- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- London—Fanshawe
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 63%
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- Sep/19/24 1:47:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that specific bill is one I brought forward at the same time I brought forward the changes moving sexual assault cases from the military system into the civilian system and to do it quickly.
I have met often with the national defence ombudsperson. He and his predecessor have asked that the role become one of an independent officer of Parliament in order to provide survivors with greater transparency, accountability and independence; to ensure their stories are heard; and to give the ombudsman the opportunity and ability to fully investigate in a safe and secure way, as opposed to having to go through chains of command within the military system.
That independence is really key, and it is something I will continue to fight for in collaboration with the new ombudsperson, who I want to congratulate today.
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Madam Speaker, this legislation would remove the minister's power of appointing and removing the director of military prosecutions and the director of defence counsel services. Instead, these would become Governor in Council appointments, with the minister having the power to request a public inquiry into potential remedial or disciplinary measures against these directors. It would remove the ability of the judge advocate general to issue instructions to the director of military prosecutions on individual cases. While the director would still be operating under the JAG and could get general instructions, the JAG would no longer be able to direct individual cases.
It would change the title of the Canadian Forces provost marshal to provost marshal general, putting that individual on the same level as the judge advocate general and reporting directly to the minister instead of reporting to the vice chief of the defence staff. It would reverse a component of Harper-era Bill C-15, which gave the vice chief of the defence staff power to issue instructions to the provost marshal on particular cases. It would expand eligibility to submit an interference complaint to the Military Police Complaints Commission. Currently, complaints of interference can only be made by a member of the military police. It would now allow a victim, an individual acting on behalf of a victim or any other person affected by the performance of the policing duty to make a complaint. It would codify some practices from Bill C-77, including that military judges cannot oversee summary hearings and that a military judge cannot be charged with a service infraction.
There would be some major changes to how Canada will treat criminal sexual offences in the military. Again, it is another chapter in Canada's ongoing military sexual trauma crisis, which has spanned decades. For many Canadians, this was first brought to their attention in 1998, when brave women spoke out to Maclean's magazine. There was a four-part series on the systemic sexual harassment and sexual assault in the Canadian Armed Forces and it discussed how violence against women was covered up and how the chain of command looked the other way far too often. This coincided with a public trust crisis in the Canadian Armed Forces, driven by the Somalia affair. The two events spurred several reforms. This included the creation of a Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces ombudsman, the Military Police Complaints Commission, a military grievance external review committee and the decision to move criminal sexual offences into the jurisdiction of the military police, the exact policy this legislation is looking to reverse.
This is the critical point I have heard from many service people. For decades, survivors have felt that while they deserve justice, they have not received that justice. Women, 2SLGBTQ+ and marginalized communities have felt that the Canadian Armed Forces and the federal government are not making the reforms to create space for them. Instead, they feel that the government is reacting to bad press, treating them like a problem to be managed instead of people to be valued. Decades after the government's decision to bring criminal sexual offences into the military police's jurisdiction, The Globe and Mail reported that those feelings were real. Through historic cabinet documents, they found that the then-minister of defence, Art Eggleton, made the transfer simply to end the media coverage of sexual assault in the military. The federal government did not make this change to protect women and men in the armed forces but instead did so to protect itself, hoping people would forget.
However, survivors have continued fighting for a change, and their organizing has brought the spotlight onto harmful military culture again and again. Their perseverance has led to multiple investigations into the military justice system. To date, this has included the 2015 report by Justice Deschamps, the 2021 report by Justice Fish, an Auditor General's report, two reports by the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, and, of course, Arbour's report. I want to also include the recent history-making report by the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs on women's health.
Supporting survivors of military sexual trauma is generational. Even before my time in the House of Commons, my mother, Irene Mathyssen, worked on this issue and spoke with many women about their experience. They have told me that, for so many, she was the first member of Parliament to believe them and to hear them. She saw the urgency of this crisis, and she fought for women in the military and victims of military sexual trauma. When I was elected, I joined the NDP team as the critic for the status of women. When the scandals broke, involving the most senior military officials being perpetrators and enablers of sexual misconduct, we saw the Standing Committee on National Defence get caught up in the partisan politics of this place. I saw parliamentarians weaponize the experience of these survivors to score political points against each other and I saw endless filibustering. However, women parliamentarians from across the political spectrum knew that survivors deserved better.
