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Results: 46 - 60 of 242
View Andréanne Larouche Profile
BQ (QC)
View Andréanne Larouche Profile
2021-06-17 11:46 [p.8647]
Mr. Speaker, I am shocked to hear that 90% of the time the Liberals acted out of respect for the victims in committee. Where have they been over the past six years? We are being asked to take action. We are being schooled in confidentiality.
If the Liberals had simply reread Justice Deschamps’s report, we would not be where we are today, and we would not be discussing something that was debated yet again in the Standing Committee on the Status of Women and the Standing Committee on National Defence in 2021.
I invite my colleague to reread the report, since it contains concrete suggestions.
View Monique Pauzé Profile
BQ (QC)
View Monique Pauzé Profile
2021-06-17 11:47 [p.8647]
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Shefford for her excellent speech. I always learn something when she speaks in the House.
Does she not get the feeling that the Liberals and the Conservatives are very alike in that they do not care about what happens to the victims? The Conservatives did the same thing in the case of General Vance: They denied that there had been any allegations of a sexual nature.
View Andréanne Larouche Profile
BQ (QC)
View Andréanne Larouche Profile
2021-06-17 11:47 [p.8647]
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Repentigny for her comments.
That is what we heard from the victims. I am thinking in particular about Ms. Raymond, who testified before the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. She still does not understand why she had to fight to have her case dealt with outside the Canadian Armed Forces. She managed to win because she was heard before an external tribunal.
The recommendation was made in 2015. Ms. Raymond is well aware that the Deschamps report led to the story covered by L'actualité and various Quebec journalists.
The victims are asking for concrete measures, and they are well aware of what was in the Deschamps report.
View Yves Perron Profile
BQ (QC)
View Yves Perron Profile
2021-06-17 11:48 [p.8647]
Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Shefford on her speech.
I would like her to tell me what she thinks about the fact that the minister is holding on to his position. What message does that send to women who want to pursue a career in the Canadian Armed Forces?
Personally, I feel that the message being sent is that women who want to pursue a military career must be willing to take risks with their safety, given all the incidents of sexual misconduct. It makes no sense. I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about this.
View Andréanne Larouche Profile
BQ (QC)
View Andréanne Larouche Profile
2021-06-17 11:49 [p.8647]
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé for his question.
I cannot for the life of me understand why the Minister of National Defence still has his job. I did not even have enough time in my speech to talk about all the other reasons nobody can possibly have confidence in him anymore.
During my studies, I had a chance to interview military personnel. I went to Jonquière and I talked to people at CFB Bagotville, which is an important institution. If we want to see more women and more diversity in the armed forces, we absolutely have to send a strong message.
The government calls itself feminist. How can it possibly allow a defence minister who tolerated such allegations to keep his job? That is unacceptable, there is no excuse for it, and it is high time the minister resigned. That is what my colleagues on the Standing Committee on National Defence and I demanded a few weeks ago.
View Xavier Barsalou-Duval Profile
BQ (QC)
Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my colleague from Shefford for her excellent speech and for agreeing to split her time with me.
Today, we are discussing a motion moved by the Conservative Party, which reads as follows:
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.
I do not think anyone in the House will be surprised to learn that we will vote in favour of this motion, in light of its troubling elements. The facts have accumulated over time, which has led to a loss of confidence. That is why the Bloc Québécois is calling for the resignation of the Minister of National Defence.
We look at all these things that have happened, but the last straw was the whole issue of sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces. The situation has completely deteriorated and the minister has mismanaged it from the start.
As we know, General Vance was forced to retire and it was not until after he retired that we finally learned about the allegations of sexual misconduct that were made against him, which triggered an investigation by the Standing Committee on National Defence, as well as a study by the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. When two committees look into an issue at the same time, it is obviously a big deal.
Shortly thereafter we also learned that General Vance's replacement, Admiral McDonald, also had to step down, also because of allegations of sexual misconduct.
This has been going on at the upper echelons of the military for some time and it is troubling since the current Minister of National Defence was notified of the problem by Gary Walbourne, who was national defence and armed forces ombudsman at the time, but has since retired. He went to the minister to advise him of a major complaint against the chief of the defence staff, General Vance. It was serious.
The minister told him he did not want to know about it, that he did not want anyone to talk to him about it, that he did not want to see the evidence and that the ombudsman should instead go talk to the appropriate authorities. In fact, the minister refused to look at what the ombudsman wanted to show him and then refused to meet with him again thereafter. The minister adopted this culture of wilful ignorance, choosing to turn a blind eye and act like nothing happened.
Unfortunately, even though some people on his staff appear to have passed the information along, it is hard to know who was aware of what and when. There are different, contradictory versions of events. When asked, the minister initially said that he was not aware. That is completely untrue, however, because we have now learned that he was aware. He met with the ombudsman, who wanted to talk to him about the situation.
