James Bezan
Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, Manitoba · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberals themselves are warning that public investment in ag research and development has fallen by 15%. Private sector R and D outsourced to universities is down 77%. The number of firms conducting research in Canada has dropped by 30%.”
“Mr. Speaker, let us separate the fiction and actually have some reality here. Most of our troops are not seeing a bump in their paycheque because the Liberals continue to claw it back at every opportunity. Rents are up by more than 5% for military housing. Housing support is down in more than 10 of the major housing posting locations.”
“Mr. Speaker, everything the Liberals say about our military is just an illusion. They promised our troops raises, but they never materialized. Retention benefits for reserves are missing in action.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Prime Minister has driven Canada into a full-scale recession. Our economy has been shrinking for three of the last four quarters. We are the only G20 country in an economic downturn. While the government tries to downplay it, families know something is wrong. They feel it every day at the checkout counter.”
“Mr. Speaker, I just want to poke holes in the justice minister's argument over the length of debate on Bill C-16 . We only debated this for two days at second reading, and then we let it go on division so we could get it to the justice committee for study.”
“Madam Speaker, although we are legislators, it is our responsibility as members of Parliament to carry out our fiduciary duties and responsibilities to the taxpayers of Canada and to properly vet all of the legislation and spending of the government. This bill opens up a huge abyss of extra spending.”
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“Mr. Speaker, the Liberals themselves are warning that public investment in ag research and development has fallen by 15%. Private sector R and D outsourced to universities is down 77%. The number of firms conducting research in Canada has dropped by 30%. However, the Liberal agriculture minister is slashing $115 million in agriculture research. Science took the hit for 75% of the cuts in his department. Did the agriculture minister personally approve these cuts, yes or no?”
“Mr. Speaker, let us separate the fiction and actually have some reality here. Most of our troops are not seeing a bump in their paycheque because the Liberals continue to claw it back at every opportunity. Rents are up by more than 5% for military housing. Housing support is down in more than 10 of the major housing posting locations. These reckless cuts are making retention and readiness much worse. How can our brave women and men who serve in the Canadian Armed Forces trust these Liberals when they give with one hand and claw back with the other? Will the defence minister reverse these bad policies and actually start improving the retention of our brave women and men?”
“Mr. Speaker, everything the Liberals say about our military is just an illusion. They promised our troops raises, but they never materialized. Retention benefits for reserves are missing in action. The Liberal minister is gutting housing support for our troops by up to $7,000 a year, plus he is hiking housing rents on Canadian Armed Forces members. Our military is short over 8,600 personnel and over half of our military occupations are suffering critical staff shortages. Why is the defence minister making retention worse for our soldiers, sailors and aviators?”
“Manitobans cannot afford the Prime Minister 's out-of-touch leadership or his luxury lifestyle. It is time the Liberals replace their costly and inflationary policies with solutions that put Canadians and Manitobans first, not last.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Prime Minister has driven Canada into a full-scale recession. Our economy has been shrinking for three of the last four quarters. We are the only G20 country in an economic downturn. While the government tries to downplay it, families know something is wrong. They feel it every day at the checkout counter. Manitobans are worried. I have spoken with farmers, families and small business owners, and they all say the same thing. Everything costs more: groceries, gas, fertilizer and housing. At a time when we are seeing record food bank use, the Prime Minister is spending nearly $195,000 on luxury inflight catering. That is outrageous. The budget watchdog said the government has no chance of meeting its own fiscal targets. Growth is slowing, unemployment is growing, and businesses are leaving Canada.”
“Mr. Speaker, I just want to poke holes in the justice minister's argument over the length of debate on Bill C-16 . We only debated this for two days at second reading, and then we let it go on division so we could get it to the justice committee for study. We asked for eight meetings to actually do a proper study on this bill and to bring in the proper witnesses. The Liberals shut it down to only four meetings. We have only had one day to debate the bill at report stage, and they are already moving closure. My question is for the minister who wraps himself in this paper tiger, saying that we do not respect the process and that there has been plenty of debate. We know that on the Liberal side, the only person who ever gets up and talks is the member from Winnipeg North who has said the most words ever, but has said the very least.”
