Chris Alexander

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, March 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it reflects the inability of the member and other members opposite to see the true context of the bill and the amendments we have proposed at report stage of the bill when he is required to refer all the way back to Somalia in even framing a question about this issue.

The military justice system has functioned extremely well in Afghanistan. It has functioned extremely well for two decades, since Somalia, because of changes that were made and accountabilities that were strengthened. Bill C-15 will strengthen them even further.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, March 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely not a backward step. It is a necessary step. It is a forward step. It is a step, as the member for St. John's East well knows, toward bringing an administrative document, an accountability framework that had only administrative status that could have been undone administratively at any stage, into law. The member, as a lawyer of long standing and one who practises his trade in the Standing Committee on National Defence in a legislative context, should understand the importance of that elevation of the role, responsibilities and accountabilities of the Provost Marshal and the VCDS.

I certainly understand the rules of this place. I certainly understand the ability of the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands to submit amendments. What I do not understand is our inability to move this legislation forward after a full decade, after 78 speeches in this place, after consideration of four successive drafts in four Parliaments of the same bill.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, March 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, once again, the Military Police Complaints Commission is actually relevant to this debate. If there is a problem that the Provost Marshal sees with the instructions he or she has receives or with any of the procedures as exercised under the legislation now proposed as unamended, that person has the right to go to the Military Police Complaints Commission. This is another one of the safeguards embodied in the bill as unamended.

What the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands fails to note is that we have heard proposals for amendments very similar to hers at committee already. She has not addressed the question of operational effectiveness, operational exigencies, the unique role of the Canadian Forces, that means that the independence of police investigations needs to be balanced with other rights, such as the right to life of the Canadian Forces.

Is the member prepared to deny them the information about a threat to their lives in order to protect one principle of a police investigation, which is important but which is clearly trumped by the special circumstances of the battlefield?

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, March 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in this place again at report stage debate on Bill C-15, a bill that is absolutely fundamental to the well-being of the Canadian Forces and to the modernization of the military justice system, which is at the absolute core of its mandate.

I would invite all hon. members, if they are ever asking themselves about the relevance of this debate and the relevance of this bill, to have a look at the National Defence Act. It is a weighty document in both languages, which is mostly devoted to the military justice system.

Roughly 180 pages out of 230 pages of this document are devoted to the military justice system because of the special need of our Canadian armed forces at home and abroad to maintain discipline and to maintain operational effectiveness while ensuring that justice is done both when they are training on their bases at home in peacetime and also amid the uncertainties and exigencies of the combat they have been involved from time to time throughout their history.

This is an important bill. I find it surprising that the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands would raise amendments at this stage on a very specific part of the bill regarding the role of the Provost Marshal, which is going to be enshrined under this legislation much more clearly in law than ever before, but without mentioning the requirement for operational effectiveness, mission success. That is why we have a military justice system that is separate from the civilian system.

We make a special request of the Canadian armed forces soldiers, sailors and aircrew when they go on missions and when they are at home preparing for such missions. We ask them to live under a justice system that will meet the special requirements of those dangerous situations in which they find themselves from time to time.

The failure to refer to these urgent operational requirements is very revealing in the presentation from the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. It shows that she has not understood why we have a military justice system and she has not understood the balance that has been struck throughout this legislation, not just in Bill C-15 but in all bills that have established our excellent military justice system over decades.

She has not followed the testimony of witnesses, across the board, in committee and outside of committee, indeed, because most of those best qualified to pronounce on this issue agree with the balance that has been struck in this legislation. The two witnesses the member mentions are in fact the only two I can remember having commented at all positively on the kind of proposal she is making.

It is also extraordinary that the member would introduce these amendments at this very late stage in debate of this bill. We have had dozens of speeches. We have had days and weeks of testimony in committee. This is the fourth Parliament to be considering these amendments.

We are here in the 41st Parliament. There was a similar bill before the 40th Parliament, the 39th Parliament and the 38th Parliament. The recommendations we are trying to enact, at long last, are more than a decade old. They actually came forward in the 36th Parliament.

How many people were here during the 36th Parliament? Was anyone here? There were a very few. Certainly the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands was not here, and neither was I.

I also have a sense of déja vu in that I think some of us were standing in this House a full year ago, on budget day, discussing military justice. It was Bill C-16, an urgent portion of this bill that was taken out of the bill because we were not moving quickly enough on the bill. Here we are again today, going around in circles.

Bill C-15 proposes to put into legislation the appointment, duties and functions of the Provost Marshal as recommended by the Lamer report. He suggested the National Defence Act be amended to define the role of the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal and to set out a framework concerning the relationship between the CFPM, the military police and the chain of command.

The motions before the House today call upon the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff to issue instructions or guidelines in writing in respect of a particular investigation, provide the rationale for issuing the instructions and make sure they are made public.

The proposed section of the bill, as unamended, clearly would provide for written instructions already. The bill reads:

(3) The Vice Chief of the Defence Staff may issue instructions or guidelines in writing in respect of a particular investigation.

