SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 339 - Sep/19/24

Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP)

Sep/19/24 3:17:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, people across Canada watch question period to learn about government business and hear about important issues of public interest. What we saw today was a torrent of insults hurled at the leader of the Bloc Québécois, the leader of the NDP and other members. That is simply not allowed under our rules. Standing Order 18 says very clearly that disrespectful and offensive language is not permitted. The member for Carleton had questions that were simply an expression of spewing personal insults and had nothing to do with public administration—

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The Deputy Speaker

Sep/19/24 3:18:43 p.m.
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I just want to make sure that the hon. member gets to what the point of order is. The hon. member for New Westminster—Mr. Burnaby.

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Mr. Peter Julian

Sep/19/24 3:18:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would ask that you review the tapes from question period today and that, after reviewing those tapes, you oblige the member for Carleton to rise in his place to withdraw and apologize for those offensive and disrespectful comments.

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The Deputy Speaker

Sep/19/24 3:19:05 p.m.
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We will take that under advisement.

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The Deputy Speaker

Sep/19/24 3:20:17 p.m.
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It being 3:19 p.m., the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion to concur in the 13th report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. Call in the members.

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The Deputy Speaker

Sep/19/24 3:32:23 p.m.
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I declare the motion carried. I wish to inform the House that, because of the deferred recorded divisions, Government Orders will be extended by 12 minutes. As mentioned in the Speaker's statement of Monday, September 16, the volume for earpieces will now be reset. Members using their earpiece at this time will have to readjust the volume. I thank members for paying particular attention to the sound level. It is now time for the Thursday question. I recognize the hon. House leader for the official opposition.

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Hon. Andrew Scheer (House leader of the official opposition, CPC)

Sep/19/24 3:33:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is that time of the week when CPAC ratings skyrocket: the Thursday question. This being the first Thursday back, I would like to welcome my counterpart, who was the House leader for a while. I see he is going to be answering today. He now has a different portfolio, but I know one of the things he misses most about his previous role is the Thursday question, so I am glad to see him have an opportunity to answer it again today. We already know a little bit about what might come next week, but I would like to know whether the government could inform the House officially what will be the business of the House for the rest of this week and for next week as well.

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Hon. Mark Holland (Minister of Health, Lib.)

Sep/19/24 3:33:39 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-71 Bill C-66 Bill C-63 Bill C-33

Yes, Madam Speaker, by popular demand, I am back. I really missed these exchanges. Some of our great moments are on Thursdays, not just for CPAC viewers, but also for you and me personally, I know. Therefore it is wonderful to exchange and wonderful to be back. I want to wish members a good return. I hope everybody had a productive and happy time with their families and their constituents in their ridings. This afternoon, we will resume second reading debate of Bill C-66, the military justice system modernization act. Tomorrow, we will begin the report stage debate of Bill C-33, the strengthening the port system and railway safety in Canada act. On Monday, we will begin second reading debate of Bill C-63, the online harms act. Madam Speaker, you will be very happy to know that next Wednesday we will also be resuming second reading debate of Bill C-71, which would amend the Citizenship Act. I would also like to take the opportunity to inform the House that both next Tuesday and next Thursday shall be allotted days. Furthermore, on Monday, the Minister of Finance will table a ways and means motion on capital gains taxation that incorporates the feedback received during consultations over the summer. The vote will take place on Wednesday of next week during Government Orders.