“This is where it gets really interesting. It is giving the power to the minister, through an order in council, to “procure the incorporation of any one or more corporations for the purpose of undertaking or carrying out any acts or things” in the act. It also gives the power to the minister to “remove any members, directors or officers of a corporation”. Would the minister agree with me that this is overreach by the government, that it stinks of far-left policies, and that it is the nationalization of some of our industries here in Canada, which we witnessed under Pierre Elliott Trudeau?”
“Madam Speaker, although we are legislators, it is our responsibility as members of Parliament to carry out our fiduciary duties and responsibilities to the taxpayers of Canada and to properly vet all of the legislation and spending of the government. This bill opens up a huge abyss of extra spending. We are not against spending on national defence. I know the minister tried to say that I am trying to stop it. I want to make sure that we are spending money wisely and respecting the Canadian taxpayer. In this bill, which establishes the Defence Investment Agency act and makes changes to the Defence Production Act, the Liberals are adding in an exclusion that the minister can exclude companies and reduce the way companies can compete. It gives the minister an out so that he does not have to give reasons why any corporation is excluded.”
“In the section that actually talks about having competition, the Liberals list over 20 different different exemptions from competition, and it would make the minister responsible for the Defence Investment Agency immune from any criticism and give them a get-out-of-jail-free card for why any particular project or competitor is disqualified from that competition. We have this motion, instead of proper debate in the House right now that would allow Parliament to actually explore all the problems within division 16 of the budget implementation act, and instead of actually talking about how defence procurement could be used and abused by the government in power. Why not have the debate? Why do the Liberals always resort to shutting down parliamentary processes, in the name of cover-ups and Liberal largesse?”
“Madam Speaker, I have to say I am quite disappointed that here we are again with the Liberals' shutting down parliamentary debate on such an important bill. Bill C-31 , the budget 2025 implementation act, no. 2, is a giant omnibus bill, over 330 pages long, with some proposed major changes to the way government operates. Under division 16 in the budget implementation act is the new defence investment agency act, and that act would open up a door of potential abuse and unethical behaviour by the government.”
“Madam Speaker, as my colleague from Yellowhead knows, Justin Trudeau said he would never buy the F-35. He then ran a competition, and they ran it again. Guess what. The F-35 beat all the other fighter jets every single time, on cost, lethality, survivability and interoperability. The Prime Minister is now playing politics with a jet we need in order to protect Canada and to work with our allies.”
“This is a failure of the government to recognize what we need to keep our troops healthy, as well as to make sure that our Canadian Forces has the equipment to deal with the conflicts of today and tomorrow.”
“Mr. Speaker, I can tell my colleague that if we look at actual things the Liberals have bought for our troops, we see that they have not resulted in increased lethality or kinetic capability within the Canadian Armed Forces. It took the Liberals over 10 years just to replace the sidearms for our forces. Today, members of the Canadian Armed Forces in Ottawa, in the national capital region, have been asked to turn in their rucksacks, sleeping bags, frag vests and body armour because there is not enough to be sent abroad for the people who are deployed in Latvia, where there could be a hot conflict in short order. We know that the people going through basic training right now do not even have enough uniforms, and there are not enough beds.”
“The Liberals can sit here and talk the game, but we know that, even with the increases in salaries, they have clawed them back by increasing rents on our troops. They have increased the living differentials, especially for the people who are now deployed overseas in Latvia. Their take-home pay has dropped since the so-called raise, because the Liberals are clawing it back through other deductions. If we had used the same math when we were government, our spending would have been well over 1.5%.”
“Madam Speaker, the one thing the member for Winnipeg North never talks about is the creative accounting that the Liberals did to get the 2%. They added these in, which have never been added in before, until 2017, and then they added in the big numbers last year: veterans pensions; the Canadian Coast Guard's entire budget, even though it is not a defensive organization nor does it have the ability to be a defensive organization; and Transport Canada airplanes. The pay raise the Liberals gave was long overdue, yet today there are still forces members who have not received the benefits or the bonuses for staying on as members, especially for those who serve in the Canadian reserves. The army reserves have not had those benefits yet at all.”