I hear the member for St. John's East telling us that we should simply buy into a mention of an accountability framework with a specific date, 1998, in the legislation. We do not mention administrative documents in legislation passed by this House. We do not do that. That is not good legislative practice, in this place or in the other place. What we are trying to do is take the content of that accountability framework, which I agree is important, and turn it into legislative terms, which is what this bill would do.

The intent of proposed subsection 18.5(3) is to recognize the unique circumstances of the military police, who often operate in zones of armed conflict. I will mention that again: zones of armed conflict. I would like to hear the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, in her subsequent interventions, if there are any, inform this House as to how she proposes to deal with those circumstances.

Military police may be going to investigate a situation, here or there on the battlefield, but they do not have knowledge of the operational next steps of the mission. They do not know if there is going to be direct fire called in at that location. They do not know if there is going to be a live fire training exercise at that location. They do not know if there is going to be an air strike at that location. That is what this provision in the bill, as unamended, seeks to allow the VCDS to inform the Provost Marshal of, and absolutely the Provost Marshal could make public the rationale. That is the default position. That is what is expected of the Provost Marshal. That is what the Provost Marshal would be empowered to do under the bill as unamended.

However, in those rare cases when, for reasons of operational secrecy, the protection of Canadian lives or, if there is personal information involved in the investigation, privacy, the Provost Marshal may not make the instructions fully public or may not make them public at all.

In other words, the intent of proposed section 18.5 is to strengthen the independence of the military police, as the default position is that the instructions must be made public, and it is unnecessary to refer to an administrative document. The VCDS would be responsible and accountable for the instructions he or she gives. While the fact of the issuance of the direction and its contents should be public, the rationale may be classified or engage issues of operational security.

Members of the Standing Committee on National Defence heard that some misgivings about section 18.5(3) were actually alleviated by subsequent clauses, which would provide for the transparency of any directions issued. Let us listen to Colonel Gibson, a senior member of the Judge Advocate General's Office, from his testimony on February 13. He said:

...there's the very important transparency provision set out at proposed sections 18.4 and 18.5, which says that the default position is that the instruction must be made public. It gives the discretion ultimately to whether or not to release that, having regard to the impact on a particular investigation, to the provost marshal.

Therefore the Provost Marshal has the hammer if he or she is concerned about this, and it is transparent.

We heard the Provost Marshal and the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff in committee expressing the view that this would be the right way to strike a balance. They were comfortable with this, that their independent ability to conduct investigations on the military police side would be protected.

On our side, there really is not more information or more insight provided on this issue, either by the amendments presented today or by what we have heard in this House so far. I remind the members of the House that there have been three attempts previous to Bill C-15, four if we count this bill, to amend this legislation to bring our military justice system up to date.

We in committee considered a wide range of amendments. We are grateful to all members of the committee for the full discussion we had. There are two amendments coming forward to this place, one of which is urgently required because it would reduce the likelihood that members of the Canadian Forces would be carrying into civilian life a criminal record for offences committed under the military justice system that do not justify a criminal record. We need to enact that change quickly. It has been close to a decade that we have been trying to do this, and we have failed so far. We are not serving the Canadian Forces well as long as we fail to pass this legislation, and we would like to move through report stage and third reading as quickly as possible.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, March 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, is the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands aware that one of the purposes of Bill C-15, as reported back unamended to this place from committee, is to make the accountability framework, which to date has been an administrative document only, a statutory component of the framework governing military justice, to give it the status of a statute and to make the role, mandate and mission of the Provost Marshal of the Canadian Forces much more explicit than it has ever been before? Under Bill C-15, unamended, the Provost Marshal would have the absolute ability to make public any instruction he or she receives from the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff on any occasion.

[National Defence, March 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I want to reiterate that we have accepted the Auditor General's recommendations, and this includes recommendations on the point raised by the member.

We are still working on a strategy to respond to these recommendations. To follow up on the Auditor General's report, we are developing a strategy for our real property, in which the priorities will be aligned with the initiatives in the current budget. This strategy will be at the final preparation stage in 2013.

The funds that have already been promised and allocated to infrastructure will help improve runways and will be invested in ports, aerodromes, hangars and training facilities, and will also help provide what is needed for a modern military. Considerable progress has already been made at Canadian Forces Base Borden, north of Toronto. A few weeks ago, I attended the announcement of a contract along with the Minister of National Defence. This contract will provide more effective management of infrastructure in Ontario and in Abitibi-Témiscamingue. We are already responding in many ways at different levels.

[National Defence, March 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue for asking this question as it will allow us to clarify a few facts about a file that is important to National Defence and all Canadians.

Yes, we want to take more pre-emptive action. We want to be better managers and to improve management of our real property assets. We want to be more efficient and achieve superior results in managing these assets, which are extensive.

