44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 5, 2022 10:00AM
- Apr/5/22 10:33:45 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, of course that is kind of the name of the game: the government dragging its feet when it comes to procurement and paying attention to what we need in search and rescue equipment for our military. Right now we have a retention and recruitment problem, and yet we are offering new recruits old equipment, which is equipment that literally may not work and might put their lives in danger. One of the best tools for recruitment and retention is to get the tools we need. Our SAR personnel are the best in the world, and they deserve the best equipment.
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- Apr/5/22 11:04:25 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will keep my comments brief. I want to thank the member for the question and the work that he does to support the members of the Canadian Armed Forces in his riding. I am very proud of our record on the shift that we have seen over the last number of years, since “Strong, Secure, Engaged”, in supporting families and connecting with them on the issues that make life within the military that much more challenging. The nearly billion dollars that we are spending just on health and wellness alone is a clear sign of our commitment on that front.
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- Apr/5/22 11:18:10 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am the person who represents 19 Wing in Comox. I can tell members that I have spent a lot of time at the base there, and I am very impressed by the capacity and the ability of the people who serve our country. I also know that they do not have the things they need. What happened recently in Gander with a Cormorant helicopter was a scary moment. It is very scary to recognize that the people who are serving us and trying to keep us safe do not have the equipment they need to do that work.
I am wondering if the member could talk about when the government will actually make sure the military has the resources it needs to do the jobs Canada asks of it.
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- Apr/5/22 11:34:13 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, that is not the only issue with recruitment and retention. There are many others.
One of the problems that comes up the most often but that could be resolved quickly and practically is the issue of housing. Forces members struggle to find housing or run into high housing prices in the places they are relocated to. Some make a bit of money, but others lose a lot. There are fewer and fewer military housing units where families can stay. Forces members are increasingly being asked to transfer when it is not necessarily justified.
That is one of the issues we can address. That being said, the entire veterans file is obviously important. My colleague from Rivière-des-Mille-Îles does a lot of work with francophone veterans on the processing times for their claims, which are much longer than average.
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- Apr/5/22 11:35:10 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what a magnificent speech. I am captivated. If I did not know the hon. member for Saint-Jean, I would ask her for her phone number. Fortunately, we know each other well.
She referred several times to a regional distribution of benefits. I am from Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean, which has the largest military air base, where the aging CF-18s are kept. However, I would like to point out that we did not receive the promised drones, which will probably go to another military base.
I would ask my well-informed colleague if, in her opinion, Quebec is receiving its fair share of military investments.
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- Apr/5/22 11:49:57 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when my hon. colleague spoke, she addressed the sexual misconduct crisis in the military. I sat on the status of women committee when we heard testimony from the incredibly brave, strong women who came forward.
Two per cent is a huge increase, but certainly there are increases to military spending that could happen in terms of support for women: for those survivors of sexual misconduct in the military. Where would the member like to see some of those increases to military spending go for supporting those women?
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- Apr/5/22 12:06:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, the member for London—Fanshawe for her excellent contribution to this debate. She has been a staunch supporter of our women and men in military for many years. I have learned a great deal from her on this topic.
I would also like to thank the member of Parliament for South Surrey—White Rock for moving this motion, giving us the opportunity to discuss how to support our military and highlight the deplorable state of Canada's military. I am the daughter of a veteran, and the opportunity to stand in this place today and speak about this is vitally important to me.
As my colleague from London—Fanshawe mentioned, New Democrats have always pushed for the government to make sure that our troops have the equipment, training and support they need to do the very difficult and dangerous work we ask them to undertake. New Democrats have always strongly believed that the federal government must play a larger role in supporting the Canadian Armed Forces. We know that we need a military that can work safely, can get the support that they need when they need it and can count on their policies from our government. What we have seen instead is years of cuts from both Conservative and Liberal federal governments.
I have to say that I am somewhat amazed at the audacity, I guess, of the Conservatives standing in the House and talking about support for the military, when we saw very clearly the decimation of spending on the military and the abandonment of our peacekeeping efforts under Stephen Harper's Conservative government. I will speak to that a little bit later on, but I do think it is important to note that we are in a place where our military has not been supported by multiple governments.
Part of the reason that New Democrats believe so strongly in the support of our men and women in the military is because we are the party of working people. We are a party that has always believed that workers have a right and they are entitled to all the tools they need to do their work safely and effectively.
