Mr. Speaker, I rise today to contribute to the debate many of us are having on this side of the House, which is good to see. I am glad to see the Minister of National Defence added his two cents to the debate, but we really hope we will have other members of Parliament from other parties join in. The debate we are having is extremely important when it comes to our Canadian Forces and modernizing the Canadian Forces.
As has been mentioned, it was the Right Hon. Antonio Lamer, one of our sharpest jurists, who contributed to our country in many different ways. We honoured his passing just a couple of years ago. I had the opportunity to get to know him a bit from a social point of view and he was someone who contributed to our system in so many ways. He had also examined concerns around the issues of justice in Newfoundland and helped reform some of the systems there. When he brought forward his report in 2003, it was thorough. It was also a blueprint for what we needed to do. We needed to, in his opinion, modernize the justice system within the military.
It is strange when the government talks about getting the bill to committee and getting it done. As my colleague from Vancouver East, the bill was before us in two different iterations. One of the times it went through the House with a minority Parliament, but it was stopped abruptly because of prorogation.
It comes with a qualifier when the government criticizes anyone in the House, particularly us, about slowing things down. The Conservatives pulled the fire alarm on the House of Commons with prorogation because they were worried about holding on to power.
The other thing that is important to understand in the bill and its context is the government has constantly talked about the importance of our military, the importance of supporting the troops and ensuring that is a brand of theirs. However, when we look at how that works, whether it is the reforming the justice system, as we are debating today, or supporting veterans, particularly for those who are coming back from the conflict in Afghanistan, there is a gap between the rhetoric of the government and the results.
In the context of the bill there are things like the Military Police Complaints Commission. We went through a very long debate over the role of the Military Police Complaints Commission when we debated the question of detainees. It came up in the House during debate that the government was not being responsible and responsive when it came to supporting the Military Police Complaints Commission.
The Conservatives changed the chair. They did not renew the chair's mandate because the chair of the Military Police Complaints Commission was doing the job. The Conservatives were not sufficiently supporting the Military Police Complaints Commission with documentation and that led to a parliamentary crisis in the end, which someone in your chair, Mr. Speaker, had to rule upon.
It is important that we understand the context. If the Military Police Complaints Commission is not able to do its job sufficiently, then that puts the system at risk.
The reason we set up these bodies is so there will be a fair hearing, a due process. That is extremely important. However, if the executive branch interferes with that and does not support the Military Police Complaints Commission, either in the appointment of the chair or ensuring that it has all the material sufficient to do its work, then we have a dilemma. The dilemma is that the commission is no longer really independent because the independence of the Military Police Complaints Commission is compromised because of lack of co-operation from the executive branch. We cited this before in the case with the Department of National Defence and the minister in providing documents, and ultimately up to cabinet.
We need to see more clarity. As others have mentioned, this issue has been examined in other jurisdictions. The MPCC is an important institution that was set up to deal with issues like those we saw with the Somalia inquiry and what happens when things go wrong within the military. It is a different organization obviously, a different institution, and it does require different methods in terms of dealing with issues around justice, but we really do have to modernize here. We have been very vocal and clear that the MPCC needs to be given full independence. The government needs to comply with the requests it makes and not put barriers in its way.
The bill does not go far enough to really address some of the issues around grievances, as was mentioned by my colleagues.
With respect to the summary trial system, I just want to read into the record again some of the important statistics around the use of summary trials. Summary trials are seemingly the dominant disciplinary method that is being used by the Canadian military. A lot of people are shocked to note the statistics we have available. Between 2008 and 2009, there were a total of 1,865 cases, 96% of which were determined by summary trial. The other 67 were heard by court martial, 4%. It is important to note that if we do not deal with the issue of summary trials, then we are really not dealing with the big problem, and that is modernizing our system of justice within the military.
If the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland are able to deal with this legacy of summary trials, then why can we not deal with it here? I have just listed Westminster models, and they are able to do that, so it is certainly not a question of our parliamentary system. The countries I just listed were able to do it. They are all within the Westminster tradition. Why is the Conservative government not able to see that, to put that forward? We have put this case forward many times. We were debating this particular bill in its previous iterations when the Speaker was a member on the floor of the House.
The government is saying it will just get it done when the bill gets to committee. Government members already know what the problem is. Why did they not deal with it before? Why did they not deal with it perhaps after the second iteration? Here we are the third time. The government could have dealt with it. If the government is going to deal with it in a fulsome way, it could have put that in place. It could have strengthened the Military Police Complaints Commission and dealt with the whole issue of summary trials and grievances.
As I stated before, the military is a different institution. My father was a sergeant who served in the second world war. He used to joke about what his role was within the military. He was at times a disciplinarian with the troops because he was a sergeant. There was a code and they had to follow it. That was then, but times have changed. It is time to modernize, and that is why at this point it is difficult for us to support the bill at second reading.
We look to the government to tell us why it did not get the job done before. We ask the other opposition parties to see the problems we have. Let us get this done right. Let us get this done well, so we can fully support our troops.