Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate. I had the great pleasure of being before the committee with the Parliamentary Secretary when there were some witnesses who were talking about the very things the amendments today refer to.
I am pleased, because during that debate in the committee, there was a sense, on the issue of summary conviction, that we were not going to get to where we needed to be. I can say to my friends across the way from the committee that I am pleased that we almost got all the way there. I say almost, because it was not all the way, in our view. Nonetheless, on the summary conviction piece, it seems that the testimony was heard.
Without a doubt, the fact that the government side brought forward a change to that piece was welcome. Those are the things we were talking about during those particular two hours with the witnesses. It was a key piece to finding our way through, as much as we had asked for it before. It had been passed historically. Lots of folks have gone through that history and have noted where we were at certain points in time.
This brings us back to the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff and his authority. There is no question that ordinary people who have never served in the military—I am one of them; there are more of us who have not served than who have—do not truly understand the nature of the criminal justice system within the defence department, because it is unique. Folks are asked to do things that the rest of us are never asked to do in most circumstances. Some of us may have been asked to do certain things, but certainly not to the same degree. As a result, it becomes a unique piece unto itself. The issue is whether that uniqueness changes our ability to give those folks who are in that unique area the same rights as everyone else.
I am not suggesting that it is easy. It is not. This is a complicated piece. The parliamentary secretary, quite articulately, asked about being under live fire. That does not necessarily mean being at war. It could be a live-fire exercise. Live fire could be on Canadian soil at a base somewhere where they are actually doing something.
How do we make sure that folks do not do that? The government's sense is that we need a chain of command, because that is what the forces are used to. They have a sense of a chain of command and who gives the orders. That is how the system works. It is a hierarchical system, and it has to be that way in the sense that when one gives a command, someone has to follow the command and do whatever that is.
How do we fit that piece in a civilian justice system? These are still Canadian citizens, albeit in the armed forces, who we expect to be treated a certain way. I would suggest that they need to be treated in a special way, but not necessarily inside the justice system. That is simply out of respect for them for the things they do.
How do we manage to do that piece? I hear the government side saying that we need to have a chain of command, and we need to trust it. I do not want to put words in the government's mouth, but my sense is that the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff can instruct the Provost Marshal and the Vice Provost Marshal to do the right thing. I am not saying that it is wrong to have that trust. However, what if they get it wrong? Is there a check and balance in the system so that if we get it wrong, we have the ability to check it? Unfortunately, the way the legislation is, we do not have that.
In a normal justice system, we absolutely have checks and balances. We may see folks who we would all agree should maybe be incarcerated. Perhaps they should be, but the system was not followed the way it was meant to be followed, with the right evidence, the right to a fair trial, the right to be told that one might be charged and the right to representation.
Some of us may have read about, and many of the folks here who are lawyers may have had experiences with, the fact that folks have been discharged from a criminal charge in the civil system because of their rights not being followed in an appropriate and correct manner. Yet we could probably agree that the people might be guilty. However, the rules are meant to protect all of us who might be charged unjustly. The weakness is not so much a mistrust for the armed forces because we have none. The piece is about the safeguards for the individuals. We need to consider whether their rights under the charter have been waived. There is a lot of evidence to say that is not the case. When people sign on the dotted line to say that they intend to come and work on behalf of whomever, they have not waived those rights as individuals under the charter. Therefore, how do we work with those pieces?
My friend from St. John's East has been working on this file for a while now. I have to thank him for the opportunity to go and sub for him from time to time when he is elsewhere. I have had the great pleasure to hear what folks have commented on this. That was the intent that this side had in proposing amendments. We were pleased the government took hold of the amendment on summary conviction. The other amendment is around this sense of the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff and how he or she might instruct an investigation.
In the past we have seen where instructions in a civil investigation can go sideways if it looks as though it is not being done in an open, transparent and fair manner. In civil society we then hear the traditional phrase that it is a whitewash because there is no faith in the system. It is not good enough for a system to function, especially a criminal justice system. It must be seen to function not only effectively but fairly and justly, otherwise it is deemed to not be working at all, regardless of who is inside it.
That is the piece we are trying to get the government to see. It is not the case that we cannot trust the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff. I do not believe my friend from St. John's East has ever said that. From this side, I have heard a number of my colleagues talk about the great faith they have in the defence department and the men and women who serve in it and the honour they carry forward. The issue is one of how we make the system such that people look at it and deem it to be fair, just and transparent enough so they can say that it works.
I suggest that not everybody who is charged is actually guilty. We get what the parliamentary secretary has called the live fire exercise, which is a situation where we are engaged in hot theatre. Those are two particularly unique circumstances where one would hope the training of the military police officers would not enter into. However, let us assume they did not know there was a live fire at Gagetown, Petawawa, or wherever in the country. Would they expect the commanding officer to say that there was a live fire? We would expect that to happen. The issue then would they could not go in until, rather than they could not go in at all. The problem with a command not doing it at all perhaps becomes not seeing justice done fairly.
Both sides are not far away from where they want to be. What we are debating is this whole sense of how we get there. The belief on the government side is to do it through a chain of command that we trust. Our sense is through a civilian piece or a part that looks like a civilian piece that could be included here. Some of the key witnesses who have experience in the area of military court proceedings, whether it be Lamer, Létourneau or other justices of the courts, have said that we ought to head in that direction. Frankly, I place a lot of trust in where they have decided to take us and where they think we should go.
Therefore, I would encourage the government to take a look at those pieces and move in a holistic approach to this. A band-aid on a problem is just that, a band-aid. It does not heal the situation or fix the overall piece. It simply puts a band-aid on it, which is really where we are with this.
I look forward to questions or comments from my colleagues.