With regard to the Canadian Armed Forces, that becomes more important, as their job is to protect us, to look after Canadians, to hold Canada's place in the world, to protect Canadians during climate emergencies and to protect Canadians during the COVID pandemic. What we saw the armed forces do in Quebec during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, what we asked them to do, was incredible. If we do not give them the tools to do those jobs, it is a stain on our reputation, on the federal government and on parliamentarians.
One of my colleagues from the NDP caucus has brought forward the argument that she represents many men and women in the military, in the armed forces, who do not have the tools to do some of the things in Canada that we require them to do, so they do not have the tools to do the search and rescue that we ask them to do. She raised the issue in the House earlier today of helicopters and equipment that we are asking the men and women in uniform to repair by creating their own parts because these supplies are so old and so dated that they can no longer get parts. The military is being asked to patch together things so they can do the incredibly difficult work we are asking them to do, which is unsustainable. It is impossible to sustain.
Canada, right now, is looking at the world, the world that changed on February 24. I think we all should be looking at Arctic sovereignty. It is very clear that global climate change is making more of Canada's Arctic accessible and that global powers have their eyes on the Arctic as a place to exploit natural resources.
We have seen what Russian aggression has meant to stability in eastern Europe and the sovereignty of Ukraine. We must be prepared to protect Canada's Arctic from Russia and from other powers that may threaten our sovereignty and our environment. We have to have a plan in place to protect the north, and our armed forces must be that plan. They must be supported to undertake that work.
What do New Democrats want? New Democrats want a military where armed forces members can work safely, can get the support they need when they need it and can count on their government to produce policies that will work for them. We want our military to be able to work within NATO. New Democrats have regularly called for the government to take a leadership role within NATO in beginning the work necessary for achieving a world free of nuclear weapons.
I have called many times for the government to sign onto the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. We have not done that. At the very least, and I have asked this of the government, ministers, parliamentary secretaries and chairs at the foreign affairs committee, we could send an observation mission to Vienna this June for the first member meeting of the TPNW. I have pushed as hard as I can on this.
New Democrats want more commitment to peacekeeping. We have pledged 860 members to go into the field as peacekeepers. Canada used to play a vital role in peacekeeping in the world. We have 58 members in the field currently. Before the election in 2015, Trudeau criticized Stephen Harper's government for the decline in the number of—
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- Apr/5/22 12:17:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would echo the appreciation and care that the member just expressed to members of our Canadian Forces for the fantastic job they do in Canada's best interests all the time, seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day.
I want to pick up on what I emphasized earlier. If there were no NATO forces or organization, there would be that much more pressure on Canada to spend even that much more of our resources on a military. Because we have a NATO organization, countries around the world come together to protect the common interests of those countries.
I am wondering if the member could provide her thoughts in regard to why, from her perspective, it is important that Canada meet its NATO obligations in whatever way it can.
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- Apr/5/22 12:21:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, of course, I agree 100% with my colleague from the Bloc Québécois. Of course, we should be implementing those so that we can help recruit women. We also need to bring forth the feminist foreign policy. The government has promised this for some time and has not brought forward our feminist foreign policy. We need to do everything we can to make sure that our military is a welcoming space for women who want to contribute and who want to represent Canada. I thank her for her advocacy on this issue.
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- Apr/5/22 12:35:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her question. She is right. The Canadian Armed Forces has problem with recruitment and needs to recruit more people.
That said, according to the NATO report, we also need to increase our military equipment budgets to make sure our military has the tools it needs to do its work here and in Europe.
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- Apr/5/22 12:36:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague raises a very good point. When one reads the Secretary General's annual report of 2021 from NATO, one sees that Canada has underspent in equipment for the Canadian Armed Forces. I think part of what Canada needs to do is ensure that our men and women in uniform have the latest and most encrypted and secure military communications available to them, because as Russia has found out in Ukraine, when encrypted communications break down, it can lead to disaster. It is apparent that Russia is using unencrypted cellular networks, which make available to all its movements in the field. We have to ensure that the Canadian Forces are never subject to that lack of cybersecurity in the field when it comes to protecting Canadians here at home or in Europe.
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- Apr/5/22 1:03:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I suspect that I will not disappoint the member opposite when it comes to recognizing the importance of NATO as an organization.
One of the member's colleagues made reference to Russia earlier this morning and talked about the military contribution from its treasury, which is immense if we take a look at the equipment it has, its population base and so forth. As a democratic, free country and a part of the alliance, one of the reasons that we are not prepared to commit to that is because it would have a huge social cost. Collectively, as a group of 30 nations, we are able to protect, through solidarity, that group of people against the greatest potential threats in the world, which could be from a country such as China or definitely from a country such as Russia. It is one of the ways in which we can have a loud voice in ensuring world security.
