Thank you, Chair.
Once again, I'm not trying to rub it in here; I'm trying to inform the opposite side, once again, that the former Chief Justice Antonio Lamer, in making his recommendations to the government, said in recommendation number 85:
I recommend that the National Defence Act be amended to provide authority for Canadian Forces Grievance Board members whose terms have expired to complete their caseloads.
Why did he do that? Because it's common sense. It's common to judicial boards, tribunals, judges, and courts across the country. It's efficient. It's a matter of justice to the grievers not to have their cases thrown away.
We all listened to Bruno Hamel, on February 6 of this year, when he said:
...last fall, I was unable to assign grievances to three experienced board members during the last three months of their tenure, despite having files that needed to be reviewed.
He went on to say:
It wouldn't be fair for a griever, a Canadian Forces member, to have a case assigned to a board member...and then suddenly this judge is no longer a judge and the case has not been decided.
You have to reassign the case and start from scratch. We're talking about fairness to the grievers who we believe should have justice.
Even though you didn't agree to the 12 months, Mr. Justice Lamer thought that we should. Now you're saying we're going to put an additional barrier in the way of potential delay. As Mr. Hamel, the chair of the grievance board, said, we have three people, but no new cases for three months when they're available, and files that need to be reviewed. I don't get it.
You hold up Chief Justice Lamer as a paragon of the law. This is a strictly legal matter. It's not that it has practical consequences. There is no ideology here, folks. Nothing bad is going to happen. There is no ideology. This is practical administration of justice in a fair way for individuals in the Canadian Forces.
I don't know what's preventing you from doing something that can provide justice to grievers by doing something that's done in so many boards and tribunals across the country. I can't understand it.