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Results: 31 - 45 of 242
View Pierre Paul-Hus Profile
CPC (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I take no pleasure in rising in the House today. First, I must mention that the Minister of National Defence and I have something in common: We each served honourably in the Canadian Forces for over twenty years. We both rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel and commanded infantry units. These are the things we have in common. The minister served our country particularly well in the various missions he participated in around the world. I thank him for his service.
However, on October 19, 2015, in the federal election, we chose two different paths. I chose to run as a Conservative Party candidate, while the Minister of National Defence chose to run for the Liberal Party.
Let me remind members what the Liberal Party represents for the Canadian Forces. Let us recall the 10 years of darkness of the Chrétien era, marked by the purchase of used submarines and the cancellation of helicopter contracts, a time when our soldiers did not even have combat boots. That is the path and the party that the minister chose.
From that day on, he and I were no longer soldiers. We were now former military members who had become members of Parliament in the House of Commons, a political office. That is when the minister's problems began.
The first step was in 2015. During the election campaign, a tragedy struck hearts around the world. The body of a little boy washed up on a beach in Italy. He was a Syrian refugee trying to flee Syria, which was under the grip of ISIS. Many refugees were seeking asylum. The Liberals opened up many new spots, and we were all for that. We needed to do something to help those refugees.
However, our country was also engaged in combat. Our armed forces and our air force were in Iraq and Syria fighting the enemy, ISIS. What did this government decide to do when it took office? It pulled our CF-18s out of the bombing campaign against ISIS. It stopped fighting the enemy, the enemy that caused the little boy to wash up on the beach and the Syrian refugees to flee in search of asylum. We could never understand that.
When we say that the minister is hiding the truth or misleading Canadians, we are talking about decisions. When we questioned him at length about the reasons behind the decision to pull our CF-18s out, the minister said that Iraq had agreed to it. Later, in an interview with an Iraqi minister, we learned that that was not true. Iraq was very disappointed with Canada's decision.
The next step was a pivotal point in the career of a very talented military member, Vice-Admiral Norman, who was commander of the Royal Canadian Navy at the time. When he heard that the incoming Liberal government wanted to cancel the Asterix contract that had been awarded by the Conservative government, that was the last straw. Vice-Admiral Norman, a man who worked for his troops, the men and women of the Royal Canadian Navy, knew full well that the Conservative government decision to award the Asterix contract to Davie shipyard was the best solution to fix the problems in the navy.
We knew that the first decision of the Prime Minister and cabinet was to do everything in their power to cancel that contract. Vice-Admiral Norman did everything he could to prevent that from happening, and he paid the political price with his career. All he wanted to do was give the Royal Canadian Navy the tools it needed to do its job properly.
What did the Minister of National Defence do to ensure that the Canadian Armed Forces were operating effectively around the world? That is the duty of a defence minister. It is about ensuring that his troops have the necessary tools to do their job. Instead, the minister contributed to the problem. He helped ensure that Vice-Admiral Norman became persona non grata. He ended up facing serious charges and the RCMP landed on his doorstep. It is appalling.
This man was expected to be the next chief of the defence staff. He was going to be the commander of the Canadian Armed Forces. Instead, he was forced to retire. The government made sure of that by paying Vice-Admiral Norman's legal costs, which remain secret, so that he would just retire and stay quiet and so the whole thing would go away.
Is that the leadership we expect from a minister? Do we expect the minister to always say yes to the Prime Minister's nefarious decisions? A minister must be able to stand up and say that something will not work, that we cannot do that. However, the minister said nothing.
In 2018, the Canadian Armed Forces ombudsman went to the office of the Minister of National Defence to tell him that there was a problem with the chief of the defence staff, General Vance. What did the minister do? He told the ombudsman that he did not want to know about it. The ombudsman was completely taken aback.
The Canadian Armed Forces ombudsman told the minister that a victim had made allegations of sexual misconduct against the chief of the defence staff and that these allegations were not about 30-year-old incidents or incidents involving one too many beers, but were rather very serious allegations about recent incidents. What did the minister do? He did nothing. We learned about this three years later. We just learned about it.
In 2018, during his tenure, the minister chose to hide the information. It gets worse. When the Conservatives were in power, they commissioned a report from Justice Marie Deschamps. She presented her report in 2015, in which she described attitude problems and sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces. What did the Minister of National Defence do with that report? Absolutely nothing.