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- Apr/5/22 1:05:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, with regard to the F-35 fighter jets and recruiting, we are told that there is no recruitment problem, but there is a retention problem.
When I look at the entirely deficient military procurement program, I cannot help but wonder if we will ever get any pilots in planes.
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- Apr/5/22 1:06:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am really glad that today we are talking about making sure that the men and women in the Canadian military are actually getting support so that they have the equipment they need to do the jobs they need to do. What we are not talking enough about today is the most important piece of equipment we have: That is the men and women in the Canadian military. I want to thank every one of them for their service and sacrifice to this country.
We saw the Conservatives cut a third of Veterans Affairs. They closed veterans offices, which led to a major backlog. Over 40,000 veterans are still waiting for their disability management applications to be opened. Now, the Liberals have promised to fix it, but they have been partially doing it through casework managers who are on temporary contracts.
My question is this. When are the Liberals actually going to rehire all of those employees who were cut from Veterans Affairs and end the backlog, so that veterans who have put their lives on the line to serve our country and do the hard work are getting the support that they deserve and need?
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- Apr/5/22 1:08:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I very much appreciate the opportunity to speak in today's debate and I want to thank my colleague for South Surrey—White Rock for having put forward this very important motion. It is a very timely motion that I will support.
I have been calling for quite a long time for defence spending to be increased. I believe that it is something we owe to the men and women of our Armed Forces, to make sure that those brave men and women who fight for Canada, who devote and sacrifice their time and their family lives so that our country is well defended here and abroad, have all of the equipment, services, support and training they need to flourish.
I do not believe that Canada's military should be anything less than a great military organization. We have the 10th-biggest GDP in the world. We should have a fighting force that is equipped and ready to fit that representation of a country that has the 10th-biggest GDP in the world. For me, this is a very important motion to recognize that while it is true that we have increased the spending on the military, we still need to do more to meet our NATO target of 2%. In 2013, our spending was about 1%, compared with about 1.37% today.
To remind us of that, I appreciate that. I also appreciate it being done at this time. Canadians, for the first time in my political career, are actually beginning to recognize the importance of spending on our Armed Forces with this conflict in Ukraine, and the Russians' horrible aggression under the very, very bad Vladimir Putin. He is definitely a war criminal. What he and his henchmen and his military have done in Ukraine by starting a war in Europe, the first major war since the Second World War, is something that Canadians have looked at by seeing the images on TV. It is different from the Second World War, when people received news from newspaper reports days later. They saw things on film, but they did not see things instantaneously on television. Canadians are rightly horrified by what is happening. They are saying that Canada really needs to be part of defending Ukraine.
I have been proud of what we and our NATO allies have done. Our NATO allies and Canada have really stepped up to the plate, whether by sending humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, sending military assistance to Ukraine, or providing training over the years for over 33,000 troops in Ukraine who have helped Ukrainians on the ground to counter Russian aggression. With respect to the assistance we are going to be providing to those Ukrainians who want to come to Canada, whether temporarily or permanently, I think Canada has really stepped up. The fact that we are sending the HMCS Halifax, a second frigate, to Europe to join NATO military forces is really important.
What we are doing in Latvia is also really important. The Aurora maritime patrol that has been transferred to NATO command is important. The fact that we are commencing our next rotation of NATO-enhanced air policing in Romania is important. The extension of our commitment is important, and 3,400 Canadian Armed Forces are on high readiness in case they need to go to Europe. That is important. I want to again thank those men and women of our armed forces for all of the incredible work they do.
I also want to thank our veterans. I met veterans for the first time when I was elected to be a councillor. I was very young, just 23 years old. We had a legion full of Second World War veterans. When they came back, they built communities in my riding such as the city of Côte Saint‑Luc, where I served as mayor; the town of Hampstead; and the town of Mount Royal, the part of Montreal that I represent. They were very brave veterans who left Canada, Montreal and Quebec when they were 18 years old to go fight in the Second World War. They came back, they did not complain, they volunteered, they created our communities. Every year, crowds of people came out to parades. Nowadays, there are very few people from the Second World War left in the parades. They cannot do it anymore. We have to remember what they went through.
I also want to take this opportunity to talk about how important it is to provide substantively equal services to veterans in both official languages. What I mean is that processing time for complaints and documents submitted in French should be the same as for those submitted in English.
That is one thing I will continue fighting for.
