Evidence of meeting #55 for National Defence in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was section.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Bryon Wilfert Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
I'm sorry; I don't mean to be flippant, but what are we doing?
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Bloc
Claude Bachand Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Mr. Chair, I find this situation totally ridiculous and unacceptable. Two parties consulted with each other and freely exchanged about the content of letters, of explanations and various options. On our side, we were handed this document at 2 p.m., in English only, during question period, which was very raucous today, and we are expected to study this very quickly. I don't agree. What the lawyers are submitting are rather straightforward amendments, it seems to me. One line would be replaced by a whole list of sections. But we did not get any time to review them. This is unacceptable.
Mr. Hawn, we are presently checking if we received this e-mail. It seems we did not. We could discuss it later, but right now I note that members of an opposition party have been briefed, gave answers, have even expressed preferences. Compared to them, Mr. Harris and myself are placed in an unfair situation. I don't know what we are going to do. I am presently consulting our whip. There certainly has been a breach of procedures that makes this situation unacceptable.
Conservative
Le président Conservative Maxime Bernier
We could postpone this until Thursday.
Mr. Harris, you have the floor.
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
It may well be Mr. Hawn's hope that this will pass through the committee this afternoon and go on to the Senate, but it's certainly not my intention to assist that in any way. I'm the guy who proposed, by the way, an amendment that would try to resolve section 75 and I'm extremely interested in achieving the right balance, the right threshold, if that's the word, as to where the line should be drawn.
This idea of subjective and objective is an interpretation, I think, that the Judge Advocate General has placed under discussion. That's fair enough; that's his prerogative. The concern here was that, because the procedures were inadequate from a rights point of view for summary trials, something should be done to address that. We haven't really focused on where that line is.
I know there's a public policy thing, and this did require some advance discussion before meeting today. I'm still trying to go through the list of actual offences that are named here with the list of offences in the act that the summary conviction trial is allowed to deal with, to see what the jurisdiction of the commanding officer is, and which ones are left out, which ones aren't, et cetera. There are a number that are left off even this expanded list. I haven't had a chance to go through it and exercise my own judgment as to whether I agree with your designation.
I'm looking at the range of penalties allowed to a commanding officer as well, and it seems that the threshold, the bar that has been set here, is certainly higher than what was put forward in the original clause 75. Now we have two categories of punishment that would attract a criminal record. That would be anything involving a reduction in rank by one rank or detention for a period not exceeding 30 days. In other words, any detention of any kind, whether it be one day or two or ten, would attract a criminal record, despite the fact there are not the procedural protections that we talked about.
I have to say to Mr. Hawn that I was certainly prepared to try to cooperate in getting us to the point that we needed to be at. Of course, we were all away for a week, we didn't have the consultation that's required, and I think it's too much to expect this committee to deal with this today and rush it through.
As to your concern about its dying on the order paper, a lot of work has been done on this bill. We have put in place amendments that have been thought through and we've had a lot of debate on it. If this comes back immediately after the next election, then depending on how fast the government wants to move it, there's no reason that we can't take up where we left off.
So I'm not going to be railroaded. I'm not suggesting you're trying to railroad it, but you're trying to push this through without the proper consultation that we had agreed upon. We're trying to find a compromise here, but I don't think we should just take the most expansive one and put it through simply to get us to a certain point. I don't agree with that strategy, and I don't think it has been proposed.
I don't blame the Liberals, or anybody who has seen this and who had a chance to ask questions and get them responded to, but that's not the process that was agreed to. As the person who has brought this debate to the table and to the House, I certainly don't feel that this has been adequately dealt with and that we've had an adequate opportunity to study this.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Maxime Bernier
I'll give the floor to Mr. Hawn and after that to Ms. Gallant and then Mr. Dryden.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Let me ask a question of the JAG, and this may be off the wall. What would be the implications of passing Bill C-41 without dealing with clause 75? Would that impact a whole bunch of other things within the bill?
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Well, I'm just trying to make some progress here.
Is it a dumb idea—please say it's dumb, if it is—to try to pass Bill C-41 without dealing with clause 75, to just leave that out and pass the rest of it? Is that feasible?
Col Patrick K. Gleeson
It's certainly feasible, but it's.... Obviously I'm not in a position to talk about what government policy would be on that issue, but if this clause came out, the bill doesn't collapse by any stretch of the imagination.
That's all I can say on that, Mr. Chair.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Might we just find out...? We all know there's a concurrence motion that was put in the House, so we could vote at any time. Could we just find out whether or not there's enough consensus around the table to agree to one choice or the other so that we could possibly move this through? For all the discussion we had previously on how important it was to get this through, as well as ensure that very minor offences are not included on somebody's criminal record, it would be in the soldiers' best interest to proceed. So I'm asking to call the question on consensus on clause 75.
Liberal
Ken Dryden Liberal York Centre, ON
As others have said, I didn't see this until just before question period. This was an important part of our discussion from before, and I think that passing the bill without clause 75 is not a good idea. Instinctively, I feel the way Mr. Harris does: annoyed that we had some time and didn't allow ourselves the time to really focus as we need to.
That said, I don't want to lose the possibility of all the work that has been done on this having a chance to see the light of day. As it was described, option 3 is the widest option. If somebody proposed it as a motion, so that we could discuss option 3 to see how far we get in it, with the possibility of coming to a conclusion today and having things then move ahead to see whether there is a possibility that it goes through the Senate....
I think a mistake was made in dealing with the process of it. I don't think it was an absence of goodwill; it was a mistake. It's too bad and it creates awkwardnesses and worse, as Mr. Bachand said and Mr. Harris said. But I would still prefer to see whether or not we can come to an agreement on it and would ask whether somebody would be willing to propose a motion that would suggest that we adopt option 3 and then get on to a discussion about it.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Maxime Bernier
So we have a proposal. I just want to read....
Yes, Mr. Harris? I'm sorry.
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
All other discussions of various clauses had to do with people proposing amendments that were in fact in front of members, so how are we now avoiding that process? We're obviously discussing clause 75 and we have a proposal to discuss option 3. I don't think we actually have option 3 as such before us; we have a motion that doesn't incorporate option 3. The motion that I have, passed out here, only deals with a list of numbers for which the offender is...and it doesn't deal with the other part of option 3, which has to do with punishment. So it's not a complete—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Maxime Bernier
Just to be sure of what we are speaking about here, I will ask Mr. Hawn to read option 3, because we have numbers 07c, 07a, and 08b. Which one is option 3? These are the numbers at the top left.