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Hon. Andrew Scheer (Regina—Qu'Appelle, CPC)

Sep/19/24 3:35:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to respond to the interventions on my question of privilege concerning the government's failure to obey the House order adopted on June 10. From the outset I want to thank the Bloc Québécois House leader and the hon. member for Windsor West for their interventions in support of my question of privilege. As for the Bloc Québécois House leader's comment about my one-week proposed time frame possibly being too short, I would invite him to consider the fact that the documents have already been assembled. Computers and filing cabinets have been searched. If we were asking for documents to be searched for to begin with, like we did when the House adopted a 30-day deadline in its June 10 order, then he would have a fair point. However, in any event, it has been over three months now. Instead we are saying that the government should simply grab the original set of documents, the ones to which the government applied its big sharpie for redactions, and hand the clean versions over. That should not take very long, so one week, I believe, is quite generous. The government House Leader, on the other hand, made a substantial response with which I fundamentally disagree. Certain points require, I believe, a rebuttal to assist you, Madam Speaker, in coming to your decision. As I understand her intervention, the Liberal House leader's argument was fourfold. She believes that the House order exceeded its authority in adopting the order—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Sep/19/24 3:36:50 p.m.
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Could we check the noise in the courtyard, please? It is quite disruptive. The hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle has the floor.

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Hon. Andrew Scheer

Sep/19/24 3:37:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberal House leader's argument was fourfold. She believes that the House order exceeded its authority in adopting the order, that redactions were authorized because the order did not explicitly require unredacted documents, that any use made by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police of the documents produced could amount to a breach of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and that the only permissible remedy here would be to refer the matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. Permit me to address her arguments in turn. First, it would not surprise you, Madam Speaker, to know that I actually believe that the House order of June 10 was entirely within the authority and jurisdiction of the House and that clear jurisprudence will support my position. In her submissions, the government House leader cited page 190 of Parliamentary Privilege in Canada, second edition, which states, “The only limitations, which could only be self-imposed, would be that any inquiry should relate to a subject within the legislative competence of Parliament”. While I will also revisit this citation from Maingot later, let me first add for good measure a quotation from page 1 of the Prime Minister's former caucus colleague Derek Lee's book The Power of Parliamentary Houses to Send for Persons, Papers and Records: “Based on principles firmly established in constitutional and parliamentary law (and apart from the following limitations pertaining to Her Majesty, other Houses of parliament and foreign jurisdictions), a House of parliament has the full authority to summon and compel the production of any document.” It is also worth recalling that the order originated from a Conservative opposition motion, and Standing Order 81(13) provides that, “Opposition motions...may relate to any matter within the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Canada". I would respectfully submit that the motion debated on June 6 and adopted on June 10 was squarely within the jurisdiction of Parliament. It concerned Sustainable Development Technology Canada, an organization incorporated by Parliament through the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology Act. Many of its directors and the chair of its board are appointed by the federal cabinet, which is most certainly accountable to Parliament. Quite importantly, SDTC's operations are run with monies that have been appropriated by Parliament. The motion was precipitated by the bombshell report of the Auditor General of Canada, an officer of Parliament, which outlined a massive scandal. Conservatives were troubled that, given the conduct uncovered by the Auditor General and brave whistle-blowers, crimes may well have been committed. The criminal law is, of course, a well-established area of federal jurisdiction. The documents were to be transmitted to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada's police force, also established by an act of Parliament—

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Sep/19/24 3:39:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on a point of order, the Speaker actually asked for additional comments a while back. Everyone else has responded. The member has already addressed this particular issue. I am not too sure why he would be standing up again.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Sep/19/24 3:40:12 p.m.
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The hon. member is answering the leader of the government's points. I think it is his privilege to do so.

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Hon. Andrew Scheer

Sep/19/24 3:40:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is quite a normal practice for parties to listen attentively to arguments raised by other parties and to respond to them and provide information to the Speaker to consider that would rebut one of those points. This is a very normal course of action. I raised my original point of—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Sep/19/24 3:40:39 p.m.
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We agree that the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle has the right to raise the question again.