Then, the minister started saying that he was not aware of the nature of the complaint in question. However, once again, Mr. Walbourne said that he very clearly told the minister about the nature of the complaint. Furthermore, media reports revealed that the public servants had emailed each other, proving that the minister was aware of the nature of the complaint, in spite of what he had been claiming. Worse yet, the minister then claimed that the nature of the complaint was not ultimately an important factor.
That is how he chose to handle it. Rather than apologizing and telling us that he did not give us the right information and that he tried to hide the fact that he did not take the action he should have, he decided to minimize the situation and tried to convince us that, ultimately, it was not that important.
It is especially disappointing to see a minister behave like that, particularly because of the message that it sends to the Canadian Armed Forces. The message is that this is not serious, not important. The government is going to close its eyes to complaints. The government is going to say that it does not want anything to do with this sort of thing and that it does not want to get involved because politicians should not interfere with investigations. That is the minister's position.
Nevertheless, we asked the former ombudsman if it would have constituted interference to meet with him to look at the evidence. At that time, there was not even an investigation under way. He said that it would not. The ombudsman that replaced him and who is in office today told us that it would not be interfering at all and that is exactly what he would have done.
We asked the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service or CFNIS if it would have constituted interference for the minister to do his job by simply looking at the evidence and agreeing to meet with the ombudsman. He said no, not at all. We also asked the CFNIS whether it would have constituted interference for the minister to request an investigation. Once again, the CFNIS said no and added that that would only be the case if the minister sought to undermine the investigation. However, it must be said that the minister did basically undermine the investigation by not asking the CFNIS to investigate and by refusing to obtain the information. However, there was no investigation. It was easier that way.
We then learned that the information did make the rounds. The Privy Council Office was informed of the situation. One of the Prime Minister's advisers, Elder Marques, was apparently informed of the situation and was asked to investigate, at least to some extent. The Prime Minister's chief of staff was also informed of the situation. However, one after the other, they all claimed at the beginning, when speaking with the Prime Minister, that they did not know and his staff did not know. We were getting different versions all the time, and information was coming out in dribs and drabs. Unfortunately, we are up against a government and a party that are trying to undermine the work of the Standing Committee on National Defence.
I have been a member of that committee for months, and our work has been stalled for months now. Every time a witness is called or a witness expresses a desire to appear, the government and Liberal members filibuster. As a result, nothing is moving forward and nothing is getting done. The filibustering is only getting worse. It has been about three or four weeks since we have been able to have a single meeting where we have intelligent discussions and actually do any work. We are just wasting time. This is especially frustrating because this government prides itself on being a democratic government when, really, it is just undermining the committee's work.
Why did he decide to hinder the work of the committee? That is the question. Why does he absolutely not want us to know what happened? Since the witnesses kept contradicting each other, after we heard the last one, we decided to invite more. We asked for the Minister of National Defence's chief of staff so that he could give us his version of the facts, but that was blocked. We cannot speak to him. On one occasion, the minister even showed up in place of his chief of staff to tell us what he would have said. That is something. He knew what the other guy was going to say. Why are the Liberals so scared of what he might tell us?
For now, what we have observed is that the Minister of National Defence was not up to the task. He did not do his job, and, because of that, to protect itself and to prevent things from going smoothly, the Liberal Party has been systematically obstructing the investigation. The Liberal members of the committee are preventing us from doing our job. If I were a citizen and I saw that, I would be really angry and frustrated. In addition, what message does this send to people who work in the Canadian Armed Forces?
What message does this send to women? The message is that, when things like this happen, when a minister is not up to the task and when there are unacceptable situations in the Canadian Armed Forces, the Standing Committee on National Defence will be prevented from doing its job because the government wants to protect its friends, and because it wants to protect those who did not do what they should have done. That is what is really going on.
We have a minister who is not up to the task. Rather than do his job, when he could have implemented the recommendations of the 2015 Deschamps report, the minister decided to go back to square one instead. I do not even know if he read the Deschamps report, which contained good recommendations and indicated that the situation in the armed forces was hard to believe. He decided to go back to square one and commission another report that they also may not look at in order to stall.
For example, he allowed Mr. Vance to take charge of Operation Honour, when, in the end, he was setting the wolf loose on the sheep. He gave him a raise. Worse than that, we found out that, in the meantime, the second in command of the armed forces, Lieutenant-General Mike Rouleau, who is also vice chief of the defence staff and head of the military police, went to play golf with the retired General Vance.
All this shows just how much the minister's inaction created a climate of impunity in the armed forces, and that is totally unacceptable.