I appreciate the way the House has treated this topic in a non-partisan way, because there are a lot of things we can argue about. I heard the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent say that before. There are a lot of things we can argue about, but defending our country is not one of them. The support for our armed forces is not one of them. The support for our veterans is not one of them. I have been so heartened to see this House's unanimous support for Ukraine, and the fact that there were no dissenting voices in imposing sanctions on Russia or on all of the actions we have taken to support Ukrainians in this terrible battle that Russia and Vladimir Putin have started.
This motion also importantly reflects the new geopolitical realities in the world. Although it has been a threat for a long time, we are now at a time where Russia is finally seen to be the true threat that it is, whether it is in cybersecurity or our Arctic. We are a neighbour of Russia. We need to be prepared for that Russian threat. Russia is pushing China, as well, in this regard. China is watching carefully, in terms of Taiwan, what Russia is doing in Ukraine to see if it can get away with something. We need to be prepared, as NATO allies and as Canadians, to stand true.
The final thing on that point is that, when it comes time to look at our geopolitical realities, we also have to look at whether we can always depend on the United States and NORAD to defend us. I want to particularly thank President Biden, because the United States is the world's strongest democracy. It has the strongest armed forces in the world. We rely, as do our NATO allies, on U.S. leadership when it comes to taking on a worldwide nuclear power such as Russia. The United States' Secretary Blinken and President Biden have consulted with us and with NATO allies. They have done all kinds of things to show the leadership that was missing in the previous Trump administration.
What I saw during the Trump administration was that we could not necessarily rely on the United States, under a president like Donald Trump, to step up and defend Canada in every single way. Canada needs to be prepared more than we have been to defend ourselves. We hope we will always have our best friend and ally, the United States, in our corner, but we need to make sure that we not only step up to the plate to share the responsibility to defend our continent with the United States, but that we are prepared even if they are not there for us.
This motion says we should increase the percentage of defence spending to meet those NATO targets. Although we are on track to improve, I want to say that it is so important to get to that 2% and make sure that we are properly equipped and properly trained, and it is important that all the men and women who have given so much to Canada, whether in the past or today, get exactly what they deserve: the best support possible from all parties in the Canadian Parliament.
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- Apr/5/22 1:51:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for raising a very important point. I too was disheartened not only when I learned about the allegations but also when I saw that General Vance received a conditional discharge in relation to a finding of obstruction of justice.
I will not disparage the brave women and men who put on the uniform each and every day. I agree with the hon. member that we need a culture in the military that embraces vitality, diversity and safety. Whatever can be done to achieve that culture, so all people in the armed forces feel comfortable coming forward to serve their country, I will give my full support to.
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- Apr/5/22 2:54:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question.
The Conservatives want to question our commitment to the Canadian Armed Forces. Let us be clear. The Conservatives, for a decade, had a chance to step up and invest in NATO and our armed forces. Instead, they decided to actively step back and allow military spending to drop below 1% of our GDP in 2013, but not us. We will continue to invest in our armed forces. We will continue to support NATO, NORAD and our Canadian Armed Forces.
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- Apr/5/22 4:04:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, first of all, I thank the hon. member for his service. Both of my grandfathers served in the First World War and my father served in the North Atlantic in the Second World War, but over the last 20 years, the lapsed funding for the military has been a constant.
Yes, we can throw political stuff around, but I am wondering if, and perhaps the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman could also chime in on this, it is more about having the infrastructure in the military to actually take this lapsed funding, most of which is carried forward, and treat it as though it were a consistent revenue source that could be used and properly managed by the military to get the things we need.
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- Apr/5/22 4:06:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech by my colleague from Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound. This member has first-hand experience in this area, compared to most of us. We have not experienced what he has, so when he speaks to an issue like this one, we should listen to what he has to say.
One thing that stood out to me in his speech was how he talked about the need to invest in the members of the Canadian Armed Forces. As members already know, the Bloc Québécois will support this motion. However, we do not know what that will mean for the budget, in light of the NDP‑Liberal alliance.
What does the member mean when he says that we need to invest in people, in the members of our forces? Is he referring to recruiting or retaining military personnel?
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- Apr/5/22 4:08:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, again, this is not an easy answer. It is justified, from my opinion, and we are obviously supporting putting 2% into our military, because as I explained in my speech, the world is a volatile place and people dying around the globe. I am not trying to take away from dental care or pharmacare, which are primarily provincial jurisdiction, but the point is that national defence is a federal jurisdiction issue, and it is what we should be focused on in the House.
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