Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

Let me return in a moment to where I left off when we suspended last time. Just to reorient members and our audience, since March 21, I believe, when this meeting first started, we have had fulsome interventions on a number of key components to our study, and then the interpretations of colleagues on the Liberal side.

There are two fundamental elements to the work that this committee is charged with.

One is the accountability around the instances involving the former chiefs of defence staff, most notably the former chief of the defence staff, Jonathan Vance, who was appointed in 2015. Along the way, he was reported to have made the statement that he “owned” the Canadian Forces national investigation service and as subject to complaints.... His tenure continued into the current government. That's one fundamental element of the committee's work and our interpretation.

The second is how to change the culture of the Canadian Forces, how to make recommendations to get us into a space where those kinds of instances, these instances of sexual misconduct, will no longer happen. Equal importance is attached, in my view, to both of these components.

We've highlighted the importance, in fact the primary importance, of the testimonies of victims, through recent interventions by my colleagues, for which I thank them. We've also highlighted the importance of expert testimony and testimony from elected officials, including the Minister of National Defence. He testified at this committee for six hours, with the conclusion that the time for patience is over and that we need a complete and total culture change. He invited recommendations and ideas for solutions.

There were also very senior officials from the Privy Council Office and the Prime Minister’s Office, and in addition to that, academic experts, who testified to us. We have also looked at experiences in other jurisdictions, notably and in some cases, jurisdictions with which we work very closely. They are NATO allies, Five Eyes allies or armed forces with whom we operate in various multilateral and international settings.

These experiences that I've put to the committee are important for a number of reasons. One of them is the systematicity of the issue that we're facing, which extends outside of the borders of Canada. Second, these experiences, to the extent that they have resulted in reports and actually follow-up inquiries and reviews of initiatives that have been undertaken to probe their effectiveness, are illustrative of the kind of thinking this committee should engage in and use its parliamentary mandate, authorities and energies for. Lastly, the actual solutions proposed in other places could be extremely relevant to the Canadian solutions that we are charged with exploring.

In several cases, Madam Chair, there have been references to the Canadian initiatives, most notably the Deschamps report in 2015. When we look at these comparative experiences.... I spent about an afternoon and located a good half-dozen of them. I've presented one in full, which is the U.K. case. I was in the midst of introducing a second one, the experience of New Zealand. What's interesting is that the work started around about the time of the Deschamps report, in 2014 or 2015. A good portion of these inquiries were concluded, and then in some cases they were followed up on last year, in 2020.

Before I get back to the case of New Zealand, I want to briefly draw members' attention to an article on Poland. Poland is a NATO ally of ours, and this article goes back to October 2020. I've said to members, when I talk about experiences elsewhere and the kinds of recommendations other jurisdictions have made, that it often seems bureaucratic. It seems mundane in a way, because the language does not capture the emotion and the testimony, and the injuries, the harm that was inflicted on mostly women in those other jurisdictions who have served or who are serving.

Briefly, then, the experience from Poland is illustrative of the kinds of emotions we have seen here, through victims who have had the courage to come forward and through discussions we have had with colleagues also in other committees, not just ours. This particular article is an English-language Polish publication. It notes:

In a high-profile case from 2017, former Military Gendarmerie officer Karolina Marchlewska accused a fellow soldier of sending her obscene text messages and a senior officer of groping her. When Marchlewska told a superior, he responded by asking her questions about her private life.

The internal investigation into these allegations was later discontinued, and Marchlewska herself lost her job. “I am being made guilty, a perpetrator,” Marchlewska told [the media outlet]. “There was no help, either from the defence ministry, or from the command of the Military Gendarmerie.”

Captain Bozena Szubinska, a former defence ministry representative for women in the military service, told [the media outlet]...that “the military is unable to cope with violence against women”.

“Women do not report [cases] to military law enforcement agencies [because] they are afraid of repercussions, stigmatisation and harassment,” she said. Even when they do make reports, “they often, under pressure, withdraw cases at the prosecution stage”.

“Worse still,” Szubinska added, the method of “solving the problem” is simply to “remove the women who report harassment from the ranks of the military”.

“They leave, they become civilians, and everyone is satisfied; they believe that this is [then] no longer a military problem,” [she added]. “Nothing could be further from the truth. The crime took place in the military and the military should feel responsible.”

That is a very brief excerpt from an article in the Polish press. Again, Poland is a NATO ally and this article was from October of last year. It is the very same problem as ours in a closely allied military, with the same tenor of testimony we've seen here. This reinforces the systematicity of the issue we're facing, and it exceeds our borders.

Let me turn back, if I may, to the introduction of New Zealand's experience. New Zealand had an independent review, dated June 2020, of the progress of its action plan for Operation Respect. Operation Respect, in a very rough analogy, is similar to the former Operation Honour, and it is an initiative launched by the New Zealand Defence Force.

There are five significant recommendations for changes that the New Zealand Defence Force should make, and I think that was the point where I was interrupted when we suspended our last meeting. These five elements are the following:

1. To be transparent and accountable by engaging...oversight and monitoring of progress by a trusted body/entity such as the Auditor-General....

2. Provide a trusted external and independent complaints channel (like that offered by the Defence Ombudsman in Australia) to receive, investigate and remedy cases of harmful behaviour and sexual violence....

3. Actively promote the ‘Safe to Talk’ helpline as an external and independent support channel for victims of sexual harm....

4. Create a comprehensive and integrated data management system to assess progress against clear outcomes measures and report on complaints and outcomes of incidents of harmful behaviour....