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
Lib. (MB)
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
2021-06-17 12:01 [p.8649]
Madam Speaker, I am disappointed the Bloc members have decided to support the Conservative Party on the motion. Would the Bloc members apply the same principles to the behaviour of the leader of the official opposition, given that he had the opportunity to deal with this matter when he was part of the Stephen Harper cabinet? That government's failure is what ultimately advanced General Vance. Does he believe there should be any consequences today because of the inaction of the leader of the official opposition or does he believe he did the right thing back then?
View Xavier Barsalou-Duval Profile
BQ (QC)
Madam Speaker, I think my colleague has asked a very good question. As he pointed out, the Conservatives initially appointed General Vance. However, the Liberals are the ones who failed to act when allegations about him surfaced.
Nevertheless, if there was a need to delve further, if the Conservatives failed to act, I think that the same steps should be taken, that is, that their conduct should be investigated as long as there would not be filibustering at committee to prevent light being shed on these matters.
However, at this time, we are dealing with the current government. Who is in power now? Who has the means to change things at this time? It is the Liberals, and they are the ones preventing change from happening.
View James Bezan Profile
CPC (MB)
Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his intervention today. I appreciate the work he has done at the national defence committee and having to sit through the ongoing, needless filibustering and obstruction by the Liberals. They continue their cheap political grandstanding. It has been very disheartening. It very much undermines the trust of the women and men who serve in uniform in our parliamentary institutions to watch the Liberals keep a minister in place who continues to lose their respect and now see parliamentarians from the Liberal side trying to hide that and being complicit in the cover-up of the minister failing to act upon the sexual misconduct allegations against General Vance three years ago.
We have a parliamentary democracy that hinges upon ministerial accountability. In light of the fact the minister has not done the honourable thing and resigned, does the member believe the Prime Minister should fire the Minister of National Defence?
View Xavier Barsalou-Duval Profile
BQ (QC)
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I think it is a good question.
In my opinion, in the circumstances, there comes a point where the minister should realize that he is not up to the task. He should realize that he is not fit for the office he holds. He should realize that, ultimately, his very presence undermines public confidence in the institution.
In my opinion, if he does not have the good judgment to resign, the Prime Minister should help him step aside.
View Alexandre Boulerice Profile
NDP (QC)
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. All of this business with the Minister of National Defence seems like one big cover-up operation.
Unfortunately, we are not talking about a military operation on the ground. We are talking about an operation to save the minister's skin and his ministerial position.
I think the member said it well. The trust has been broken, and the victims of this cover-up operation are the people who serve in our armed forces, and in particular women.
What does my colleague think about that?
View Xavier Barsalou-Duval Profile
BQ (QC)
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
We saw a prime example of that late last week when the military's second-in-command, who also oversees the military police, played golf with the man who is currently under investigation. That right there is telling. There is a culture of impunity in the armed forces, at least among senior officers, who think that they are above the law.
Because a minister did not do his job and is not up to the task, the members of the armed forces feel like nothing will change. The minister must be replaced.
View Heather McPherson Profile
NDP (AB)
View Heather McPherson Profile
2021-06-17 12:06 [p.8650]
Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.
I am honoured today to speak to this motion. I am the granddaughter of Bert McCoy. He was a gunner in the Royal Canadian Air Force who always lived a very large life, including being shot down over Belgium during the Second World War. He spent two years in the underground trying to fight his way back to my grandmother and my mother in Canada. An interesting part about this story is that he had to escape from some German soldiers, and speaking French saved his life. I sometimes think that the reason I fight so hard for Franco-Albertans is that French saved the life of my grandfather.
He was a magnificent man, and I am proud to stand today in his honour, but I have to say that how we protect and stand up for the women and men who defend this country defines us as parliamentarians. It is one of our most fundamental duties.
We ask members of the armed forces to risk their lives, to be away from loved ones, and to defend all of us and others around the world. There can be no more important thing than those women and men knowing that we have their backs. Women and men have lost confidence that this minister has their backs. Members of the Canadian Armed Forces have heard the minister mislead them. They have heard the minister mislead parliamentarians, the media and Canadians.
I do not want to be harsh on any member of the House. I understand that we all have very difficult jobs, and I honestly believe that almost all members want to do what is best for Canadians, but the minister has acted in a way that requires a response.
In 2016, the minister quashed an inquiry into Canadian transfers of detainees to local custody in Afghanistan, where they faced torture. An inquiry would have revealed why the transfers were not stopped and why these war crimes were never reported. In making this decision, the minister was in an apparent conflict of interest. He served as an intelligence officer in Afghanistan at the time of the transfers and would have had knowledge of the torture of detainees. No public inquiry was ever conducted into Canada's role and responsibility with regard to the transfer of Afghan detainees. More recently, the minister turned a blind eye to evidence of war crimes committed by Iraqi troops being trained by Canadians as part of Operation Impact.