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Hon. Andrew Scheer

Sep/19/24 3:40:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we are not talking about ordering the production of documents by the administration of a hospital or curriculum decisions of a school. Both areas are squarely within the provincial jurisdiction, so the Liberal House leader's concerns about jurisdiction simply do not carry water. Second, on her view that the House may not exercise its power to send for papers that would be, in turn, provided to another body, I would draw the House's attention to the fact that this issue has been judicially considered. In its 1989 decision, Canada (Auditor General) v. Canada (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources), the Supreme Court of Canada considered the matter of a previous auditor general being stonewalled by a previous Trudeau government. The court reconciled subsection 13(1) of the Auditor General Act, which entitles her to free access to government information, with paragraph 7(1)(b), which requires the Auditor General to report to the House, “on whether, in carrying on the work of [her] office, [she] received all the information and explanations [she] required.” Chief Justice Dickson held, on behalf of a unanimous bench, at page 98, “The section refers to a duty to report of the Auditor General, but can, in my view, simultaneously be characterized as a reporting remedy.” He went on to state: There must be some purpose for conveying such information to the House of Commons and one must assume that Parliament intended the House of Commons to exercise its judgment as to whether to seek the information its servant had not been able to secure.... While it is irregular to cite court decisions as precedent for procedural debates here, it is worth reflecting on the fact that this country's highest court has clearly contemplated the concept of the House exercising its right to send for papers in aid of a third party holding the government to account. However, it is not just a hypothetical exercise. There is, in fact, at least one practical example which I know the Speaker would be familiar with. On July 22, 2020, the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, on which the Speaker then sat, voted to compel the production of documents related to Margaret and Sacha Trudeau's speaking contracts and to provide a copy to the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. Parliament was, of course, cynically prorogued one day before those documents were to be turned over. In the new session of Parliament, when the ethics committee debated readopting the production order, the Speaker told the committee, on October 9, 2020, at page 10 of the evidence: When that decision was made at the time, I told my colleagues around this table that if they wanted to do that, we could do that, but that we would have to take all the necessary steps to ensure that this information would go directly to the Ethics Commissioner, through the clerk. However, if the Speaker's views on compelling the production of documents to be passed through the hands of the clerks have changed, then I would invite the Chair to consider this aspect of the motion to be an exercise of the House's privilege to publish papers. That privilege traces its origins to the United Kingdom's Parliamentary Papers Act 1840, the preamble to which begins: Whereas it is essential to the due and effectual Exercise and Discharge of the Functions and Duties of Parliament, and to the Promotion of wise Legislation, that no Obstructions or Impediments should exist to the Publication of such of the Reports, Papers, Votes, or Proceedings of either House of Parliament as such House of Parliament may deem fit or necessary to be published: While we normally think of a publication as referring to making something known far and wide to the public, that is not the only such meaning. Page 1250 of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, second edition, defines the verb to publish as, among other things, to “communicate...to a third party.” Third, another one of the privileges of the House is the right to regulate its internal affairs, sometimes also known as having exclusive cognizance of its proceedings. Paragraph 11.16 of Erskine May, 25th edition, explains: Both Houses retain the right to be sole judge of the lawfulness of their own proceedings, and to settle—or depart from—their own codes of procedure. This is equally the case where the House in question is dealing with a matter which is finally decided by its sole authority, such as an order or resolution, or where (like a bill) it is the joint concern of both Houses. This principle has been favourably cited by your predecessors at, for example, page 1940 of the Debates for March 1, 1966; page 2039 of the Debates for April 27, 2010; page 10004 of the Debates for September 17, 2012; and page 18550 of the Debates for June 18, 2013. The procedure and house affairs committee, for its part, wrote in a report, which the House concurred in on December 2, 2013, “Parliament is the sole judge of the appropriateness of the exercise of any of its privileges.” On parliamentary privilege, the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, notes at page 81, “This area of parliamentary law is therefore extremely fluid and most valuable for the Commons to be able to