Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to welcome the minister and the JAG.
I have done a lot of reading on the discussion before us. We have a lot of questions to ask the minister and the JAG. I do not want to go into too many details with the minister, because I think that it is more important to touch on the general issues instead. One fact remains: more and more people believe that there is a large gap between military law and civilian law.
The Bloc Québécois truly understands that it is important that a code of discipline allow the military to have its own judges, its own lawyers, and so on. But an increasing number of people are saying that it would be wise to bring military law and civil law a little closer together. In that respect, in England, the European Court of Human Rights just put English military law in its place, saying that there was too much distance between military law and civil law. In our discussions and in what we have read, a number of examples show this great difference.
Does the minister feel that we should try to bring military law and civil law closer together? Does he think that military law is still compatible with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and with the values of Canadians and Quebeckers, who approach this matter from a distance and don't understand why military law and civil law are different. There is a purpose to justice, but it isn't applied in the same way.
Could the minister please answer these two questions?