a specific quote from Brigadier General David Fraser, who was in charge of NATO's regional command in south Afghanistan in 2006. He wrote:
I must say that Major Sajjan is one of the most remarkable people I have worked with, and his contribution to the success of the mission and the safety of Canadian soldiers was nothing short of remarkable.
Further, it goes on to say:
I rate him as one of the best intelligence officers I have ever worked with—fearless, smart, and personable, and I would not hesitate to have him on my staff at any time in the future.
This is an incredible individual. Why are the Conservatives continuing their attack on character assassination of such individuals who have a proven record, as this minister has?
View James Bezan Profile
CPC (MB)
Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North knows that I am not attacking the minister's service in uniform. As I said in my speech, he had an incredible service, including in Operation Medusa and the intelligence that he collected.
What we are talking about is his lack of action and lack of leadership as the Minister of National Defence over the past six years while he has been in the job. Due to his lack of leadership, because he set such a low bar, leading by example, we have a crisis today with so many of our leaders in the Canadian Armed Forces. We are on our seventh vice-chief of defence staff because of the inept behaviour of the minister over the last six years, and two chiefs of the defence staff who are being investigated for sexual misconduct. This is a direct reflection of the leadership of this minister. That is why he has to go or we have to censure him.
View Monique Pauzé Profile
BQ (QC)
View Monique Pauzé Profile
2021-06-17 10:49 [p.8638]
Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to acknowledge the farewell speech you gave on Tuesday and to tell you that I hope I will still have the chance to work with you on the all-party caucus on the environment until 2023.
That being said, the minister is being criticized for a lot of things, but with regard to the allegations of sexual misconduct against General Vance, he said that the nature of the accusations was not really important and what mattered was the action that was being taken.
However, in 2015, the Deschamps report did recommend actions but when Ms. Deschamps testified in 2021, she said that very little had been done.
In my colleague's view, did the Liberals not deliberately turn a blind eye in this file on allegations of sexual misconduct?
View James Bezan Profile
CPC (MB)
Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member wholeheartedly. The most egregious thing that has happened under the leadership of this Minister of National Defence is that he has failed to move to protect the women and men who serve in uniform. Therefore, we have this crisis of sexual misconduct. The minister sat for six years on Justice Deschamps' report on how to stomp out sexual misconduct. The minister continues to kick the can down the road. He dithers and delays in making any future decisions on how we are to go about stomping out sexual misconduct.
That is why we Conservatives have said that we need to have an independent investigation now. We need to freeze all promotions and salary increases until we figure out a way forward and ensure that there is more representation by women and under-represented minorities within the leadership of the Canadian Armed Forces.
View Heather McPherson Profile
NDP (AB)
View Heather McPherson Profile
2021-06-17 10:51 [p.8638]
Mr. Speaker, would the Conservatives agree with me that an intelligence officer who worked with local Afghan authorities in a leadership role, as was claimed by the Minister of National Defence during his tours in the field, should have known about the alleged torture of prisoners transferred to the Afghan authorities?
View James Bezan Profile
CPC (MB)
Mr. Speaker, the minister has consistently denied having any knowledge of that. We are questioning whether he has been misleading Canadians on sexual misconduct and concerning fighter jets and procurement of supply ships, so I guess it is reasonable to also question whether he was aware of what was happening during the transfer of prisoners in Afghanistan.
It comes down to the nature and conduct of this minister, which is unbecoming of a parliamentarian, a veteran, as well as a Minister of National Defence. That is why we need to censure him.
Results: 16 - 30 of 242 | Page: 2 of 17

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