Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his interesting question. He mentioned the example of malingering, and the fact that there must be consequences.
As I said at the beginning of my speech, discipline is one of the pillars of the entire military organization because the lives of the other soldiers depend on discipline and its enforcement. We do not deny that. No one is denying the importance of discipline nor the fact that, as he said, anyone found guilty of malingering or faking must suffer the consequences.
We are not saying that there should be no consequences to lying. What we are saying is that when a soldier is charged for faking an illness, for example, the military justice process that applies must not be less fair than the same process that would operate in the civilian world, under the Criminal Records Act.
It is not a question of removing the guilt associated with the act or playing down the seriousness of it, since as I said earlier, the act of malingering can result in the loss of other soldiers' lives, because one soldier did not honour his commitment to stand guard, for instance. The best example is standing guard. If a soldier falls asleep or pretends to be sick in order to leave his guard post, his fellow soldiers could be killed as a result. We are not denying that. What we are saying is that it is a question of processes.
Once the act is committed, regardless of the consequences, and the soldier has been arrested, the process must be as fair as the corresponding process in the civilian world.