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The House of Commons defense committee on Monday ended months of hearings into the Liberal government’s handling of allegations of sexual misconduct involving senior military commanders without producing a report.
The committee had been investigating the government’s handling of complaints against former defense chief Jonathan Vance and his successor, Admiral Art McDonald, since allegations against the two surfaced in February.
Still, the committee ended its last meeting on Monday without completing a report on its investigation after Liberal MPs pursued what opposition parties called filibuster by speaking for nearly two hours.
The chances of the committee now producing a report seem slim, as many expect an election to be called in the fall. The decision also means that two other reports from the committee, including one on access to mental health services for troops, will not be tabled.
The stalemate began last month when Tories sought to call on former Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan’s chief of staff, Zita Astravas, to testify about what happened after the military ombudsman reported a complaint against Vance to the Minister in March 2018.
Astravas had previously ignored a House of Commons call to appear before the committee after the government said ministerial assistants would not be allowed to testify.
The filibuster continued even after the Conservatives tried to drop this demand in late May.
Liberal MP Anita Vandenbeld criticized the opposition in her nearly 30-minute speech Monday for dragging out the debate by trying to limit the drafting parameters of the military sexual misconduct report.
Vandenbeld, who is also parliamentary secretary to Sajjan, also suggested that a report would have been completed had the opposition not continued to call witnesses after the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois voted in mid-April to stop the committee’s investigation.
“I think we all want to see this report and the other reports,” she said. “Considering that we are now in this eleventh hour, I think we all feel a little depressed that we are unlikely to see some of these recommendations, especially the ones that matter to survivors.”
Tory defense spokesman James Bezan, the only non-liberal to speak on Monday, used his own five-minute intervention at the very end of the meeting to strike back at the Liberals while lamenting the impact on victims of military sexual misconduct.
“I have never been so disheartened to be a member of this committee in the past 10 years,” he said. “It is scandalous that Liberal MPs spend more time protecting the Minister of National Defense… than protecting women or men in uniform.
Liberal MPs then released their own set of recommendations that they said were aimed at tackling sexual misconduct in the military.
Retired Colonel Michel Drapeau, who is now a lawyer specializing in military affairs and who testified before the committee, called the committee’s inability to produce a report and recommendations as “great embarrassment.”
The defense committee was actually one of two committees that looked into military sexual misconduct. The Status of Women Committee had investigated the larger issue and produced a report last week with recommendations to address the issue.
While praising the recommendations released last week by the Status of Women committee, Drapeau suggested that the defense committee – and the Liberals in particular – were turning their backs on women in uniform.
“Truth be told, the liberals led by (Vandenbeld) appear to be obstructionists,” he said in an email. “In a clever way, they prevent a mechanism from being put in place to bring about the cultural and statutory changes necessary for military sex culture.”
Megan MacKenzie, who studies military sexual misconduct at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, was also upset, saying in an email: “It is so baffling that the Prime Minister continues to defend the minister on this matter.
“I hope that more pressure could be exerted directly on the Prime Minister on this issue at this stage. He’s supposed to be a feminist prime minister with a feminist mandate, and he’s basically used the committee process to silence reports of sexual assault. It’s not okay.”
But Maya Eichler, a military sexual misconduct expert at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax who also testified, said unlike the Status of Women Committee, the Defense Committee’s study was riddled with partisan politics from the start. start.
“The goal of course became the minister, and that political goal was too strong for there to be a collective interest in doing something meaningful for the affected military and for a long-term military culture change,” he said. she declared.
“In my opinion, (the defense committee) has failed miserably (military sexual trauma), the military and the Canadian public in refusing to work together across political lines on this pressing issue.”
Global News first reported in February allegations that Vance had a relationship with a subordinate that began in 2001 and continued after accepting the most senior position in 2015. Vance was also accused of having sent an obscene email to a junior member in 2012.
Vance, who resigned in January, declined requests for comment from The Canadian Press, but Global said he denies any wrongdoing. McDonald, who temporarily stepped down as defense chief after a month on the job, did not comment.
Both are currently the subject of a military police investigation.
—Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press
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