Mr. Speaker, one of the prime reasons for a military justice system is the normal rule of law. It also is to enhance the operational effectiveness for the Canadian Forces. We do that by providing maintenance of discipline, maintenance of efficiency and morale and to contribute to the respect for law and maintenance of it in a just, peaceful and safe society.
A lot of it is about maintaining the Canadian Forces in a state of readiness, because we have to be in a position to enforce internal military justice or internal discipline. Canadian Forces members are often tasked, as we know all too well today, to operate around the world, sometimes in very difficult circumstances.
It is absolutely vital to operational effectiveness and operational readiness that we have a system of discipline and a system of military justice. In certain circumstances, one person can jeopardize the safety and survival of an entire unit.
We need a justice system that can try offences against both the ordinary law of Canada and those that are unique to the military, such as mutiny or being absent without leave, that kind of thing. We have to address breaches of discipline in a prompt and fair manner, with the aim of returning the individual to service as quickly as possible.
It needs to be portable to be able to function wherever the Canadian Forces are deployed around the world, in places like Afghanistan, Haiti or wherever.
It is a complement to the civilian system of justice. It is one that is very necessary for the unique requirements that the Canadian Forces is asked to have and the unique situations they find themselves in around the world. To date, they have done an incredibly good job in all those regards. The aim of this is to ensure that the military justice system keeps pace and can to do that in the future.