I surely would agree that he gave a bit of latitude. I spent two and a half days with Mr. Lamer when he went down to Montreal and Valcartier and interviewed people. He was aware also that those were big changes.
That's why I opened up with the questions where he said that as much as possible, if there is no reason to disregard the Criminal Code and the way the proceedings are done, we should go as close as....
The reason I am uncomfortable with this section is that there is no reason.... I have discussed that. I've been director of defence counsel services for almost eight years and never did I find anyone who would tell me there was a reason not to include a private. As I said, it's a weird situation. The same person we're sending to defend Canadians, Canada, and our values abroad, fully armed, here on the civvy side, that person could do exactly the same job and he would be entitled to do that.
Where I would go, and I would accept what you are talking about, is maybe there are some offences where we would not allow a private or some ranks to be part of a panel, but I fail to see why we treat different ranks differently. Again, there may be a reason. I was never given one, and I fail to see one. I did look into it. We challenged a lot of dispositions in the past and this is there because, again, we argued that too. Again, I cannot find any reason. I'm sorry.