meet novel situations.” It is, I would submit, no barrier for the House to consider exercising a novel approach to a document production order, nor does disobedience to that order fall outside the ambit of contempt. Indeed, it may be worth recalling that many of the House's powers were not neatly distilled, but evolved over centuries of struggle and fight, which built up the body of precedence. Fourth, I would argue that the time for challenging the order's admissibility was back in June, when the House considered the Conservative opposition day motion. Bosc and Gagnon note, at page 565 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition: Before reading a motion to the House, it is the Speaker’s duty to ensure that it is procedurally in order. This is done by verifying that the notice requirement, if any, has been met, that the wording of the motion corresponds to that of the notice, and that the motion contains no objectionable or irregular wording. Any part of a motion found out of order will render the whole motion out of order. If the Chair finds the form of the motion to be irregular, he or she has the authority to modify it in order to ensure that it conforms to the usage of the House.... If the motion is found to be in order, and has been moved and seconded, the Speaker proposes it to the House. When the House considered the Conservative opposition motion on June 6, this is exactly what happened. Indeed, the Liberals put forward no challenge at all to the motion's admissibility. The opposition motion was placed on notice 48 hours ahead of debate, as required by the Standing Orders, debated for a full sitting day, and then a vote was deferred to the fourth calendar day following the debate. The motion was placed on the Notice Paper on a Tuesday afternoon. It was voted on the following Monday afternoon. At no point in between did anyone object to the motion's admissibility. Only now are we hearing someone make any argument to that effect. This reminds me of a situation with which I have some personal familiarity. On March 27, 2014, the House adopted an order requiring Tom Mulcair, the then leader of the New Democratic Party, to appear before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, which he did on May 15 of that year. The following day, the NDP House leader rose on a point of order to argue that the motion and resulting order were inadmissible. The Chair ruled on June 12, 2014, at page 6719 of the Debates: I would have been inclined to rule the motion out of order had this matter been raised within a reasonable delay. To be clear, the Chair did not readily deem the motion to be procedurally admissible, as the [NDP] House leader suggested. Instead, in the absence of any objection at the time that the motion was moved, the matter went forward and the motion was adopted. To argue inadmissibility more than 14 weeks after the House adopted the order, as the Liberal House leader now attempts, simply cannot be allowed. Of course, I would argue that the ruling that the motion was admissible would be the same today as it would have been on June 6. Fifth, as to whether redactions were authorized, I would recall the law clerk and parliamentary counsel's own words, on page 2 of his July 17 report to you on compliance with the order: “I also note that the order did not contemplate that redactions be made to documents or that information be withheld.” The Maingot passage which the government House Leader cited reads, crucially, “The only limitations, which could only be self-imposed”. No limitation in the House's June 10 order to allow for redactions was self-imposed. As I mentioned in my original arguments, it is always for the House itself to determine the scope of its document production orders and to judge the government's reasons for refusing to provide information. It does that through the course of debate, amendment and voting. Regardless, should you disagree with me on this point about redactions, it still does not excuse those government institutions which have failed to provide all the required documents by the deadline imposed in the House's order. Sixth, with respect to the government House leader's concern about the charter rights of anyone who might have defrauded the government or otherwise participated in government corruption, I would recall for you her own acknowledgement that the Chair does not decide questions of law. In any event, it is also important to recall that the law of parliamentary privilege is a body of constitutional law on equal footing with the Charter. As for a policy-based argument about charter concerns, that is one which I would submit would be more properly made in the course of debate on the June 6 opposition motion or, should you find a prima facie contempt, on the subsequent privilege motion the House would debate. These views certainly were not advanced during the June 6 debate. During that debate, Liberals were much more focused on speaking about a machinery of government announcement about the Liberals coming up with a new way to deliver its green slush fund. My counterpart suggested that perhaps a procedure and House affairs committee study might be appropriate. To that, allow me to quote from paragraphs 84 and 86 of the 2019 report of the U.K. House of Commons procedure committee on document production, which I cited in my original arguments. It