“(1735) To conclude, I move, seconded by the member for Calgary East : Amendment That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following: “the House decline to give second reading to Bill C-31, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on November 4, 2025, since the bill fails to address meaningfully the cost of the living crisis which Canadians are facing through measures such as complete fuel tax relief, removing taxes and red tape which drive up housing costs, cutting the industrial carbon tax imposed on farmers and everyone else in the country's food chain, and eliminating wasteful government spending, all of which have driven up inflation including food price inflation”.”
“Clause 312 would provide for the ability of the minister to procure shares of corporations; replace all members, directors and officers; and then place people in there the minister wants to run those organizations or those companies. It sure sounds a lot like nationalization. We have been down this path before with the Liberal government. It is called the Emergencies Act, and this reeks of having that overreach and that unaccountable style that we saw with the Emergencies Act.”
“If the national security exemption is required, let us make sure we use it. This would create more contracting, more consultants and more Liberal insiders getting rich, which is the type of corruption we have to prevent. That is why we are asking why there are some rather strange definitions in the bill, such as “things”. There would be no guardrails, other than defence services, which is in clause 318, proposed paragraph 16(3)(d): “acquire defence services or professional or commercial services other than defence services”. Why are we even putting that under the defence investment act? The fact there would be no reporting, no performance and no transparency really raises a lot of red flags.”
“The bill would establish more boards, more advisory committees and more people who are going to be hired. We are talking about more patronage and more Liberal insiders. We see, as we read through the bill, in clause 310, more opportunities for sole-sourcing and not running competitive competitions. Although it says in clause 322 that there would be a competitive procurement process, if we look at the exceptions, we see that almost everything could be excepted from it, and the minister would have the power to exclude companies and individuals from participating in the procurement but never say why they were excluded. There would be no transparency. What would the procurement ombudsman say about this lack of competition and the ability to sole-source without proper explanation?”
“What we are seeing in Bill C-31, in division 16, with the establishment of the defence investment agency act, is that it would lock in all the inefficiencies that are already under the Defence Investment Agency. The bill does not name who the designated minister would be. There is no title or styling for that minister; it would just be a designated minister. It could be the Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement and Quebec Lieutenant, or the Minister of National Defence, which I think would not be a bad idea, or there may be the creation of another junior minister who would not have the power and strength to go to the cabinet table and make the investments that are required to drive home what is asked for by our forces.”
“It is because of the underfunding for the national procurement of the aging fleet and because of the high operational tempo. They have been worn out and have not been properly maintained, because of budget cuts that happened under the Liberals. Over $2.7 billion a year was cut from 2021 to 2025. We know that the aerospace fleet is even worse, with only 42% of our aircraft in the Canadian Armed Forces ready to serve and having the proper maintenance, but they are so aged out and so worn out. All we have to do is look at our CF-18s and the debacle with respect to their replacement. Because of the political games the Prime Minister plays with the F-35s, we have to get the F-35s to do the job.”
“We can have all the agencies, bureaucracies, red tape and fancy announcements, but it means nothing unless we are actually putting ink to the dotted line and signing contracts with our defence industry that would then create the jobs because we are buying stuff that the Canadian Armed Forces needs to replace the hollowed out air force and army and the rusted out navy we currently have. Just to make that point, the results for 2024-25 for the Department of National Defence show that only 59.6% of the maritime fleet is serviceable and ready to go out on operations. The only reason it is at 60% is that it had to retire the entire fleet of our Kingston-class coastal maritime vessels. Only 51% of the land fleets are sitting at the ready and are well maintained so troops can use them.”
“The Liberals' track record on this for the past 10 years has been pitiful, as it was under the decade of darkness back in the day under Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin. What we get is all rhetoric and no action. We need to make sure we are taking action. It has been more than four years since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The minister of the day talked about putting Canada on war footing with the defence industry. That never ever materialized. (1730) Here we are, four years after the fact, and the only increases in the production of munitions, artillery shells and rockets in this country have all been through contracts with the U.S. armed services, whether that is its army, air force, special services or navy. Those same benefits are not occurring for the Canadian Armed Forces, because the government has not signed any contracts.”
“As Conservatives, we have always supported the proud women and men who serve in uniform. We expect them to do dangerous things in the protection of Canada and to work with our allies. We have to make sure every decision we make is a prioritization of the equipment and kit that is required by the Canadian Armed Forces to do that job. We have to be capable. We have to be ready. We have to make sure the stuff we are buying is meeting those operational requirements and that we are interoperable with our allies and neighbours. Let us make sure we are not just creating more red tape, more bureaucracy or more cost in the name of a defence investment agency. We have been down this path before.”