The full report contained 10 recommendations that the minister could have implemented. He had access to all of the resources and tools he needed to protect women in the Canadian Armed Forces. He could have instituted a process to streamline complaints. That was not done, and we do not know why. We are asking questions, but we will never know.
Why were Justice Deschamps' recommendations never implemented? Was it because, again, the report had been commissioned by the Conservatives? Was it because people did not want these recommendations to be implemented? Was it because people did not want anyone to know? We have no idea.
When all these problems are added together, the situation looks very serious. The Canadian Armed Forces are in turmoil. The head of the armed forces, the former chief of defence staff, is under investigation. The new chief of defence staff, who was in the position for one month, is under investigation. Generals are stepping down. Discipline and sound operations management within the Canadian Forces are evaporating. The soldiers and officers have no one to lead them. What is going on?
On top of that, there is the case of Major-General Dany Fortin, a man I have known for a long time, a great soldier. He was put in charge of Canada's vaccine rollout, and he did an outstanding job. However, a complaint was filed against him. We do not know when or where it came from. Major-General Fortin was not informed of it. The decision was made to push him aside. The story went public, and he ended up getting all sorts of negative attention from the media, the public and the government without knowing what was happening or why. Today, this man is being forced to take legal action against the government and the Prime Minister to defend his reputation. Is that any way to treat the best members of the Canadian Armed Forces?
Major-General Dany Fortin was brought in, in a public way, to help the country get out of the COVID-19 crisis, and how was he treated? He was not informed or even given a chance to explain a situation that may not even be true. We do not know. That is how the defence minister and this government operate, and that is why we can no longer trust the Minister of National Defence.
I would like to remind the House that this has nothing to do with the soldier that the minister used to be. He served his country with distinction. However, he became a member of Parliament and a minister on October 19, 2015, and it has been a catastrophe ever since.
View Michel Boudrias Profile
BQ (QC)
View Michel Boudrias Profile
2021-06-17 11:02 [p.8640]
Mr. Speaker, having also served our country, I too want to thank my colleague for his service in the Canadian Armed Forces, and the minister. We are more or less on the same wavelength when it comes to understanding the issues raised in today's motion.
I would like to ask my colleague about Vice-Admiral Norman, who, as we all know, was tasked by the Conservative government, specifically Minister MacKay, at the time, to manage the Davie project. That matter was the subject of an investigation. The mandate was given in 2015, and the Norman affair blew up in 2017. It took the Conservatives about two years to react because they themselves knew that they had given him a legitimate mandate through Parliament, where we now sit. I would like to know the reason behind the two years of silence on the matter.
Regarding sexual misconduct, the Deschamps report was tabled in 2015, and various committees, including the Standing Committee on National Defence, studied it.
Why did the government not institute mechanisms to bring about positive change and transformation, instead of imputing motives?
That could have fixed the problem.
The other issue was the withdrawal of the CF-18s. The Canadian Armed Forced succeeded in liberating Mosul anyway. I knew that, and so did the Conservatives, so which is it? A success or a failure?
View Pierre Paul-Hus Profile
CPC (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for all his questions. I will take the time to answer at least one or two of them.
With respect to Vice-Admiral Norman, it all started in 2014 and 2015, and we started debating it in 2017. Why was nothing done in the meantime? Because we only learned of the problem on the day the information got out. Ever since that time, we have been asking questions about this matter. We did not wait two years to do so, quite the contrary. As is the case with many files, we could not know everything there was to know. The Liberals have been in government since 2015. Therefore, we did not know any more about it than my colleague, since we did not have access to the documents and communications. As soon as we learned of the matter, we started asking questions.
Regarding the Deschamps report, we will never understand why the government did not implement Marie Deschamps' recommendations as soon as it took office. If it had, things might be different today.
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
Lib. (MB)
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
2021-06-17 11:04 [p.8640]
Mr. Speaker, what I find a bit rich is the degree to which the Conservative opposition party is trying to make this issue about General Vance. In 2015, the current leader of the official opposition was made aware of the rumour. It was serious enough that he asked his staff to notify the Prime Minister's chief of staff, who then took the matter to the Privy Council Office for review.
Does the member not see any hypocrisy here? Why did the Conservative Party fail so many years ago on one of the same issues that it is trying to hold this government to account for? There seems to be a lot of hypocrisy there.