states: Ministers are responsible for putting before the House their arguments against the disclosure of information which they believe requires protection. If they then cannot persuade the House to endorse those arguments by the process of decision and vote—or do not attempt to do so—they must determine how far they should comply with the resulting resolution or order of the House. It is not for the House to put in place procedures and practices which shield Ministers from the exercise of this responsibility.... The House alone determines the scope of its power to call for papers. In its consideration of each motion it is able to discern whether an inappropriate or irresponsible use of the power is sought, and whether it is being asked to require the production of information from Ministers on a scale disproportionate to the matter under debate. We expect that in each such case the House will continue to exercise its judgment in favour of a responsible use of the power. Seventh, as for the Liberal House leader's concerns about it appearing as if the House is directing law enforcement, I would recall the comments of the Bloc Québécois House leader, who said it is up to the RCMP to decide what to do with the documents. The House order solely required the law clerk and parliamentary counsel to transmit the documents. It has not obliged the RCMP to open the envelope or insert the USB key into a computer. In any event, I would take note of paragraph 11.29 of Erskine May, 25th edition, which states: In cases of breach of privilege which are also offences at law, where the punishment which the Commons has power to inflict would not be adequate to the offence, or where for any other cause the House has thought a proceeding at law necessary, either as a substitute for, or in addition to, its own proceedings, the Attorney General has been directed to prosecute the offender. Lee expands upon this issue at pages 211 to 213 of his book for those who are interested in reading more. Students of the U.K. Parliament will recall that its House of Commons used to have, until recently, an annual practice of adopting, on the opening day of each session, a sessional order directed to the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police to keep streets leading to the Palace of Westminster free and open. I am not suggesting that we direct the police or prosecution here, but it is a point that is important in understanding the authority of the House of Commons. Finally, as for the Liberal House leader's argument that the only appropriate motion would be to refer the matter to the procedure and House affairs committee, I disagree. When her deputy tried to advance the same argument in respect of the proposed motion to address the question of privilege concerning the ArriveCAN contractor Kristian Firth's refusal to answer committee questions, the Speaker ruled, on March 22, 2024, at page 21946 of the Debates, the following, “I am of the view that it is procedurally in order. As with the case cited from June 2021, the motion provides for...a specific remedy to the offence.” My motion would do just that, provide a remedy to reorder the production of the documents. Bosc and Gagnon describe, at pages 986 and 987, the options available to a committee that is meeting resistance to its document production order: to accept the refusal, to seek a compromise or to insist on its position by upholding its original order. My proposed motion, effectively, is that third option. I would submit that, for this purpose, there is no distinction between the House or one of its committees. In any event, Bosc and Gagnon discuss, at pages 138 and 987, the scenario where a committee report to the House on a case of disobedience to a document production order, which I note would be a contempt, may be addressed by the House adopting its own order for the production of documents. Indeed, the 2021 case mentioned saw the House order the president of the Public Health Agency of Canada attend the bar of the House for, among other things, the purpose of turning over the documents which had not been provided. That was, in turn, modelled on precedent cases, which Bosc and Gagnon describe at pages 131 and 132. In conclusion, the arguments of the government House leader simply do not add up. The government failed to respect the validly expressed and lawful will of the House of Commons. That is a contempt of Parliament. If the Speaker agrees, Conservatives will give the Liberal Prime Minister one more chance to respect Parliament and turn over the green slush fund documents within one week. Simply put, all the arguments that the government House leader made would more properly be not for the Chair's consideration but for members' consideration during debate on the privilege motion itself. The Chair is not supposed to accept new restrictions on the power of the House's authority to send for papers. That is something that only the House can do itself. The Speaker's role in this case is to simply judge, almost as though it were a simple mathematical formula. A production order was tabled, debated and voted on. It passed. That checks that box. Was the production order respected? No. There is only one conclusion. If the production order is not respected, the Speaker must put that issue to the House, and then the House can decide what the most appropriate remedy is.