However, I must say that it was never our intention to ignore this question, either in committee with the minister or today. During the debate on the supplementary estimates (B) that took place late last year, it was not a question of simply changing the infrastructure budget. There is no shortfall in the budget for these items. On the contrary, since 2009 we have spent much more than $3 billion across the country for all kinds of construction projects.

The government will continue to invest in infrastructure in order to ensure that our men and women in uniform have the resources they need to carry out their duties safely.

The hon. member probably knows better than most Canadians that this is nothing glamourous. We do not see many headlines about infrastructure, but it is one of the four main pillars of the national strategy. Canada puts national defence first. The other pillars are equipment, personnel, and of course, readiness, which includes training—a key component of readiness.

The Department of National Defence has one of the Government of Canada's biggest and most complex real estate portfolios, including 21,000 buildings and 800 properties covering 2.25 million hectares. The department has to manage tens of thousands of square kilometres of land. Managing such a large real estate portfolio is not easy. We know that there are still problems that need to be resolved. The department has agreed to implement the Auditor General's recommendations and is in the process of doing so.

The source of the funding used to solve the problems raised by the Auditor General was an internal allocation. As a result, to date, these expenses have been absorbed into the department's existing budget, and as things now stand, they do not need to be included in the supplementary estimates.

The government already has a plan to solve the problems that have been raised with regard to infrastructure. I have already spoken about the Canada first strategy. This is an infrastructure strategy that will be carried out over a 20 year period. Let us be clear. There are factors that we cannot control, such as the weather, the seasons and how much construction can be done in a summer or fall. These factors can lead to slight changes in the plan, but they will never interfere with our determination to follow through with this great plan to renew our infrastructure.

[National Defence, March 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of all the members in the House, I would like to thank the hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue for her service as a reservist, for her professional experience in the Canadian armed forces, and for the concern she shows for the lives of reservists and their health care. We must all ensure that they continue to receive a higher level of care.

We are absolutely convinced that we must follow all of the ombudsman's recommendations. We are determined to do so. We have made a great deal of progress in this regard already.

Our commitment to reservists includes a new range of mental health policies. We have often talked about this in committee. We will continue to do so and to ensure that the health of reservists in all areas is well taken care of. If reservists are in another class, it is probably a higher one. We had militias and reservists well before we had regular forces in Canada.

[National Defence, March 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin responding directly to my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue on the issue of the accidental dismemberment insurance plan.

The delay in implementing the changes to cover reservists for this plan was absolutely unacceptable, and we have moved swiftly at the Department of National Defence to make sure that this issue was resolved. We informed Canadians and the Canadian armed forces reservists that the necessary changes were made within weeks of the ombudsman's report being delivered last fall. We are committed to progress toward the fair and equitable treatment of all reservists who play an essential role in the defence of this country.

I would like to highlight the role our reservists have played in Afghanistan and in Canadian Armed Forces overseas missions over the years. The hon. member knows all about that.

This is part of a multi-dimensional plan to improve the lives of reservists across the board.

I would like to thank the member for raising this question, as it gives us the opportunity to clarify certain points.

At National Defence, we are very aware of the excellent work our ombudsman has done. We welcome his report, which the member spoke of. Our reservists are indispensable. They account for approximately 15% of our personnel who are serving in Afghanistan, even now.

We followed up on the recommendations presented by the ombudsman in 2008. Progress was made on 11 of those 12 recommendations.

National Defence made changes to the Accidental Dismemberment Insurance Plan, as I already mentioned. In addition, the department also took measures to update and save reservists' medical files using the Canadian Forces health information system and by applying the same standards as exist in the regular force. We are respecting their needs as well as our obligation to maintain the confidentiality of this information.

In 2009, the Surgeon General published an interim guidance for the provision of health care to reservists. It will serve as a guide until the department has made the changes to the Queen’s Regulations and Orders that apply to the Canadian Forces.

We have also taken measures to accelerate the medical release process for all reservists.

The department is ensuring that reservists who are injured or become ill while they are participating in training will have access to compensation and appropriate medical care.

We are in the process of resolving the other more complex pending issue of fair treatment for reservists. Reservists are subject to a certain number of health assessments, for example, before deployments and promotions.

However, the ombudsman's recommendations stated that there must be periodic health assessments, which has proven to be a difficult recommendation to implement, because of the costs involved and the schedules of reservists.

We did a trial run of periodic health assessments in one location last year, and we have expanded that to five reserve brigade groups across the country.

Our goal is to develop an implementation plan once the trial is complete at the end of this year. So that will be 12 responses—in the near future—to 12 recommendations.

[Nuclear Terrorism Act, March 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank our hon. colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent for her speech.

Does she not agree that one of the greatest things Canada has to brag about is the fact that it has a nuclear sector that produces a huge amount of energy? This is particularly the case in Ontario, but in other regions as well. This industry has not caused the loss of a single human life in Canada since its inception.

How does she explain that the NDP has traditionally opposed this renewable, healthy and safe energy sector in Ontario, at the federal level and across the country, even though it is a great source of pride for Canadians?