Thank you, Ms. Thomas and Judge Advocate General.
I'm the son of an officer. I know how military training works. I grew up in a household where my dad had those standards and we all had to adhere to them. I'm also a lawyer, so I know how justice delayed is justice denied. Timely disclosure and performance measurements are all basic departmental requirements, whether you do them on Excel or in a fancy computer. If there's no attitude or will, nobody is going to implement them. It seems like there's a big attitude or will problem because, on its own, I don't think the technology is a reason for delay. I'm a little concerned that, if we're implementing a technology next year, we're going to have problems and we're going to blame it on the technology. I think it should be beyond that.
Military is usually one of the best organizations where systems, checklists, timelines, accountability and follow-throughs are ingrained in an officer's, or a soldier's, or a JAG member's psyche. In fact, I would hope that JAG was a standard that, across the country, other departments of justice would hold to and say they do really well. In fact, it's the other way around. The Canadian Bar Association has critiqued the previous system as being inadequate. It should be the other way around, where departments of justice should take leadership from JAG, by looking at how well they do it, how timely and how effectively, just because of the culture of how military should operate.
What is the timeline for the new system and can we ensure that there's no gap, for example, if the deputy minister or the commandant is changed, so that we don't have this delay again? It seems to be an epidemic that whenever senior staff is changed then the new staff says they don't know what the other staff did. These are simple things, like when a teacher runs their curriculum, they have a system in a binder, so that if they're sick or away, the substitute can come in and pick up right from there and the class goes on.
How are we ensuring that this new system will be managed well, so we don't have those changes?