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Hon. Andrew Scheer (Regina—Qu'Appelle, CPC)

Sep/19/24 3:55:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, very briefly, I want to contribute to the question of privilege raised by the hon. member for Vancouver East concerning the special report of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. The hon. member is right to be worried about foreign interference, and especially about the Liberal government's abject failure to do anything about it. Indeed, several Conservatives, such as the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills and the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, as well as our former colleague Kenny Chiu, have also been targeted by the Beijing Communist regime's tactics. This committee's special report made a lot of sensational revelations about the extent of foreign interference in the federal political scene, many of which the hon. member cited in her intervention. In fact, all Canadians were shocked by the special report. There is one more revelation from the special report, which speaks to the very heart of why we should be worried about the Liberal Prime Minister's inexcusable failures to defend Canadian democracy from outside interference. The special report revealed in paragraph 126: In December 2019, the Clerk of the Privy Council sought the Prime Minister’s authorization to implement the Committee’s recommendations by having CSIS brief parliamentarians in the early weeks of the 43rd Parliament. The Prime Minister’s Office never replied formally to the recommendation. In December 2020, the NSIA returned to the Prime Minister to seek authorization for CSIS to brief parliamentarians.... The package for the Prime Minister included draft instruction letters to the Ministers of Public Safety and Defence to coordinate the briefings.... The Conservatives have recently come to learn that this project was not advice that was closely held to the Prime Minister and his most immediate advisers. The Privy Council Office has released, under the Access to Information Act, an unredacted version of the government House leader's 2019 transition briefing book, which also discusses the parliamentary briefing proposal. In November 2019, the Prime Minister's recently resigned Quebec lieutenant was informed, at page 27 of his briefing book: Pending a decision by the Prime Minister, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and PCO have prepared an unclassified, introductory briefing on foreign interference risks faced by parliamentarians. The briefing could be delivered to MPs and senators in sessions offered by the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Government House Leader) and the Government Representative in the Senate in the early weeks of the 43rd Parliament. Now we know that the public service was pushing at all corners of the Liberal government to make sure parliamentarians were alert to the threats around us, but those briefings were never held nor were they ever offered. NSICOP tells us that when he was asked why he never took action, “The prime minister responded that he thought that the Parliamentary Protective Service already briefs new parliamentarians about foreign interference.” If that is to be believed, that answer is dripping in ignorance, and it is ignorance in which the Prime Minister would prefer to keep Canadians about the threats posed by foreign interference in Canada's Parliament. Under subsection 21(5) of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act, the Prime Minister directed the committee to provide him with a revised report, revised to redact the names of the individuals involved. It is, frankly, unacceptable that any parliamentarian would wittingly aid a hostile foreign power to undermine our democratic process and elections, which every member of Parliament is sworn to protect. Canadians deserve to know if federal parliamentarians have knowingly engaged in activities on behalf of foreign governments that have undermined Canada's national interests. NSICOP's findings cannot be ignored, and we cannot trust the Prime Minister on this critical issue. That is why the Conservatives have been calling since June for the parliamentarians who have betrayed Canada's interests to be named. If Canadians are to continue to have faith in their federal democratic institutions, they need to know who has broken their oath and betrayed their trust. This is what Canadians deserve. Anything less risks fuelling public suspicion about a cover-up of information known to the Liberal government about members of Parliament working for foreign states against the interests of Canada.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Sep/19/24 3:59:59 p.m.
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I thank the hon. member for the comments.

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Comments

Hon. John McKay (Scarborough—Guildwood, Lib.)