“We have a junior minister who is still reporting to another minister who then has to report back up to the Prime Minister . A junior minister, being the Secretary of State for Defence Procurement, does not sit at the cabinet table. We also have been critical about the fact that the Defence Investment Agency is about how the government can coerce more jobs out of other companies that are going to want to do defence contracts, but will those jobs ever actually materialize? How much is it going to cost the taxpayer? How much more is the defence equipment we are buying for the Canadian Armed Forces going to cost because they have tied in all these extra things they want to do with the dollars they are spending? The top priority has to be making sure we are getting the right equipment for the Canadian Armed Forces.”
“What we are seeing is more layers of bureaucracy, another level of red tape, and it is just another illusion the Liberals are trying to pull on Canadians and the Canadian Armed Forces. They are saying they are doing something when, in actuality, they are doing nothing. They went and hired a CEO. Doug Guzman is a lovely gentleman and I had a chance to meet him, but he comes to the table with no defence experience. He has no procurement background at all. His claim to fame is that he is an investment banker, and a very successful one at that. He used to be the Prime Minister 's colleague at Goldman Sachs back in the day. We have a junior secretary of state who is overseeing the Defence Investment Agency, but again, it does not provide that one point of accountability in ensuring that our parliamentary processes are properly respected.”
“When we start dealing with major changes like this, like giving a new minister new powers with up to $1 billion of spending without any oversight or accountability tied to it, I think these types of changes need to be legislated through their own bills and debated separately. Because this is part of the budget implementation act, we are not even able to study this at the defence committee. It is going to be done through the finance committee, which has to look at everything else in the budget, not just the changes that are happening to the defence investment and procurement processes that are currently under way with the government. We have been quite critical of how the government has gone and set up the Defence Investment Agency.”
“Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Calgary East for his intervention today and for laying out exactly how bad the Liberals have been, especially when it comes down to things like balancing the budget. Bill C-31 is over 330 pages. We look at this thing and they are doing everything in here. So much of it has nothing to do at all with the budget. I want to speak specifically about division 16, which is on the establishment of the defence investment agency act and amending the Defence Production Act and renaming it the defence and national security production and procurement act. We are talking about substantive changes to the way the Liberals want to do procurement.”
“They inspire future generations to step forward, serve their country and believe in what Canadians can accomplish together. This is precisely the right time to let them soar across Canadian skies. It is time to save our Snowbirds.”
“Mr. Speaker, for over 50 years, the Snowbirds of the 431 Air Demonstration Squadron have served as an iconic symbol of Canadian identity, a powerful showcase of military excellence and one of the Canadian Armed Forces' most effective recruitment tools. Canadians have felt a surge of pride when watching the Snowbirds fly overhead. Sadly, 2026 may be the final season for the Snowbirds. In keeping with the Liberal government's tradition of cancelling our national symbols and heritage, the Liberals plan to end the Snowbirds team, without any clear plans for replacement. Liberals claim that this is merely a pause, but if the squadron is disbanded, the culture of excellence and institutional knowledge of the pilots, ground crew and support staff will be lost, and it may be impossible to recover. The Snowbirds are not a relic of the past.”
“Mr. Speaker, there are some things in Bill C-11 that we did support. The problem is that at report stage, the government removed all of the amendments that actually improved the bill and have gone back to a paternalistic system that would not work for victims. We cannot support it.”
“We know that the training within the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service and the Canadian Armed Forces military police, as well as in the prosecution and defence counsel services, those that are within the judge advocate general's purview, have all improved to the point that it is better than the civilian system.”
“Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound for his incredible service to this country as a colonel within the Canadian Armed Forces. He is right. So much has changed over the last five years. The Victims Bill of Rights has come in. It was adopted by the Canadian Armed Forces. It is in the National Defence Act now. That ensures the rights of the victim are always paramount and ensures that victim-focused lens in how we deal with every single case. We know that the military sexual misconduct resource centres have been set up across the country to provide assistance to those individuals who have experienced sexual misconduct, to make sure they get the counselling they deserve and also to determine which system works best for them based upon their case.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois, the Conservative Party and the NDP worked very closely together to bring about the amendments that we wanted at committee. Even Liberal members of the national defence committee wanted to see changes brought in. The importance of choice is something that we heard over and over again. It was the only way we could ensure that the victims would be getting the justice that they so rightly deserve. With the changes that have already occurred within the Canadian Armed Forces, there are more and more opportunities for victims to get the help they need and carry through with the prosecution that gives them the justice they deserve.”