We brought this study to the status of women committee, and I heard the stories of these brave survivors. I promised them and myself that I would fight for them and I am honoured that they trusted me with their experiences and asked me to help them make the change. I can never forget that promise. I now serve as the critic for national defence, and I have used every opportunity to push for that change. I have challenged every minister, every departmental official and every senior CAF official to move on the long list of recommendations that can create meaningful culture change.
The Canadian Armed Forces has been criticized for being slow to enact recommendations from these reports. Justice Arbour emphasized the need for greater civilian input and oversight within the military to cut through the systemic resistance to change. When the current President of the Treasury Board was the minister of national defence, she announced, on December 13, 2022, that she would accept all of Justice Arbour's recommendations and bring forward a plan to enact these changes, including this legislation. The government announced an immediate transfer of all active criminal sexual investigations to civilian courts. However, this did not happen entirely. Approximately half of cases remained in the military justice system without a clear explanation as to why.
Of the cases that were transferred, the existing concurrent jurisdiction between the military police and civilian authorities caused major problems. Retired Corporal Arianna Nolet was one of the first military sexual trauma victims to have her case transferred to civilian courts. Last September, her case was stayed due to time delays in the back-and-forth between military and civilian police. The cause of the delays was twofold. First, civilian authorities were wary of taking over the case and, due to concurrent jurisdiction, they were not mandated to accept the case. Second, the transfer of the case files by the military police was significantly delayed. Military police dragged their feet every step of the way, leaving what the judge called an “albatross of nine months of delay under the military justice system clasped suddenly around [the case's] neck, [which] was irretrievably locked up in the civilian system”. That albatross meant a survivor was denied her day in court. The case was thrown out of court under timely-trial rules. When that case was thrown out, the minister of defence said it was a unique circumstance, but we have seen several cases have the same fate.
One of Canada's most prominent military law experts, retired Colonel Michel Drapeau, said the law must be changed to end concurrent jurisdiction, and as long as we transfer cases between two jurisdictions, we will see more and more cases stayed. Drapeau, who wrote the main book on military law in Canada, said the government should have immediately brought forward a short bill, a page, to amend the National Defence Act and simply add criminal sexual offences to the list of crimes the military cannot handle. With that simple change, we could have prevented the cases that were transferred from being stayed.
That is why, last year, I brought forward my bill, Bill C-363, which would have done exactly that. Because of my place in the lottery for Private Members' Business, the bill was not debated. However, I wanted to send a message to the minister that we need urgency. We needed action as soon as possible to end the tug-of-war over jurisdiction and ensure that all survivors who have their cases transferred would have their day in court.
There are still many cases moving forward in this confusing tug-of-war, and there is no indication that the transfer is getting smoother because this is not about procedure and it is not about making technocratic deals with provinces; this is about power. This is about a system designed to cover up problems, to revictimize survivors and to maintain the status quo. That is why there is so much urgency to fix this problem and why the NDP is supporting bringing this bill to committee quickly.
However, let me be clear: With just this legislation, the government is not fully delivering the changes needed and this cannot be the last chapter in our fight. When the Minister of National Defence announced the legislation, I heard from countless women and men, survivors of military sexual trauma, about their frustration with the current government. They told me that they were never consulted by the government on the legislation. Much like they saw in 1998, they were seeing another checking-of-a-box exercise, so they once again felt invisible.
We cannot make legislation about survivors without survivors. We cannot treat survivors as a communications problem to be solved or a legal liability to be avoided. They are women and men who have stepped forward to protect our country, who are willing to put their lives on the line when the federal government deploys them. Parliamentarians have a moral, sacred obligation to do everything they can to protect them and not revictimize those who have faced institutional betrayal.
I have spent the summer in conversation with dozens of survivors with first-hand experience of reporting their cases in the military and civilian justice systems and they need to be consulted. That is why we need to get this legislation to committee quickly, where we can centre on the voices of survivors and, through amendment, give them a voice in this change.
I do not have enough time to speak about all of them, but some of the feelings and ideas I heard about need to make it to the committee study. I would like to provide a bit of context today.