Sep/19/24 4:00:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on one level, this is a relatively simple bill that would transfer the issues of sexual offences from the military's jurisdiction to civilian jurisdiction so that military personnel are treated in the same fashion that civilians are. This flows from a rather lengthy response. No bill nor change in culture happens quickly, whether it is in the military or otherwise, but in the “House Standing Committee on National Defence (NDDN), MND Update to Parliament on Arbour Recommendations”, from December 13, 2022, on the last page of the 50- or 60-page document, is recommendation number five, which is that the Government of Canada proceed with this bill. It goes into some detail, which is not necessary, but I am happy to table it. It also outlines the implications of the efforts the government has made to complete this recommendation, including consultations with territories and provinces, and ministers, such as the national defence minister, public safety minister and justice minister, meeting with all the provinces and territories. I will not detail all of the work that has gone into responding to this recommendation. It may well appear that it is a simple thing to take the jurisdiction from the military courts and put it into the civilian courts, but it is a lot of work, and I want to commend the ministers who have worked diligently on bringing us to this point today. I understand that this bill will gain a lot of support in the House, and so it should. It is in some respects symbolic of what has been a slow and painful culture change in the military. It is a very symbolic bill, in that it is a particular marker of response by the military. Canada's military today is not our fathers' military and it is certainly not our grandfathers' military. It is a far more sophisticated organization, and it calls upon a range of talents and abilities that probably could not have been dreamed of even 10 or 20 years ago. Therefore, Canada's military needs to be a welcoming and inviting organization for all of Canada's citizens to participate in. I will point members to the first recommendation of the defence committee, from June 2022: “That the Government of Canada take decisive steps to transform the institutional culture within the Canadian Armed Forces to ensure an inclusive, safe and respectful workplace for all Canadian Armed Forces and Department of National Defence personnel.” That is the core reason this bill is in front of the House. It is because we need to change. The threat environment, even in the last two years, has dramatically changed. We can think of Ukraine. We can think of the South China Sea. We can think of Palestine. This morning we had a threat briefing from three very able individuals, and I must admit that all of my colleagues on the committee came up to me afterwards and said that it was really excellent. Because the threat environment has changed and we need a whole-of-society response to this change in culture, this bill needs to be passed, as it is essentially treating these kinds of offences in the same manner that offences would be treated in a civilian court. There should be no difference. There are difficulties with the military justice system. If there is an incident of some kind with two uniformed personnel, somebody is saluting somebody, and after the incident takes place, people still have to carry on their regular business of the day. It is extremely awkward and difficult. While we properly focus on the victim, we also need to keep in mind that there is justice on both sides. In the Canadian military, we need a wide diversity of skills. I want everyone to think for a moment of a young woman or man contemplating a career in the Canadian military. In the past, and I hope no longer, there was a perception that over the course of a career, there was a high percent chance that a sexual incident would happen. Think of a young woman or man being invited into an organization where there is a significant chance that something will happen and, if something happens, there is a significant chance that the resolution will be unsatisfactory. They are not going into the same justice system as they would if the exact incident happened on the street, for want of a better term. That is going to affect their career, and the discharge arrangements for their career will not be as satisfactory as they otherwise could be. We should ask ourselves how that works for a military that is trying to recruit people. If we think of it from the standpoint of a young woman or man, that aspect of a career in the Canadian military is not attractive, but we need their skills. In some respects, this bill would deal with one of the more egregious aspects of recruitment and retention. The Canadian military is significantly undermanned, somewhere in the order of 16,000 people. When I asked General Allen how many people were applying, she said 70,000 people. I then asked how many we are processing and she said about 4,000 or 5,000 a year. That is not a great outcome. We need to up our game. The threat environment has changed dramatically. This bill would be a symbolic and real response to the need for culture change. We need skills available to the Canadian military, and I am rather hoping that with the co-operation of our friends and colleagues, we will move on this legislation so that we can demonstrate that we are serious about making this cultural change and reflecting it.

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Ms. Marilyn Gladu (Sarnia—Lambton, CPC)

Sep/19/24 4:10:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was on the status of women committee when it studied sexual assault in the military, and the heartbreaking stories of the trauma that had been experienced demanded urgent action. However, here we are two and a bit more years later with nothing much done by the Liberal government. It is bringing forward a bill that may not even make it through the Senate by the time the next election happens. In the bill, I am specifically concerned about the increase in ministerial powers to get involved in individual cases. We saw in the past the same members and ministers of defence obstructing in the General Vance case and in several other cases. Could the member comment on what protections will be in place to ensure that ministers do not intervene in a way that is detrimental to survivors?

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