“Here we are five years later, and he said that if it was not for Bill C-11 , he would have rescinded that order because the Canadian Armed Forces are doing a better job at prosecuting those cases, and victims are telling us that the Canadian Armed Forces are doing a better job of prosecuting those cases than—”
“Mr. Speaker, I am always disappointed with the member for Winnipeg North. He does not listen to anyone because he is always too busy flapping his lips. If he actually read the testimony we had at the national defence committee, if he had actually heard from victims, they would all have told him that things have changed since Arbour did her report seven years ago. She did all her interviews, she wrote her report, and it was not accepted by the government until five years ago. The director of military prosecutions within the Canadian Armed Forces even said that he gave the directive to start doing concurrent prosecutions, allowing victims to choose to go into the civilian system.”
“Knowing that we are opposing the bill, I move: Amendment That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following: “Bill C-11, An Act to amend the National Defence Act and other Acts, be not now read a third time, but be referred back to the Standing Committee on National Defence for the purpose of reconsidering Clauses 7 to 9, 15, 17, 40, 60 and 61 with the view to amend the bill so as to better reflect the views expressed by military sexual assault survivors and military justice experts in their testimony before the committee”.”
“What you can do is have legislation that allows you to hold leaders accountable.” Bill C-11 would do none of that. The leadership would still get to pass the buck. We have talked about the concern that there might be political interference with this bill, that it has been done with political expediency. I have to say, there was a sunset clause, and I asked the parliamentary secretary about it. It was clause 70.3. We added five paragraphs. It was unanimously accepted at committee. The sunset clause is important, and unfortunately, the government took it out.”
“That is going to erode leadership and allow leadership to turn a blind eye to the sexual misconduct happening within the Canadian Armed Forces because it will be expected that the civilian system will be handling it. There is so much more here if we want to really look at doing what is right. Rory Fowler says, “If we want the leadership of the Canadian Forces to ensure that everybody in the Canadian Forces is treated fairly, is listened to and has a voice, then you have to give them the tools to do so. When they fail to use those tools, you have to hold them accountable, and that goes all the way up to the Minister of National Defence.” He goes on to say that “you can't legislate good leadership and you can't legislate culture change.”
“All we have to do is look at some of the high-profile cases that have gone before the courts and have been thrown out or had the charges stayed because of a lack of evidence or because they did not hit the threshold of actual prosecution. Afton David also said, “Bill C-11 effectively nullifies the code of service discipline's jurisdiction over Criminal Code sexual offences that occur in Canada, rather than transferring jurisdiction. That decision risks passing responsibility to the civilian system without resolving the systemic causes that produce a loss of confidence in military justice in the first place.” That is a problem. We are going to lose more confidence. We are going to continue to have a situation where all this is going to be removed from the military.”
“It will reduce reporting. Many would prefer a quick internal military resolution, especially for low-risk cases.” Jessica Miller, who is a survivor, wrote, “Jurisdictional transfer risks reducing accountability, weakening discipline, lowering conviction rates, and failing to deliver justice to survivors—while removing responsibility from the CAF chain of command.” This is important to note. We have already had the civilian system at play since the minister gave the directive to the director of military prosecutions to start prosecuting all cases of sexual misconduct in the civilian system four years ago. We have four years of data now, and that experience has not been in the best interest of the victims.”
“They would have to wait till the RCMP, the Ontario Provincial Police, the Quebec provincial police or the local municipal police agency showed up to start taking statements from witnesses and making sure it collects all the evidence. What would happen when we are training on Operation Nanook, up in the High Arctic? How would they get there in a timely manner? We always have military police accompanying our forces wherever they are. We talk about making sure there is ongoing accountability, and I will just touch on some of this quickly. Dr. Karen Breeck is a retired veteran who has worked with members of the veterans community who have experienced military sexual trauma. She says, “The bill removes choice. Mandating the transfer of all 28 listed sexual offence charges, regardless of severity, is not people-centred.”
