Amendment NDP-21 provides that Bill C-15, in clause 75, be amended:
(a) by adding after line 7 on page 49 the following:
“(1.1) The Judge Advocate General of the Canadian Forces shall without delay transmit to the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police the list of convictions referred to in subsection (1) to be removed from the automated criminal records retrieval system.”
(b) by replacing line 10 on page 49 with the following:
“purposes of the Criminal Records Act and the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is required to remove without delay all references to those offences from the automated criminal records retrieval system.”
I want to explain why we're putting that there. It's pretty clear from the earlier part of clause 75 which amends the National Defence Act by adding the following after section 249.26:
249.27 (1) A person who is convicted of any of the following offences, or who has been convicted of any of them before the coming into force of this section, has not been convicted of a criminal offence:
That's obviously welcome, that not only those who are henceforth convicted of these criminal offences but everybody who in the past has been convicted of any of these offences has not been convicted of a criminal offence.
What's the consequence of that and how do you give effect to that? That's what we directed our minds to, and in looking at proposed subsection (2) of proposed section 249.27, further than saying it doesn't constitute a criminal offence, it says:
(2) An offence referred to in paragraph (1)(a) or (b) does not constitute an offence for the purposes of the Criminal Records Act.
So it does two things. It says it's not a criminal offence, so none of these offences that are listed there constitute criminal offences, and neither are they offences for the purposes of the Criminal Records Act. I guess that means you don't have to get a pardon for them because they're not offences in the first place. I think Colonel Gibson would agree with that. That's the intention and that's exactly what it says. The real worry, though, is what is the effect of that?
I will refer to the amendment that was ruled out of order just for the purpose of the argument here. The Criminal Records Act itself goes so far as to require a section 6.1 in order to deal with the consequences of absolute or conditional discharges. I want to circulate to the committee—I have it in both official languages—a short commentary prepared by our analyst who is sitting here, Erin Shaw, from the international affairs and defence—