Check against delivery.
Bonjour. Good afternoon.
Your Excellency, members of the CAF, serving and veterans, madame Jean, Rear Admiral.
Thank you for organizing today, Jacques. We know that this is a truly historic and exceptional day and thank you for the organization. Thank you so much to our emcee, Kelly, thank you so much.
Mr. McCann and I are in front of you today, with a lot of humility. We are quite humbled by the responsibility we have this afternoon of doing better but also getting better.
To everyone joining us in person, or virtually from across Canada and around the world: thank you for participating today, for joining us to witness this moment.
And I'm going to need a little help folks.
Today is a significant milestone in the history of the Canadian Armed Forces and it is also a very difficult day.
A day on which we are confronting a painful truth: that our institution caused harm to countless people it was meant to support and respect.
Our great institution stands on a foundation of fundamental values; values that should be, in turn, manifest in the daily words and deeds of every one of our members.
Systemic racism, racial discrimination, and harassment are an affront to these values. And yet we allowed these injustices to occur and fester within our ranks.
And as individuals, whether this stemmed from ignorance, indifference, complacency, or complicity, is not an excuse. It was a clear betrayal of everything we stand for.
This was cause for Canadians to lose trust in our Armed Forces, to dull their support for us, to question our ability to carry out our mission.
Even more importantly it has caused harm to individuals. Our colleagues. Our teammates.
As we have heard today, the mental health struggles, the loss of opportunity, and the erosion of dignity are real.
For way too long, First Nations, Inuit, Métis, Black, Asian, and other racialized members of the CAF faced systemic barriers that limited their ability to serve, contribute, and thrive as equal members.
And too often mistreated and even abused at the hands of their fellow members.
They faced exclusion, inequity, and injustice.
Speaking personally, what I have learned has broken my heart. It has filled me with sadness, anger, but then the resolve to do much better.
But also, humility. Because I acknowledge the role that Canadian Armed Forces leadership at all levels played in allowing this injustice to occur. That it has blighted the service of so many brave Canadians and caused such deep and lasting harm.
I know that today's apology cannot reverse the suffering experienced by so many of our teammates for so long.
But we offer it honestly and with sincerity, with a deep desire to do better.
A deep desire to learn from the past, and to chart a better future where every Canadian feels welcome to serve, and finds the experience of service to be rich, rewarding, and fulfilling in a measure that meets the generosity of spirit, the courage, and the patriotism with which it is offered.
Therefore, on behalf of the Canadian Armed Forces, I offer my most sincere and deepest apologies.
I apologize to every CAF member and veteran who experienced racism, discrimination, and harassment, and I acknowledge we failed you.
We failed to live up to the values we project and promote around the world every day, by not addressing our failure to uphold them within our own ranks.
We failed to protect your dignity and well-being.
In too many cases, we failed to create the environment in which you could serve your country to the extent of your dedication, determination, and pride.
And I apologize for the silence, the indifference, and the systemic failures that allowed this to continue for so many years.
To every single member of the Canadian Armed Forces, at every rank and level, on every Base, Wing, station, operation, and deployment, I say: today's apology is a milestone in our history.
But it is just that, it's a milestone and it does not represent an endpoint.
It is a path we have set ourselves on, along a difficult and much longer journey, that we must undertake together.
A journey of reflection and of self-awareness. Of understanding and allyship.
And we are not afraid. We are going to do this. We can do this. If there is an organization that can do this it is us, because of who we are.
Today's apology is not the end of our work. It shows that we have a renewed commitment to improve every day, and to have constant efforts, and we want the Canadian Armed Forces to be untainted by systemic racism and the discrimination that results.
So, we must make sure our actions match our words.
It is one thing to say every member of our organization must be treated with equal compassion, dignity, and respect. It is another thing altogether to demonstrate it day in and day out. To truly live it and make it the lived experience of everyone in uniform.
So, my expectations are clear, this work will require a constant vigilance at all levels.
I know we all know that an apology that is not accompanied by a tangible effort to address our failures, to remedy wrongs by being better in the future, would be hollow and without real meaning.
To this end, on behalf of everyone in the Canadian Armed Forces, I renew our commitment to ensure we remain vigilant in precluding systemic barriers that could block an individual's participation in military service.
To addressing biases at every level - individual and institutional.
To ensuring that awareness of systemic racism is integrated into our recruitment and training.
And to doing all we can to make service in the military a meaningful and rewarding career so that those who join feel inspired to serve.
Because it is under the shadow of ignorance regarding systemic racism that individual racist activity and attitudes flourish.
To every member who was harmed: it is your courage in telling your stories that has brought us here today.
We see you, we hear you, and we will honour this apology through sustained action.
This is now our collective fight. You are not alone.
We stand as witness to the anger and despair that have shaped and burdened your experience.
And we, as an institution, we accept the responsibility for it.
We will continue to address this challenge in meaningful ways as allies in the cause of fairness and equity.
We will and we must do this work alongside people with lived experience of racism, discrimination, and harassment. It cannot be done without you.
Where trust has been eroded, we will work to rebuild it.
We will not tolerate backlash against this work.
Nor will we abide by false narratives that we no longer need to be vigilant.
Racism has no place in the CAF, it cannot be tolerated, and it has no place in our future.
And we will not accept excuses that undermine real change.
Our work in the Canadian Armed Forces is the highest of all callings: risking all in defence of our country and our fellow Canadians, their safety and their security, their values and their prosperity.
An equally high calling, though, is defending the dignity of every person who wears the uniform.
This is the future to which we aspire: a military that is even more worthy of the pride our racialized members feel in their service despite the treatment they endured.
A CAF that deserves the support, the respect, and the trust of the nation.
Thank you. Merci. Miigwetch.
