Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary would know it was not just one or two witnesses who opposed this. Glenn Stannard, the current chair of the Military Police Complaints Commission, and Mr. Peter Tinsley, a former chair of the Military Police Complaints Commission and a person of long-standing military police experience, both testified. Retired Colonel Drapeau, a military person who is now a practising lawyer and law professor spoke out as well.
Peter Tinsley called it a “backward step”, and it is a backward step. Since 1998, the accountability framework that was put in place and signed by both the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff and the Provost Marshal provided that there would be no direction by the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff with respect to specific military police operation decisions. It set out the roles of the relationship and that is in the act and we like that. However, this is a backward step. He knows that. There is no justification that makes any sense that has been given for it.