View Pierre Paul-Hus Profile
CPC (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
The minister was appointed on November 4, 2015. He is the one who made all the wrong decisions or who covered up all the decisions that were made and that I mentioned in my speech. I think there are enough of them for members to understand that the minister no longer deserves to remain in cabinet. Had Vice-Admiral Norman not suffered the fate the government had in store for him, he might have taken over from General Vance in 2018, and there would not have been all these problems with sexual misconduct and all the other issues with this file, not to mention the lack of strength we are seeing in the Canadian Forces.
View Alexandre Boulerice Profile
NDP (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I have a very simple question for him.
The Liberals and the Liberal government are very good at accusing the opposition of delaying the proceedings and making Parliament dysfunctional. I would like him to comment on the Liberals' filibustering at the Standing Committee on National Defence to try to protect their defence minister, who no longer deserves to be in his position. Sometimes the Liberals are the ones filibustering.
View Pierre Paul-Hus Profile
CPC (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
Yes, there was some filibustering at the Standing Committee on National Defence, in a bid to cover up what happened, once again. Who are the victims in all that? The victims are the women of the Canadian Armed Forces, who are once again looking at the Minister of National Defence and the Prime Minister and wondering whether these men deserve their loyalty. The main challenge facing the Canadian Armed Forces is trust in their leader. There is no trust at the moment, and that is the biggest problem.
View Pierre Paul-Hus Profile
CPC (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I would like the minister to explain why he has always said that politicians should not get involved in the complaint against General Vance, when he personally handled Major-General Fortin's case.
View Yves Perron Profile
BQ (QC)
View Yves Perron Profile
2021-06-17 11:24 [p.8643]
Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the minister, and I will get right to the point. I understand that he might be feeling bitter about being the subject of a Conservative motion, since the Conservatives are the ones who made all kinds of cuts to defence and veterans affairs.
However, the point of today's motion does not seem to be a partisan one. The point seems to be to restore trust in the institution. A minister's job is to lead an institution, and although I am well aware that it is a thankless job, that means the minister must be beyond reproach. This is not the first time that there have been doubts about the minister's actions and words.
I understand that the government is trying to remain in power and trigger an election to snuff out the scandal, just like it did last summer when it prorogued Parliament.
However, with all due respect, does the minister not think that the best solution right now would be to step down from his position to restore trust in the institution? When there are too many doubts, they start to get in the way.
View Heather McPherson Profile
NDP (AB)
View Heather McPherson Profile
2021-06-17 11:26 [p.8644]
Mr. Speaker, my question is this. In 2015, under Stephen Harper and Jason Kenney, the chief of the defence staff was put in place, so the Conservatives did not do what they needed to do to take care of women in the military.
We now have a government that has had six years to fix this problem, this broken system, and it has not not done that.
A survivor, who is not a constituent, called my office because she did not know where to go. What does the minister suggest I say to her when government after government has been failing the women in our military?
View Candice Bergen Profile
CPC (MB)
View Candice Bergen Profile
2021-06-17 11:28 [p.8644]
Mr. Speaker, the only one who is making this issue personal is the minister himself. He is putting his personal reputation, his pride and his desire to be right ahead certainly of Parliament, but, more important, ahead of the interests of our men and women in uniform. The fact is that because this has been mishandled so badly, the men and women in uniform do not trust the minister again.
If he were to put his name forward as a minister of defence to lead the men and women in the military and if the men and women in the military were casting a vote, does he think he would get even a slight majority of them wanting him to stay on? I do not think he would. They cannot trust him to clean up the military, to deal with the sexual misconduct and to lead them.
I would ask him to not make this personal, but to put our military before his own ego and his own desire to be right, and to double down, as he likes to say. Does he think he even has the support of the military?
View Karen McCrimmon Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Karen McCrimmon Profile
2021-06-17 11:31 [p.8644]
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. minister why he thinks that systemic cultural change is so important for the Canadian Armed Forces.
View Mel Arnold Profile
CPC (BC)
View Mel Arnold Profile
2021-06-17 11:32 [p.8644]
Mr. Speaker, I listened to the minister's speech. He went on at length about what the Liberals had spent on the defence department and how they had acquired planes, jets and so on. With the morale that has been developing because of his actions and inaction in his role, how can he expect to have personnel to man this equipment and fly these planes when the minister has failed to maintain the trust of our men and women in uniform?
View Andréanne Larouche Profile
BQ (QC)
View Andréanne Larouche Profile
2021-06-17 11:34 [p.8645]
Mr. Speaker, I want to say that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Pierre‑Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères.