5. Engage leaders at all levels to collectively own and lead the management of harmful behaviour, including sexual violence, discrimination, bullying and harassment in the NZDF.

That's the top level set of recommendations by this review. The fundamental element of the insights they have gained is very similar to the tenor of the discussions that we have faced and that we're dealing with.

The terms of reference of this particular review process had seven elements. The review was meant to:

1. Establish a strategy to change the NZDF’s culture.

2. Increase training and education.

3. Provide an alternative way to report sexual assault.

4. Create a dedicated, professional sexual assault response team.

5. Address specific risk factors associated with facilities and alcohol.

6. Recruit more women into the armed forces and increase female representation in senior leadership roles.

7. Monitor and further reduce discrimination, harassment and bullying.

I'll briefly reference the sixth element. The minister has spoken frequently about the pipeline we need to build in Canada to have a significantly larger number of women in senior ranks. It has been referred to at this committee as “male toxicity”: the negative and harmful culture that persists primarily in senior ranks. To change that culture, one of the recommendations this committee should turn its mind to with urgency is supporting the creation and maintenance of a talent pipeline that allows female Canadian Forces members to progressively move into senior ranks of the organization.

The New Zealand report is very careful to note that they “were not mandated to investigate or make factual findings about the substance or merit of any specific or individual incidents or allegations”. New Zealand did not suffer the same experience, to my knowledge, that we did with respect to the chief of the defence staff actually being personally subject to complaint while at the helm of an operation that was supposed to achieve the very culture change that we are mandated to address.

They are looking at the second component that I outlined in the beginning: the mechanisms, the recommendations, the pathways to achieving culture change in New Zealand. For that reason, I submit that this experience is directly relevant to what we are doing at this very moment.

The approach that this body took to measuring progress has a number of elements. They discuss the methodology they used and they discuss how they “drew themes from the volume of [different] perspectives”.

On terminology, they make some important observations that would be relevant to consideration of the efforts that are under way before our committee. With respect to “commonly understood terms”, such as “victim”, “target”, “complainant” and “accused” throughout the report, it is a reference to “people who experience, report or are accused of inappropriate or harmful behaviour whether bullying, harassment, discrimination or some form of sexual violence”. They state:

Terms such as rape, sexual assault and sexual violence are frequently used interchangeably and are not intended to align with any legal definitions. In this report we generally use the all-encompassing term 'sexual violence' to describe not just physical violence, like sexual assault, but also acts of sexual intimidation that do not involve physical contact.

Direct references to other documents use terminology as used as in the original, such as the Operation Respect Action Plan that refers to both sexual assault and harmful and inappropriate sexual behaviour.

Again, the definitions are incredibly important not only in scoping the reference of the review exercise that's under way in this case, but also when it comes to the formulation of recommendations and communication with the Canadian public to make sure that we're sufficiently inclusive and also sensitive with respect to experiences of victims involved.

Their report then, in the section “What your people told us”, talks about the feedback they received from members of the armed forces in the review. They state:

Overall, participants shared a wide range of experiences and opinions.... In this report we have tried to provide a balanced account of what we were told during the course of the review.

Many different situations and experiences were described to us. Not all were related to experiencing or witnessing harmful behaviour or sexual violence. But many of the experiences were painful and distressing in the retelling and involved personal cost to those who shared [them] so frankly with us. Many explained [that] they had chosen to share with us as we were independent and were providing them a safe and confidential place. Many thanked us for what they described as a cathartic experience.

We heard from individuals who have experienced verbal, mental, physical and sexual abuse or violence from colleagues. We also heard of domestic and family violence.

We heard about the serious impacts that such experiences have on individuals' health and wellbeing.

We also heard [about] how the [New Zealand Defence Force]'s failure to act or [to] resolve situations in a timely way often compounded the original trauma and resulted in highly stressful situations for all...those concerned, including wider personnel and staff.

Personnel, past and present, including senior personnel who were directly involved in policy development, the initiatives that sit under the areas under review and the implementation of the same, shared openly their views on progress or the lack thereof.

To protect the anonymity of individual participants we cannot share the specific details of individuals or the information, opinions or experiences provided to us. One common refrain was that people do not feel [that] they can safely speak out within the [New Zealand Defence Forces].

It is important to understand [that] we are not reflecting back the voices of just a few, but of many.

We [reviewed] two very clear and consistent messages following most group sessions and individual interviews: People were surprised and grateful that we did not 'just present another Operation Respect briefing' but [that] we asked for opinions and experiences; and they sought our reassurance that we would “tell it like it is” and make their voices heard. In this report we have endeavoured to do that.

Madam Chair, there are some additional extremely relevant elements that I think I will go back to in a second intervention. I wanted to put this forward to the committee as a reflection of the strong similarity between the experience in New Zealand and what this committee is confronted with, to make sure that we put the testimony of victims front and centre, as my colleagues on the Liberal side have done in the past few weeks of interventions in this particular session of the meeting.

I also want to make sure that we develop not only recommendations that help us move forward but a sensitive way of empowering victims of sexual misconduct to come to this committee. In addition, I want to make sure that in the future, mechanisms are built that raise the confidence of those who are still serving and those who have served to come forward, to bring complaints to be heard and to have the assurance that this committee—the parliamentary committee seized with this issue—will take them seriously and will develop recommendations that will expeditiously bring us into a much better space.

I will leave it there for the moment, Madam Chair, but I would like to come back and present some additional elements of this particular review that I think will be very helpful to members of the committee.

Sven Spengemann

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