Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, I want to begin my speech today by sharing with members that before coming to the House a few minutes ago, I was at a screening on the Hill of the documentary film Traces, which is about the issue of conflict-related sexual violence in Ukraine. It is a great honour to have with us, on the Hill, the director of that film, who shared directly with us about her own experience of being a victim of conflict-related sexual violence and the work she has done on this film. It is important for the House to know and to reflect on the fact that, as part of the ongoing illegal, genocidal invasion of Ukraine, we are seeing the systematic use of sexual violence as a tool by the invaders for terror. It should underline our knowledge of the horrific nature of this invasion and the need for ongoing Canadian support for the Ukrainian people. We have before us today Bill C-11, which would make changes to the military justice system in this country. Fundamentally, what we are seeing in debate at this stage of the bill is the tragic implications of the Liberals seizing an undemocratic majority, and what they are doing with that majority to undermine the important collaborative cross-party work that was done on legislation in this chamber prior to the seizure of that undemocratic majority. This is a bill about a sombre, serious subject: protecting victims, or trying to protect victims, of sexual violence. It is an issue on which parties should be able to work together. From what I understand, and I am not a member of that committee, work happened at committee on the bill, bringing together people from different party backgrounds to try to incorporate all the feedback that was received from survivors to make this legislation effective. It is not, and should not be, a partisan issue, which is why Conservatives, New Democrats and members of the Bloc listened to the testimony, came together and put forward amendments to the bill that reflected that testimony, strengthened that framework and established, through those amendments, a framework that would have really worked and gone as far as possible to protect these victims and survivors. From what I understand, even government members on the committee supported some of those amendments that the opposition worked on together. At the time, the member for Nunavut was with the NDP caucus and was her party’s defence critic, working with other parties on this legislation. That was the cross-party work that happened, and really that has to happen in a minority Parliament. In a minority Parliament, one party cannot dictate the outcome of legislation, which requires negotiation, listening to witnesses and listening to each other. In the context of a minority Parliament, this legislation was an example of that collaboration at its best, of members of Parliament rising to the occasion, working through the difficult issues, listening and coming to conclusions. However, what do we have now? The government has systematically, regardless of world view, lured and then neutered members of the opposition to join and give the Liberals a majority government, which Canadians did not vote for. Now, they are using that undemocratic majority to undo the work that was done at committee. They have moved motions in the House to undo the work that was done painstakingly at committee: listening to survivors, strengthening the legislation. That work has all been ignored and undone through a motion proposed by the government. The Liberals now believe that they can rely on all the members of their newly formed, undemocratic majority to undermine the collaborative work that was done on this issue at committee. Ryan Turnbull: Majority prevails. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Speaker, the member opposite from, I believe, Ajax is heckling me to say, “Majority prevails.” Ryan Turnbull: Whitby. Garnett Genuis: Whitby. Mr. Speaker, I am sorry. I do want to make sure that he is held accountable for heckling during a speech about protecting victims of sexual violence. The member for Whitby says the majority rules. Well, this is a majority that Canadians did not vote for and that, in the first instance, the Liberals are using to undo collaborative committee work on protecting victims of sexual violence. They want a majority, they say, to move at speeds unseen in generations. They are moving at speeds unseen in generations to dismantle collaborative committee work to protect victims of sexual violence. At the first opportunity they have, that is what they are using their majority to do. I have to wonder what the member for Nunavut is thinking in all this. Individual members, whatever caucus they sit in, are still personally accountable before their voters, and before whatever other institutions they see themselves as accountable in front of, for the decisions they make in the House and the votes they cast here. When a member sits as part of the NDP and works collaboratively on amendments to strengthen legislation to protect victims of sexual violence, and then that member joins a caucus that is systematically undoing and ignoring the work that was done, it is hard for me to understand the dissonance. Whether a person just changes all of their opinions at once, or whether some members of the government intend on standing up against the efforts of the minister and the front bench to dismantle this legislation, at the end of the day, every member controls how they vote when the time comes. They will have a chance to vote specifically on the decisions of the minister and the government to undo the work that was done. This is the real, concrete outworking of the Liberals’ seizure of an undemocratic majority. It now gives them, in practice, the ability to ignore what witnesses say, to ignore collaboration and to ignore the work that can be done across parties to analyze an issue from different angles and get to a result, and the Prime Minister can act as a kind of executive and direct all of the affairs that happen in this place. That is not how it should happen. That is not what Canadians voted for in the last election, but it seems that it is what they want, and their first test case for this is undermining protections for victims of sexual violence. It is shameful, what is happening. It is undemocratic and wrong, and it will have serious negative implications for survivors who are seeking justice in the future. I want to commend the members of the committee who worked hard on this. I want to commend our shadow minister for defence as well as members of other parties who worked collaboratively on this process but who, sadly, saw all of that work undone when the government decided to move these motions, rejecting these amendments. In this context, with this undemocratic majority, we will continue to use all of the tools we have to hold the government accountable and fight for what is right. Government members and ministers need to hear demands from their constituents that the government reverse course and stand with victims of sexual violence. I think the member for Nunavut needs to hear from her constituents on this, asking her to stand with the work that she previously did on committee. I think we need to see a response from the public that holds the government accountable for what it is doing, right away, with this undemocratic majority.