First and foremost, we need to end the framing of this problem as a criminal justice issue alone. It is easy to say the sexual misconduct was carried out by a few bad apples, that it was the old boys' club covering up for their buddies, and by swapping people around, we could end it, or that this is about a handful of truly horrific random acts of violence. Criminal sexual offences do not come out of nowhere. This is a result of a permissive environment, a culture that encourages gendered and power dynamics, that allows powerful men to test and push boundaries over and over without anyone speaking up.
If we only focus on criminal justice reform and not on tough conversations around institutional culture change, we are not doing justice for survivors. It is not enough to hold perpetrators accountable. We must get to the roots of, and prevent, sexual violence. We cannot put all the resources and energy for change into a legal reform basket. We need a top-down review of the CAF, from recruitment and training to the health care system, promotions and so much more.
I also heard concerns that the Criminal Code focus of this bill is not addressing the escalatory nature of sexual misconduct and could create problems with drawing the line between acceptable and unacceptable behaviours. I heard that many survivors have lost faith in the justice system as a whole, and the divide between civilian and military justice does not address that loss of faith. The problems of the civilian justice system must be addressed.
I heard concerns that this legislation could continue the rotten-apple theory that the problem is a handful of powerful perpetrators who need to be stopped instead of a wider institutional and cultural driver. I heard that there need to be more options for survivors to get justice, not fewer. There need to be greater opportunities and supports toward pursuing human rights court cases and non-criminal cases, as well as opportunities for restorative justice. Survivors need more agency and more say in how their cases move forward.
I heard that survivors need greater supports and information, including legal services, prior to reporting to be fully informed on the process. I heard many conversations about whether the bill is protecting investigations from chain-of-command interference. There are concerns around civilian police gaining access to conduct new investigations, collect evidence and access necessary information for historical cases.
I heard concerns about the expertise and preparedness of the civilian system with regard to military cases. These included concerns about local police units' connections with current or former military personnel, resources of civilian police, jurisdictions between and across provinces, willingness to open complex cases, the ability to understand and access military records and spaces, and the need for a dedicated national team.
I heard concerns about the creation of new senior positions, changes to military judge appointments, and the need to ensure accountability, scrutiny of appointments and an openness to voices outside of the old guard. I heard concerns about pursuing aspects of a criminal case that are illegal under the National Defence Act but not currently codified in the Criminal Code of Canada. I heard of the need to ensure that this reform is not set in stone forever and that research and legislative reviews are proactively scheduled to ensure this legislative change is having the intended impact.
I heard strong concerns about international misconduct cases, including the collection and preservation of evidence and the ability of the military justice system to handle these cases. I heard strong concerns that the members of the cadets, the reserves and the navy, and civilian employees on base were not adequately considered in this legislation. I heard strong concerns that members who are not on base cannot access the same quality of services and supports and that new supports in this bill do not adequately address this gap.
I heard that the new rules on the victim's liaison officer positions need to be reconsidered and strengthened and that there is a need for a legal and policy advocate independent from the chain of command. I heard some talk about the importance of underlining that this is not only a women's issue and increasing outreach to all service members.
That is just a bit of what I heard. However, there was one unified message from everyone we spoke to: This bill is simply not enough. This cannot be the be-all and end-all. Survivors will not remain invisible. Culture change is not something that happens overnight, and I understand that, nor can it be fixed by one piece of legislation. This is an issue that the government and all of us in this place must be committed to.
I will conclude as I started. Generations of military sexual trauma survivors have felt invisible. They have fought every day to demand that we fulfill our responsibility to protect everyone who serves. When the bill gets to committee, we will hear from survivors. We will centre their voices and their proposals, because we cannot make this legislation about survivors without survivors.
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- Jun/1/22 2:52:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, two days ago the Justice Arbour report came out and the Liberals are already failing to take it seriously. Today's news that the government will bring back Canada's top military police officer, despite his being asked to apologize for his mishandling of a sexual assault case, is appalling. We have heard over and over again that there needs to be a culture change in Canada's armed forces. This is not it.
For seven years, the Prime Minister has protected toxic men in positions of power. When will the “feminist” Prime Minister finally do what is right for women?
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