It is with great frustration that I rise today to speak to the motion that was introduced on this Conservative Party opposition day:
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.
It is no secret that the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of the motion. The Bloc Québécois has already asked for the resignation of the Minister of National Defence because of his ongoing failure to address sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces. I was with our leader, the member for Beloeil—Chambly, and my colleague from Rivière‑du‑Nord at the press conference where we asked for his resignation.
The censure proposed by the motion does not get rid of this minister, who did not take sexual misconduct allegations in the Canadian Armed Forces seriously. As set out in the motion, the minister committed a number of mistakes, although the most serious is protecting General Vance and attempting to cover up his bungling, including failing to implement the recommendations of the 2015 Deschamps report.
As the critic for status of women and gender equality, I will start by addressing these issues in my speech. I am very sensitive to these issues, and I will speak with due respect for the victims who testified at the Standing Committee on National Defence and the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. I will then address a few other scandals that have rocked the Canadian Armed Forces. I will close with some suggestions to help improve trust in the armed forces.
First, while the Minister of National Defence was supposed to implement the 2015 Deschamps report, it appears that he has done nothing and that he even tried to bury General Vance’s file. I cannot believe that I am still here going over the entire unfortunate story.
Former justice Marie Deschamps released a scathing report on March 27, 2015, concerning what she considered widespread sexual misconduct in the armed forces and the sexist culture that turned a blind eye to such misconduct. The report had been commissioned in the wake of accusations against Warrant Officer André Gagnon, who sexually assaulted a subordinate, Corporal Stéphanie Raymond, in December 2011. Corporal Raymond appeared before the committee, testifying to the harm she has suffered.
Corporal Raymond filed a complaint against Warrant Officer Gagnon in 2012, but her chain of command turned against her, and she was eventually dismissed for misconduct in 2013. Warrant Officer Gagnon was acquitted in 2014, but, in 2021, after Corporal Raymond appealed the ruling, he finally pleaded guilty.
Corporal Raymond’s situation, and the accusations she brought against the armed forces, led to former justice Marie Deschamps’ report. The report contained 10 recommendations, the most important of which was to make the complaint reporting system independent of the armed forces and of the Department of National Defence. That was in 2015, and, although we are now in 2021, nothing has been done.
When she testified before the Standing Committee on National Defence in February 2021, Marie Deschamps said that very little had been done since the release of her report in 2015 and that little had really changed. She repeated these statements before the Standing Committee on the Status of Women last March.
I will nevertheless take the time to point out that these allegations are not new, and that they began under the Conservative government, since it was in April 2015 that Jonathan Vance was named as the future chief of the defence staff. Allegations of sexual misconduct had been raised against him shortly before his appointment. A few months later, in July 2015, the former minister of veterans affairs and current leader of the opposition asked his chief of staff to talk to Ray Novak about another allegation against General Vance. This allegation involved an inappropriate relationship.
General Vance denied all misconduct, and the investigations went nowhere, since there was no evidence. The military police apparently also investigated the case. On July 17, 2015, General Vance was appointed chief of the defence staff, and one of his first policies was to roll out Operation Honour, which sought to put an end to sexual misconduct. That takes guts.
How is it possible that General Vance, who was the subject of very serious allegations, was appointed, given his role and his mandate as chief of the defence staff, as the person in charge of doing something against sexual misconduct?
In fact, the very same day that General Vance become chief of the defence staff, the military police decided to drop the investigation against the man who had now become their boss. That is quite the coincidence.
The operation, which was abandoned by the current chief of defence staff, had moderate impact, but it obviously had no effect on the senior officers who were above all that. In short, the Conservatives decided to appoint someone against whom accusations had been made when he was the boss of the Canadian Armed Forces, when they knew that his mandate would be to address sexual misconduct in the forces.
Now let us look at some of the allegations under the Liberal government.
On March 1, 2018, then ombudsman Gary Walbourne met privately with the Minister of National Defence. Walbourne attempted to discuss a case of sexual misconduct involving Vance. The victim did not want to go any further in the process because she was afraid of reprisals, preventing the ombudsman from going forward. However, the ombudsman, who had credible evidence against Vance, wanted to show it to the minister, who categorically refused to even look at it.
The ombudsman wanted the minister to intervene to protect the victim, since she was Vance's subordinate and he could wipe out her career with the snap of a finger. The minister was unreceptive and hostile. Apparently, he categorically refused to look at Walbourne's evidence and left the meeting abruptly. The minister then referred the case to the Privy Council Office. After that, Walbourne tried to talk to the minister 12 times, but the minister refused to meet with him, and Walbourne retired a few months later.
The Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office exchanged emails about the situation. After that, the situation deteriorated and other facts came to light. The scandal was made public in February 2021, when Global News reported accusations of misconduct against Vance, including his relationship with a subordinate and obscene emails exchanged in 2012 with a much younger servicewoman. The woman who had been in a relationship with Vance publicly stated that she had been threatened by Vance on several occasions. Vance believed himself to be untouchable. He said that he controlled the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service.
The standing committee on national defence decided to investigate the allegations against Vance. The Minister of Defence appeared before the committee a few times and contradicted himself. Moreover, the Liberals did not hesitate to obstruct the investigation to prevent Liberal employees Zita Astravas and Elder Marques from being called to testify. I was personally there when I was a substitute member of the committee. It was a sad time.
From Elder Marques' testimony, we know that everyone around the Prime Minister was aware of the situation, but the Prime Minister himself continues to deny any knowledge of it. When other employees were called by the House, the Liberals sent the Minister of Defence instead. They said that they did not want their employees to testify.
The Liberals willingly turned a blind eye to the allegations. The Liberals decided to ignore the issue, while the minister flatly refused to meet with the former ombudsman 12 times and would not even look at the evidence, claiming he did not want to interfere in the investigation.
The Prime Minister's entourage knew that there had been allegations against Vance, even if the Prime Minister himself did not have all the details. Everyone around him suspected that these allegations involved sexual misconduct. There were actually emails that mentioned sexual misconduct directly. The Minister of Defence even said that the nature of the accusations against Vance did not matter and what mattered was to take action. Well, the Liberals did absolutely nothing. They did not even implement Justice Deschamps’s main recommendation, namely to make the complaint process completely independent of the military to receive all complaints of sexual misconduct.
The facts speak for themselves. As of today, four generals have had complaints of misconduct brought against them. In 2021, six years after Justice Deschamps’s report was released, the Liberals decided to appoint former justice Louise Arbour to conduct another investigation into how to improve the system. That should have been done in 2015, not in 2021. The minister never took the situation seriously. Only when he had his back to the wall did he decide to do something, but only to save his own skin, after pressure from the opposition parties in the House and the committee investigations.
To add insult to injury, the second-in-command of the Canadian Armed Forces, Lieutenant-General Mike Rouleau, decided to play golf with former general Vance, despite the fact that Vance is under investigation by the military police and the military police is under Lieutenant-General Rouleau’s command. This incident led to Rouleau’s resignation and brought to light the federal government’s failure to implement an independent system to handle cases of sexual misconduct. The Liberals have done nothing since 2015 and that inaction has consequences, as this incident shows.
Since my time is running out, I will not have time to talk about everything I would have liked to address in my speech. I have been studying this case in the Standing Committee on the Status of Women and the Standing Committee on National Defence for months now. There is so much going on.
In closing, the Liberals claim that they are unaware of the nature of the allegations against Vance, with the Minister of Defence even saying that the nature of the allegations does not matter. All these events have further eroded the public’s and women’s confidence and harmed diversity, in particular. We must consider the victims. The Liberals and their Minister of Defence failed to act to restore confidence in the armed forces.
One last thing: We may think none of this really touches us, but the father of a former military member recently admitted to me that his daughter had to resign when she became pregnant. Her superior officer, with whom she had had a relationship, asked her to have an abortion to keep the matter quiet. She refused, and was asked to resign. This is still happening in 2021. We must act for the sake of the victims.
View Larry Bagnell Profile
Lib. (YT)
View Larry Bagnell Profile
2021-06-17 11:45 [p.8646]
Mr. Speaker, the member did a pretty good job of showing that the far more serious allegations related to General Vance were from his appointment, and that there were rumours at the time among the Conservatives.
As to the present Minister of National Defence, there was an email, and for privacy reasons no one was allowed to know what was in it. It was dealt with within 24 hours, which was very fast action by the minister. It was investigated as far as it could go at that time, because for privacy the person did not want the information to get out.
I am glad the member mentioned that we should be concentrating on the victims. That is what the Liberals have done 90% of the time at committee. Because the member is on the status of women committee, which had good witnesses, I would like her to suggest what needs to be done to change the culture. At committee, we found that was probably the biggest problem facing the military.
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