National Defence committee  I think that's very fair to say. Again, this is an exercise of discretion by charge layers and those who prosecute as to what they deal with. Again, by and large the system is intended to demonstrate fairness to both the accused and the system, and that fairness element is critic

National Defence committee  If I may answer, Mr. Chair, no, it would not create a criminal record under this scheme, because it wouldn't be charged as insubordination. That type of minor transgression is charged as a 129-type offence, “Conduct to the Prejudice of Good Order and Discipline”, and 129 is on yo

National Defence committee  Again, if malingering were charged, malingering is not on the list in option 3, so it would lead to a Criminal Records Act consequence, but--

National Defence committee  From a technical perspective, any faking of sickness could in theory be a malingering charge, but again, I'm not aware in my 29 years of experience of a malingering charge being laid for somebody claiming that they had the flu one morning. Malingering tends to be, as reflected b

National Defence committee  Well, they might not be charged at all. Again, it's a discretionary thing. It may be a 129 charge. Again, it's difficult to articulate that unless you know all the circumstances in the--

National Defence committee  It is. It's a very broad offence provision--“Conduct to the Prejudice of Good Order and Discipline”--and it includes breach of orders, breach of instructions, whether they be verbal or written, and there's a proving element to 129 that can be fairly complex from a prosecution per

National Defence committee  Certainly that could be achieved. That would require us simply to eliminate the listing of offences that are already there and express the idea that a conviction on any offence from section whatever up to 129, where these punishments are imposed, would not result in a criminal re

National Defence committee  As I say, we worked on the principle of Parliament's objective assessment of how grave the offence could be and adopted the two years less punishment provision.

National Defence committee  That's in one of the circumstances, exactly.

National Defence committee  I'd have to go back and do legal research on this point, but unless a court desires to impose a punishment of greater than two years, it may not make any finding as to whether or not it was intentional. Again, without doing that research, I can't answer that question in detail.

National Defence committee  So that's section 113. Again, 114 is “stealing”, and it's bifurcated as well, but it's maximum of 14 or maximum of seven years. Section 115 is “receiving”, which is improperly receiving property, and that has a seven-year maximum punishment provision.

National Defence committee  It says “receives or retains...property obtained by the commission of [an] offence.” So essentially it's an offence involving stolen property, and again it's a maximum of seven years. I think those are all of the offences identified on the list. If I missed any, I'm happy to go

National Defence committee  It's certainly possible that somebody would be charged for an offence that is not on this list. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all service offences. This is intended to identify.... As I indicated earlier, we started out with the policy view that there were a sm

National Defence committee  Certainly--

National Defence committee  I think we had arrived at section 100, setting free without authority or allowing or assisting escape. That offence has a double-tier maximum punishment provided for. One is for a term not in excess of seven years, and the other is two years or less. Given its bifurcated maximu