Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to take part in this debate on Bill C-25. The bill was introduced last December. It proposes the most extensive set of amendments to the National Defence Act in the past half century.
The main focus of this bill and a key focus of the act is the military justice system, the distinct system of penal law applicable to members of the Canadian forces and other persons subject to Canadian military jurisdiction.
The eight parts of the act comprising the statutory basis for service, that is military offences and the procedures for enforcement, investigation, prosecution, trying and punishing those who commit them, are called the code of service discipline.
Service offences under the code of service discipline naturally include infractions which relate uniquely to military service. However, the code of service discipline also incorporates offences against the Criminal Code and other federal acts and with a few notable exceptions permits the military justice system to have jurisdiction over persons who commit them while subject to the disciplinary jurisdiction of the Canadian forces.
As we all know, the military justice system in recent years has been under increasing scrutiny and pressure for significant changes. One factor is undoubtedly the extended and unprecedented period of time since Canada was last involved in a major war and the perception that the chances of such involvement are remote. This situation tends to lead people to be less tolerant of any perceived systemic unfairness in the system and its retention of punishments perceived as excessive or anachronistic.
Another factor has been the adoption of the charter of rights and freedoms. This constitutional change has brought the military justice system as well as the Canadian legal system generally under increased public scrutiny regarding procedural safeguards for accused persons and principles of fairness and equality of treatment in general.
Particular attention has been drawn to aspects of the military justice system which reflect the disparity of treatment between soldiers and civilians or among military personnel such as the lack of certain traditional criminal law safeguards at summary trials; the fact that only junior ranks, private and corporals, and non-commissioned officers, master corporals and sergeants can be summarily sentenced to detention or reduction in rank; the considerable discretion of commanding officers in deciding to proceed with or dismiss charges, possibly including even serious criminal offences; and that persons exercising judicial functions or what would be judicial functions in the civilian system are frequently members of the chain of command who have no legal training and who have other apparently conflicting responsibilities for administering the code of service discipline.
In the past few years such issues and concerns have been brought to the forefront by various high profile cases such as those relating to misconduct by some Canadian forces members in Somalia and Bosnia, which has been well discussed here this afternoon.
Moreover, the 1997 reports on Somalia and the Dickson report recommended a series of changes to the military justice system. There have also been a number of other internal and external studies about possible reforms to our military justice system.
I want to take a few minutes to talk about some of the things that have not been addressed in Bill C-25 that came out of that Dickson panel. One is the office of the inspector general which was discussed at some length here this afternoon.
The Somalia inquiry recommended the creation of such an institution as a general supervisory and review body outside the chain of command. It did not happen. Whistleblower protection was another item that came out of the Dickson Report. Again referring back to the Somalia inquiry, it recommended specific measures aimed at protecting both those who reported wrongdoing in connection with Somalia, both at the time and in conjunction with the inquiry, and those who may do so in the future.
Another item that was conveniently ignored in Bill C-25 is trials by civilian judges and juries. The Somalia inquiry recommended that military accused charged with offences punishable by five years imprisonment or more have the right to elect trial by jury before a civilian court. The Somalia inquiry also recommended that all military judges be civilians appointed under the federal Judges Act with the same security of tenure as civilian judges. Again, this was not acted on.
On the independence of military police, a number of recommendations of the Somalia inquiry were directed at making concrete institutional and procedural changes to ensure the equal treatment of all suspects without distinction of rank and to insulate military police from direct or indirect command interference. This was not acted on at all.
It is not surprising that as a result one of the three commissioners, Peter Desbarats, called the shutdown the most brazen cover-up and denials of responsibility in the history of our country. He also said that the government's action were a brazen cover-up and a total denial of responsibility. Because the government opposite snuffed out the inquiry Canadians will never know all the truth about what happened in Somalia or who was responsible for the ensuing cover-up. It has to be constantly restated that this was the first time in Canada's history that a federal government shut down a commission of inquiry before that important work had been completed. It was profoundly undemocratic and an extremely dangerous precedent was set by the government in the previous parliament.
I want to draw my remarks to a close by referring to the charges of sexual misconduct in the military that have been revealed recently, particularly by Maclean's magazine, but by other news media as well. I want to talk about it in terms of a specific case that deals with one of my constituents, with whom I met less than two weeks ago. I want to put her case on the record.
Before I do that I want to say that, without a doubt, this was the most stomach churning, upsetting bit of casework that I have ever done in the brief time I have been here as a member of parliament.
Here are the key points as they were related to me. This individual, who was then 18 years of age, signed on as a female bosun. As I understand it, it was at a time when females were being allowed to take that position for the very first time, which was in 1989. She was dispatched to the west coast and assigned to a ship there.
During the fall of 1989 this individual said that she experienced several instances of unwanted and unwelcome sexual advances that included touching, rubbing, petting and patting. She advised that there was a particularly disgusting incident prior to Christmas 1989 when she was presented with a plastic penis from some members of the crew of another ship that was in port.
Following the break over the holidays this individual, who went in as an ordinary seaman and had been promoted to an able seaman, returned to the west coast. The occasional harassment and unwelcome sexual advances continued, including one incident of a male superior exposing himself in front of her on board the ship. However, nothing during the early months of 1990 prepared this individual for what took place on a night in early May of that year.
On this evening the individual stated that she was asleep on board the ship when she awoke to find a seaman in the cot with her. The seaman was partially naked. She says that she could feel his penis against her thigh and her bra had been pushed up. According to this individual, the male seaman had his hand in her underwear and a finger inserted in her vagina. Her screams awoke the other females present in this female only section of the ship, who in turn began screaming at the male seaman, who then apparently picked up some of his clothes and repaired to a female only washroom to get dressed.
The military police were called and the male in question was either arrested or detained. A rape kit indicated that the individual, despite the overbearing harassment, had not in fact been actually raped, but she was sent home on compassionate leave.
When she returned two weeks later she felt that she was being completely ostracized, excluded and was unwelcome by her peers and superiors.
The insensitivity of the military officials was heightened by the fact that she was forced to share a military bus on the base for two weeks with her assailant before somebody figured it out and changed one of their schedules so she did not have to go through this ordeal.
She eventually requested a leave. She could not go back on the ship. She was not much longer in the military before she sought to get out and was released from duty.
Although she was under psychiatric care in Esquimalt, when she left there she was not eligible for treatment and there was no military psychiatrist who could treat her. Her parents helped her out for a bit in terms of psychiatric help, but it was too costly and she stopped seeing anybody for professional help.
It is also worth noting that the navy lost all of her performance records and she was told that if she wanted to go back she would have to start all over again as an ordinary seaman.
My sense of this is that what the military did after this odious, horrible and shameful incident is as bad as the actual incident itself.
No one ever contacted her. She never had a chance to testify at the trial. No one has ever told her that she may be eligible for compensation under veterans affairs.
This is symptomatic of the problem we have in the military. We have low pay. We have low morale. We have a lack of leadership and we do not think that Bill C-25 begins to deal with the root of the fundamental problems in the military.