“(1045) One thing that came from the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police that I think we need to consider is that the CACP “strongly recommends maintaining concurrent jurisdiction.” It says, “The proposed provisions in Bill C-11 would significantly hinder collaboration between civilian police agencies and the Canadian Armed Forces Military Police”. If we look at how Bill C-11 , and clause 7 in particular, is written, it would take away the power of the military to actually do its own investigations. If all the evidence is on base or at a training exercise, that evidence could not be collected by the military police.”
“The Barreau du Québec said it “considers that it would be appropriate to resolve these challenges by amending the bill so as to give victims the choice to decide which system would be best for them, given the circumstances of their situation.” We should not be going carte blanche and trying to force every case into the civilian system. We need to make sure the lower levels are handled within the military justice system so that appropriate measures can be taken, the code of service discipline is maintained and, at the end of the day, the administration of justice happens, whether it is with respect to a low-level sexual misconduct, inappropriate touching, comments and things like that versus an actual full-on sexual assault.”
“She said: I would submit that from my perspective, they should all have a choice…considering both the safeguards and entitlements to the accused, but also the safeguards and entitlements to the victims now within the military justice system, I think we should at least give it a chance to deal with all the levels of sexual misconduct. Even though all of these changes have happened within the Canadian Armed Forces, the Liberals are throwing it out. We talked about the civilian system. We heard from lawyers across the country.”
“Colonel Bruce MacGregor, who is the former director of military prosecutions, said, “Taking the choice away from an informed victim is paternalistic and a further disenfranchisement of a victim who has already been rendered powerless by the perpetrator.” That is exactly what Bill C‑11 does. It gives the power to the perpetrator, taking it away from the victim. That is disgusting. I have to say that we heard from a lot of military experts, some of whom are professors, some of whom used to serve in the military, some of whom are doing both; they are professors of law as well as captains within the Canadian Armed Forces, majors or higher. Afton David is one of them.”
“Therefore, at the end of the day, we know that with the backlog that already exists within the civilian courts across this country in all jurisdictions, because of the lack of judges, prosecutors and court time, a lot of these cases are going to be thrown out. We know that, with low-level sexual misconduct cases that are dealt with right now within the Canadian Armed Forces, if they were transferred over into the civilian system the prosecutors would not proceed with the case if they did not think they were going to be successful in front of a judge. That is why, again, we need to provide the choice to our victims and our veterans.”
“This approach departs from the victim-centred and trauma-informed principles that underpin best practices in policing. The one sad part in all of this is that the government is not providing any extra resources to local police forces, when our military bases are set up to take on these extra cases, that they are going to have to investigate on base now. It is not giving any extra resources to the provincial justice systems, so the courts would not be able to deal with the influx of cases that may be brought in. We know that the Jordan framework kicks in, the clock starts ticking and that justice delayed is justice denied.”
“She went on to talk about how she would not be able to get the high-level French support that she would need to go through the civilian justice system within the province of Alberta. Brigadier-General Hanrahan, who is the Canadian Forces provost marshal general and also the person in charge of the military police and the National Investigative Services, said, “At any point in the process with concurrent jurisdiction”, which means having both the justice system in the military and having access to the civilian justice system, “there's an ability to have a choice change....Concurrent jurisdiction allows us, from an investigative perspective and a prosecutorial perspective, to work with the victim to help them work through those choices at any point along that process.” The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, in its submission to the national defence committee, said when it came to the provisions of Bill C-11: Bill C-11 would deny victims and survivors the ability to express a preference as to how their complaint might be investigated.”
“We would have balance and what the government wants to do is remove that balance. (1040) In another committee hearing a few weeks ago, we talked about how important it is to have choice in cases where someone was in a jurisdiction where their official language was not spoken. In her case, being from Quebec, a francophone, even though she is bilingual, she said: ... when we're talking about really specific things related to trauma or sensitive issues, I don't think I would be doing it in my second language, because when you're vulnerable, you don't have access to all of the vocabulary you would normally have. I would rather have the option of choosing the military way to make sure that I am going to have services in French, instead of the example you provided of staying in Alberta and having my case dealt with there when I'm from Quebec.”