In 2017, the minister claimed to be the architect of Operation Medusa. This was not true. He exaggerated his role, which of course is an affront to those members who fought in Afghanistan. Honour means telling the truth. Honour means not taking credit for the work done by others. The minister stole honour that was not his.
Despite the minister's poor record, this is not just an issue with the Minister of National Defence. The focus on the Minister of National Defence is necessary, and I will support this motion, but I want to outline why I believe the inexcusable actions by the government, in relation to its support for members of the Canadian Armed Forces, are not the issue of just one minister. In fact, this is not the issue of just one party. There is an insidious and dangerous reality that goes farther than one minister.
The Prime Minister has failed the women and men in uniform. The Liberal government has failed the women and men in uniform. There is a pattern of looking the other way. There is a pattern of not doing the work that needs to be done to meet our international obligations to report war crimes and torture. As always, the failures of many do not affect the government. They affect our brave servicewomen and men in this country, and they affect those who need our help around the world.
One of the most shocking failures was the inability to protect women in the military from sexual harassment and violence.
The government has been in power for six years, and in those six years there have been 581 sexual assaults in the military, with 221 incidents of sexual harassment logged. This abject failure to protect women is a stain on our country.
Women are tired of being told to be patient. They are tired of being told their concerns have been heard and then nothing changes. As important as the Liberals say the issue is, the Prime Minister did not even include an explicit mention of dealing with sexual misconduct in the 2015, 2019 or 2021 mandate letters to the minister.
The Prime Minister did not care.
I spoke earlier today about a survivor who called my office because she did not trust her member of Parliament. She did not know where to turn, so she phoned my office. I spoke to her for over an hour about her concerns that her anonymity and safety would be compromised, and that for her having a career in the Canadian Armed Forces was now impossible.
This is a woman who has served our country, and she does not even feel safe telling the government about the concerns she has as a survivor of sexual harassment within the military. I did not know what to say to her. I did not know how to help her. I did not know how to relieve her concerns. I did not know what to do, because I do not have confidence that the government cares about sexual harassment survivors. I do not have confidence that the Conservative government, when it was in power, had the best interests of women in our military at heart.
Can members imagine being a survivor, and being brave and strong enough to come forward with that story of survival, and then finding out that General Vance was golfing with the people who were investigating him? The old boys' club nonsense that she is trying to stop and prevent, because she wants to make our military better, results in them going for a golf game. How old boys' club is that? How inexcusable.
These women do not get action. They get another inquiry. The minister must answer for this, but more importantly the Prime Minister must answer for this.
As I said, my confidence in the government has failed, but I do not believe the Conservative government acted better. I am sad to say the Conservative government under Stephen Harper, with Jason Kenney as the minister of defence, bears the same guilt. Jason Kenney knew General Vance was accused of sexual harassment, and unbelievably he appointed the general to lead Operation Honour. In what world is it reasonable to have somebody accused or suspected of sexual harassment be in charge of the investigation into sexual harassment? The absurdity is shocking to me.
While I am disappointed in the Prime Minister, the Minister of National Defence and the Liberal government, I find it incredibly rich that the Conservatives have the gall to stand in this place and not acknowledge the role their government has played in harming the women of our Canadian Armed Forces.
There is enough blame to go around. Government after government has failed women in this country. They have created a toxic work environment where women cannot work safely in our military. Is anyone surprised that enrolment is low? Can anyone be surprised that women do not flock to participate in our military?
In conclusion, I will support this motion because the minister needs to answer for his actions, but I want to reiterate that the Prime Minister, the minister, the government and the opposition bear the burden of knowing they have not protected women in this country.
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Speaker, I agree with a lot of what the member had to say today, in particular when she said there is a lot of blame to go around. We are dealing with systemic issues within the military, especially given the actions we have seen lately, and these are things that need to be dealt with. We need to get to the bottom of these things. We need to start change within the culture of the military.
Is today a productive day to do that? Would it not have been a more productive day to have a motion that challenged the government to develop policy to deal with these issues, as opposed to spending another day on personal attacks on one particular individual? Would she not have rather had a meaningful, serious debate about policy that could shape and change the culture of the military?
View Heather McPherson Profile
NDP (AB)
View Heather McPherson Profile
2021-06-17 12:17 [p.8651]
Madam Speaker, I have a few problems with this. First of all, all attempts to get the government to take meaningful action have been stalled, whether it is at committee or in the House. It has had six years and has chosen not to take the necessary steps that would protect women in the military.
Do I think the Conservative opposition is acting in a partisan manner today with this opposition day motion? Absolutely. This is not going to help women in the Canadian military. That said, the minister does need to answer for his actions. The government has had a long time to fix this and has chosen not to do so.
The member can talk about what we could have done, but he is in government. I can tell him an awful lot of things that he and his party could have done.
Results: 46 - 60 of 242 | Page: 4 of 17

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