Mr. Speaker, when the bill was introduced, the Bloc Quebecois opposed it for a number of reasons.
The main reason was that the bill did not seem to improve the situation sufficiently to ensure the rights of the military would be protected before the courts, especially as regards summary proceedings before military tribunals and court martials. For example, a member of the armed forces had only 24 hours to decide between a summary proceeding or a court martial. He could only consult a lawyer. He could not have one present at his trial.
These things remain in the bill and are unchanged by the amendment. Human rights in the military are, in our opinion, largely ignored.
There was another example this week. I read in the paper that a serviceman was taken to military court for refusing an anthrax vaccination. It that is what it means to respect human rights, we do not agree.
We can understand that more expeditious summary proceedings would be more commonly used in wartime. We are not in wartime, however, and the military deserves better treatment when their rights are at issue. This is particularly true in summary proceedings, when a serviceman is judged by a commanding officer, who is necessarily in a conflict of interest situation, because he has to judge one of his subordinates. He must discipline him, he must often pass judgment on his own decision concerning a soldier. The situation may be one in which he himself was involved.
The amendment does not resolve these situations. All that today's amendment, which the government is prepared to pass, accomplishes is to increase the number of reports tabled in the House. There will be more reports, which is admittedly already an improvement.
There is talk of an independent report, but what that means is not defined. Who will produce this independent report? By whom would the authors be appointed? By the department or by the government? Here again, it might be produced by the government and not really be independent. Will there be any soldiers on the committee responsible for producing the report?
We have no guarantee that the term independent will mean that there will be greater respect for the rights of the military when there occurs a contentious situation.
Unfortunately, therefore, we are unable to support the amendment. It does not correct the flaws we pointed out when the bill was introduced. The Bloc Quebecois will therefore be voting against this amendment.