Mr. Speaker, I commend the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley for an excellent question. He is, of course, our House leader of the official opposition so he is in daily negotiations with the government and knows better than any of us how futile those negotiations often are.
For me, one of the really surprising parts of the Conservatives' lack of willingness to co-operate on a bill as important as this one is that often we hear the rhetoric from the Conservatives that they support the troops, that they support the brave men and women who serve our country. However, whenever the rubber hits the road, the Conservatives actually let those men and women down. We certainly have had lots of debates in this House about, for example, benefits to veterans. We know how poorly our veterans are being served by amendments made by the Conservatives to programs that those veterans have counted on.
Now we are seeing it for active men and women in the military as well. The kinds of sentences that the current military justice system may impose on some of our servicemen for very minor infractions will give them a criminal record. We need to remind ourselves of what that criminal record will do. It will make it more difficult for people to get a home, to rent a place, to get a job and to travel abroad. Is that really how we want to thank members of Canada's armed forces for the service that they do for our country?