Evidence of meeting #21 for National Defence in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was choice.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Charles Sousa
Is there further debate?
(Amendment agreed to: yeas 5; nays 4)
(Clause 3 agreed to on division)
(On clause 4)
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
I move that Bill C-11, in clause 4, be amended by adding, after line 8 on page 2:
(1.1) The appointment must be made within 90 days of the day on which the office of Provost Marshal General becomes vacant.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
Similar to the previous question that my colleague asked, I want to know what the normal time frame would be for the appointment of a provost marshal general.
Col Geneviève Lortie
This type of timeline, because it's imposing on the Governor in Council, is effectively unenforceable because we cannot force the GIC to make an appointment. We cannot force a person who appoints an authority to do it.
To have 90 days to make the appointment brings legal risk and uncertainties if it's not done within those 90 days. You could end up not knowing, either for a person or the acting position, what their authorities at play are.
It further causes confusion between two provisions. One is that you must appoint someone within 90 days, and you have another place where it says that the acting position, after 90 days, can be authorized by the GIC. The act covers the fact that if there's no one and the position remains vacant after 90 days, you need to go to the GIC. You may have uncertainties between positions.
If it ends up that the person who is the owner of the position doesn't get appointed.... It was mentioned before that it has happened previously with a former JAG. They got to the end of their mandate, but the person was not appointed because all the authority of the members who were acting under the JAG was really based on someone being in the position. We would end up with no legal adviser being able to advise the Canadian Forces until a new JAG was appointed.
You can really end up in a place in which you have uncertainties about whether you have a person at the head of the organization.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
In terms of an application if this were to pass, in the example of someone who has been acting and doesn't get appointed by the GIC, could this delay any cases before the JAG? What could be the ramifications if this were to be put in place?
Col Geneviève Lortie
Depending on the position we're talking about—this one is about the provost marshal general—and depending on which power we're looking at, there may be no one else who could exercise it other than the person who occupies that office.
An appointment may not be made within 90 days for a bunch of reasons. You could be in an election period; the person who applies may not meet the requirements, or you could have questions of security clearances. You could also have a situation in which the person is not available to start within that number of days because they need to leave a previous job, and they cannot be forced to be appointed.
Those are all questions that arise when imposing 90 days on the GIC to appoint.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
On that note, as you just mentioned, should that situation happen—we've heard about security clearances not clearing quickly—would the GIC have to name a person within 90 days? If they didn't, what would happen?
Col Geneviève Lortie
If it's not done, there's no enforcement, so a court would not be in a position to force the GIC to appoint someone. There's no mechanism. If it's not done by the Governor in Council, you cannot force the hand of the Governor in Council to appoint someone.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
Essentially, it's not enforceable at all. I don't want to say “enforceable”, but it's moot whether it gets applied or not, because even if it were not to be applied, there's no way to enforce it being applied. Is that correct?
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
We heard from witnesses that we need to put time limitations on these appointments. We heard from Charlotte Duval-Lantoine at the 12th meeting of this committee. She said, “The challenge is that the Governor in Council has not been the most prompt at appointing key decision-makers. It took four years to appoint our current chief military judge. It took over a year to appoint our current...ombudsman. This needs to change.”
We heard from Rory Fowler, who said, “As a perfect example, there need to be time limits and limitation periods for people to take action to appoint key personnel”, and “Now you're making them political appointees who may or may not be appointed in time.” This requires political leadership. This is a political decision, not a military decision.
Afton David said, “I agree with my fellow witnesses that there should be a limit on the time taken to fill Governor in Council appointments for key military justice roles.”
We heard from witnesses on this. We need to put in a time frame. It's not unreasonable to get this done in 90 days.
January 28th, 2026 / 4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Chris Malette Liberal Bay of Quinte, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Having just heard the testimony from Colonel Lortie on the ability to meet such a time frame, to the extent that this amendment is supported, is it not more prudent to apply a modification to the time frame to, say, 120 days? That could be an amendment to the amendment.
Liberal
Chris Malette Liberal Bay of Quinte, ON
I'll so move if this is going to carry, but I don't support it at all, simply because of the fact that a delay in approving an acting JAG can create legal risk and, at minimum, generate confusion regarding authorities. However, should it pass, I guess the amendment would be....
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Charles Sousa
If I may, Mr. Malette, I think what I'm hearing is that you want to propose a subamendment. If so, state your subamendment and then we'll debate it.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Charles Sousa
Is what's being proposed understood by all? Is there any debate on the subamendment?
(Subamendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])
We're back to the amendment.
Simon, did you...?
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC
No, it’s fine, I’ll vote when the time comes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Charles Sousa
We are now voting on the amendment that's been amended.
Shall that amendment carry? Let's vote. I think we want a recorded vote on CPC-2.
(Amendment as amended agreed to: yeas 9; nays 0)
(Clause 4 as amended agreed to)
(Clauses 5 and 6 agreed to on division)
(On clause 7)
Now we're on clause 7.
NDP-1 is deemed to be moved, pursuant to the routine motion adopted by the committee on June 17, 2025. Oh, wait. I apologize. I have an amendment to that.
Okay. If CPC-3 is moved, NDP-1 cannot be moved, because it is identical. The new one is CPC-3, and it's similar to NDP-1. Shall someone move CPC-3?
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Yes, I'll move CPC-3. Do I need to read all the details? Okay.
I move that we amend clause 7 in Bill C-11 as circulated. As was pointed out, CPC-3 is identical to NDP-1.
Do you wish me to speak to it?