OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has revealed that his office was made aware of Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan’s move to redirect an allegation of sexual misconduct against the chief of the defence staff in 2018 to outside officials.
Trudeau said his team acknowledged that Sajjan had pointed then-military ombudsman Gary Walbourne to "independent officials who could investigate" the allegation levied against Gen. Jonathan Vance, but only recently learned of specifics through media reports.
"In 2018 my office was aware of the minister’s direction to the ombudsman," said Trudeau in Parliament on Wednesday.
Military police launched an investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against Vance in early February 2021, following his retirement. CTV News has not independently verified these allegations.
During scathing testimony last week to the House of Commons national defence committee studying the issue, Walbourne detailed how he had brought forward the allegation in March 2018 to Sajjan – contradicting the government’s talking point they had only heard about the reports in February – and was abruptly turned away.
"The meeting kind of abruptly ended around that point in time. I did tell the minister what the allegation was, I reached into my pocket to show him the evidence I was holding and he pushed back from the table, and said ‘no’ and I don’t think we exchanged another word," Walbourne said at the time.
"I did offer to shake his hand at the end of the meeting and he said ‘please do get back to me with some advice to tell me what I should do.’"
The day after, Walbourne received a phone call from the Privy Council Office about the allegation.
In an exchange with Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole Wednesday, Trudeau said "those officials never received further information and so we were unable to move forward with an investigation."
Walbourne said he had vowed to keep the victim’s identify confidential and that he was simply going to the minister for advice and guidance.
"Those are the people who need to do the independent rigorous investigations. We have always ensured that those people are able to do the rigorous follow-ups," said Trudeau.
Asked by O’Toole why he didn’t ask Vance to step aside, at least temporarily, as he called for back in 2015 upon revelations then-chief of the defence staff Tom Lawson had made inappropriate remarks, the prime minister repeated "we have always taken allegations of sexual misconduct seriously."
Yesterday, Trudeau reflected on "troubling" reports as of late about toxic and unsafe work conditions at Canada’s major federal institutions including the Canadian Armed Forces.
"I think what we’re seeing over the past days, weeks, and months is a really troubling pattern in Canada, whether we talk about the news coming out of the Canadian Armed Forces, whether we talk about the [Michel] Bastarache report into the RCMP, or even recent reports coming out Correctional Service Canada," he said.
"This needs to end."
