Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to continue along the same lines as last week by reading Maya Eichler's comments about sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces.

This report is of the highest importance because it gives us a scholarly view of the problem affecting our armed forces. It also ties in with my colleague Mr. Bagnell's motion in that it focuses on the importance of the government in the matter. It goes without saying, therefore, that we must ask for a government response to our committee's recommendations, as this text will make clear.

In Maya Eichler's words:

The Deschamps Report was released more than 25 years after the Human Rights Tribunal ruling that ordered the military to remove all legal barriers to women's employment in the Canadian military. Prior to the ruling, the military leadership actively resisted women's equal integration, especially into combat roles, arguing that women's inclusion would undermine operational effectiveness. Once faced with the ruling, the military took a passive approach to women's integration, which we have described as “neutral” in this article. It enabled legal change but did not ensure a transformation of the gendered culture within the CAF. This gendered culture in the Canadian Armed Forces revolved around the association of soldiering with masculinity and idealized the male warrior figure. It marginalized women and characteristics stereotypically associated with women, creating obstacles to women's successful integration. It also contributed to sexualized violence in the Canadian Armed Forces, an allegedly gender-neutral institution. The Deschamps Report and the military's response to it represent a turning point in the military's discourse around gender and sexual violence. The leadership of the CAF has acknowledged the problem of widespread sexual misconduct and the need to change the military's culture. However, the leadership of the Canadian Armed Forces has framed the elimination of sexual misconduct only in terms of its value to operational effectiveness. This presents a limited conceptualization of gender equality and does not acknowledge the CAF's underlying masculinized warrior ethos. Furthermore, Operation HONOUR indicates a shift from gender neutrality to a strength through diversity approach that collapses gender within larger diversity issues. This is problematic because it fails to acknowledge how significant male power and the privileging of masculinity still are in the military (as they are in many institutions), while instrumentalizing gender and diversity for operational purposes. Changing the military's culture will require an explicit engagement with male warrior culture, militarized masculinity, and gender power rather than a purely instrumental approach to gender as is currently the case.

Once again, as a government and a committee, we here can act by making our recommendations to the government. By asking the government for a response, we will automatically ensure that we will have some feedback on our recommendations.

Maya Eichler also says this:The military's shifts in the politics of gender teach us some important lessons. First, change in the military's policy on gender, both in 1989 and since 2015, came about as a result of external pressures. Second, defining gender equality in terms of gender neutrality is not sufficient to bring about real change. Feminist scholars have shown that gender neutrality, or the denial of gender as an important social category, usually mask the continued privileging of masculinity and prevent transformative change. It is too early to predict whether a “strength through diversity” approach in conjunction with Operation HONOUR will be sufficient to affect cultural change. It is important, however, to consider the limitations of the current approach. By defining its response to widespread sexual misconduct as an operational issue and focusing on the added value that women bring, the military is likely not going far enough in challenging the underlying gendered culture it seeks to change. Closer feminist examination of this most recent shift in the military's approach to gender is urgently needed. The military needs to open itself to other stakeholders in civil society, such as the media and feminist experts. The CAF's first progress report on the fight against inappropriate sexual behaviour recognizes the importance of input from civil society partners and other experts. This should include stronger engagement with feminist researchers and practitioners. While civilian pressure and involvement in itself is not enough change the military's culture, it can render visible some of the limitations to the military's current approach to gender.

I feel that we can draw the same conclusions as Ms. Eichler about sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces. Although her text is from 2017, it unfortunately remains current. As she says so well, the changes made in 1989, and those made since 2015, came about as the result of external pressures.

It is therefore our role, as members of this committee, to make recommendations to the government with a view to resolving the issue of sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces. In order for those recommendations to be not just empty words, we must make sure that the government provides us with a response. It is our responsibility to do so, and a simple matter of good common sense.

Yves Robillard

$408,751.00