National Defence Committee on Nov. 20th, 2018

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.

I have two questions. The first repackages Mr. Gerretsen's questions.

How concerned are you, if at all, that we—across the system, as it's currently contemplated through Bill C-77—will have the emergence of different disciplinary cultures within the Canadian Armed Forces? I'm not talking about offences. I'm talking about discipline for minor offences across different units.

Is that a concern? Is it going to happen? If it does happen, do we worry about it?

Then I have a second question.

[LGen Charles Lamarre]

I would offer to you that we're not concerned about that happening. We have a good progression of what is going to be taking place, with both the hearings and the admissibility for other things like courts martial, depending on what the offence may be.

I want to just add that I applaud the comments that were made of the discipline that was taken to undertake this bill, if you will, to put it forward. I can just add that this is so essential to us for the conduct of our operations. When we're deployed at the far end of the world, we need to have the ability to deal with things expeditiously and fairly for the individuals. I think that we will be well equipped to do so.

I've been deployed in operations where I've seen other nations that do not have it and, frankly, it stops them from being effective as an operational force. This is why it's so useful for us have something that's going forward and that is being subject to this level of scrutiny, so that we will be well equipped to undertake the tasks we have to do.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you very much for that, General.

I will now go to my second question. Would it be a good idea, in your view, to designate specific officials to be responsible for accepting and reviewing victim complaints, and require annual summaries of these complaints rather than having victims complain to whoever they are subordinate to locally? Should there be a centralized mechanism?

[Col Stephen Strickey]

Thank you for the question, sir. That's an excellent point.

As I alluded to earlier, the complaint mechanism that's set forth in the bill very much mirrors the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights. Moving forward in developing this complaints mechanism in regulations, I think it's fair to say that the office of the judge advocate general, will be looking at those complaint mechanisms that have been brought forth in other provinces vis-à-vis the way in which complaints are received.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

[LGen Charles Lamarre]

If I could just add one final word, Mr. Chair, on that.

The idea of keeping track of what is occurring—complaints and redresses of grievance and the like.... We do track those things, all of them, very carefully, because of course the intent is always to make sure that if something is occurring where we can identify a trend or a pattern of difficulty, we can deal with it. There's a fair amount of introspection on these types of things and on that one in particular.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you for coming.

Just to give you a heads-up, we have an hour on Thursday the 22nd, and I think we're going to call you back. Maybe not all of you, but we can determine who it's going to be.

Colonel Strickey, we have to dispose of this quickly. It's part of our responsibility. We do need some substantive advice on 98(c). We do need a little bit more substantive advice on some of these other recommendations. I know you're in a bit of a dilemma because you're the ones who will be governed by the rules that we're asking you to give us advice on, but you are the utmost of professionals, so we really value your advice on this.

If you could maybe drill into some of those other recommendations to guide us on our way forward as we recommend to the Government of Canada how we should proceed, we would really appreciate that. Again, we need more substantive advice on 98(c), because that's an important piece. Although it wasn't part of the legislation, it is an important piece to this committee and to people that have come before us—you—to talk about. We would appreciate that.

Again I'll give you a heads-up that we'll probably be asking to see you again on Thursday.

[Col Stephen Strickey]

Yes, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Does anyone have anything else?

Thank you all for coming, and thank you for your service to Canada.

We're going to suspend to go in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]

[Public proceedings resume]

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

I would request that this be a recorded vote as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Okay.

DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL DEFENCE

Vote 15a—Debt write-off..........$1

(Vote 15a agreed to: yeas 6; nays 3)

Shall the Chair report this to the House?

[Some hon members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Okay, we will go back in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]