National Defence Committee on Oct. 27th, 2025

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

Actually, Mr. Chair, I wasn't able to ask my question, because I felt I was bothering my colleagues. If they're not interested in what I'm saying, I invite them to go talk somewhere else.

I'll come back to what I was saying.

In her report, Justice Arbour talked about a culture of impunity within the armed forces. Other than the statistics you were referring to, what other indicators will be used? Are there other ways to measure those things? Maybe through reports?

I know you're doing checks within the armed forces, but will parliamentarians, and more broadly the public, be informed of your findings?

[Gen Jennie Carignan]

I'm going to ask my colleague to answer your questions.

[LGen Paul Prévost]

We could definitely provide you with some information. A number of reports are produced every year. The Sexual Misconduct Support and Resource Centre, which Mr. Gravel represents, the judge advocate general and the military police produce publicly available reports. My team, which is responsible for professional conduct and culture, oversees the conduct and culture data centre, or CCDC, a tool providing publicly available data. The CCDC publishes surveys and incident reports. Obviously, confidential information is not disclosed, but the public is able to track progress.

As the chief of the defence staff, General Carignan, mentioned, we are starting to look at the data more carefully. We have a significant amount of data, but consistency is an issue. First, we tackled the problem. Now, we are looking at measuring the long-term impact.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you, gentlemen.

Ms. Gallant, you have five minutes.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

Do the military police need more training and experience investigating sexual crimes? If they're going to manage investigations outside of Canada, we need to know what the plan is to keep them trained and sharp.

[Gen Jennie Carignan]

As we speak, the military police have been undergoing specialized training to interview victims and deal with sexual assault cases. They have been trained over the past few years, but the question would probably be better answered by the provost marshal. However, they have been undergoing training, and this is part of what they do as they tackle sexual assault cases.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

How much money do the defence counsel services spend annually providing legal services to CAF members accused of criminal sexual offences?

[MGen Rob Holman]

I don't have the answer at my fingertips. I provide them with seven full-time regular force legal officers, along with the director, but the director also has the ability to contract civilian lawyers whom he uses in particular circumstances.

I will take that on notice and get you the answer.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

Can you elaborate on the transfer process section of the bill? Specifically, how does the transfer of a detained person to the civilian authority take place, and what is the procedure for the collection of evidence?

[MGen Rob Holman]

In the vast majority of the cases, members are not detained at the beginning of an investigation. When a complainant comes to the military police, they start their investigation. Under the interim policy that the CFPM has put in place, if the individual wishes to have the matter dealt with in the civilian system, they transfer it, and the investigation is done by the civilian police.

In any case—even in cases where the military police are doing an investigation today—the charges are laid in the civilian system, so if there are any arrest warrants that need to be carried out or served, they would be done within the civilian system, and custody would be reviewed within the civilian system, not the military system.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

What training and dollars associated with this training would go toward preserving the chain of evidence and the investigations?

[MGen Rob Holman]

Again, we'll take it on notice.

Certainly, part of the military police training at the military police academy has to do with the collection and preservation of evidence and ensuring the proper trail of custody of the evidence before it is turned over, but we'll find out how many resources they put into that training.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

Victims have expressed concerns with the cross-pollination: the sharing of information between the civilian and military systems. There have been cases where prosecutors and local civilian law enforcement bodies have passed on information to military ranks to quash or weaken the cases of victims.

What measures are in place to prevent this from happening in the future?

[MGen Rob Holman]

Do you mean information coming from civilian authorities back to military authorities?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

Yes.

[MGen Rob Holman]

Privacy acts that are applicable in the provinces and territories are the primary piece of legislation that deals with the sharing of that information. I am not aware of any particular cases of the sort you've described, but I imagine that they would be completely inconsistent with the privacy acts or the privacy-related legislation of the provinces and territories.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

What specific training will civilian prosecutors and defence counsel undergo to account for the difference in culture when taking on these cases—military to civilian?

[MGen Rob Holman]

Well, I can certainly speak to the prosecution side of this, less so to the military police side.

The director of military prosecutions is part of the federal, provincial and territorial heads of prosecutions committee, which has a number of subcommittees as part of it. Through that mechanism, there's a constant interchange and sharing of information with respect to the importance to the military justice system of discipline, efficiency, morale and those sorts of issues.

In fact, in recent years, pursuant to a Fish recommendation, they've come up with a set of presumptions and principles that are publicly available, dealing with how to deal with concurrent jurisdiction between the two systems.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

Regarding the collection of evidence portion of the bill, how would the legislation affect the distribution of rape kits to victims?

[MGen Rob Holman]

They're not generally distributed to victims. They are used in hospitals by medical professionals to collect evidence. When that evidence is collected.... Once this bill is in place, that will not be evidence collection by the military police. That would be evidence collection that would be turned over to the civilian police.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you, Major-General.

Thank you, Ms. Gallant.

Chris Malette, you have five minutes.

[Chris Malette, Liberal, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I'm going to stay with the victim support angle here.

Bill C-11 proposes to transfer jurisdiction over sexual offences committed by CAF members in Canada from the CAF to the civilian justice system, as we've heard at length, to expand access to victim's liaison officers and to introduce enhanced protection for victims.

What measures would be put in place to ensure that victims are supported during the transition of cases from military to civilian jurisdiction?

That is for anybody who can answer that: General Carignan or Monsieur Gravel.

[Martin Gravel]

Thank you for the question.

As I mentioned before, from the SMSRC's perspective, the supports and resources we currently offer will continue regardless of the transfer to the civilian justice system. In fact, some of the clients we serve right now are actually being dealt with under the civilian justice system already.

One program that we talked about earlier is the independent legal assistance program. Already since May—we're in our phase two with our internal lawyer—we've had 34 clients, some of whom are people who are going through cases in the civilian justice system already. We're well set up to continue with the same supports and resources.

[Chris Malette, Liberal, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Further to that, what role would victim's liaison officers have in improving communications and trust between victims and the military justice system?

[Martin Gravel]

I'll transfer that to my colleague, the CPCC, to speak more to the VLO program.