Mr. Speaker, it is an important debate we are having today. This is about the men and women in the Canadian Forces, full stop. It is about whether they will be treated like every other Canadian citizen. It is about whether the government is manifesting what I would describe as stubborn pigheadedness when it comes to improving the military justice system that is in place.
It is impossible for me to speak about this criminal justice bill without being reminded of the typical conduct of the government under the Conservative Party. It is a government that consistently has refused to be bound by its responsibilities under section 4(1) of the Department of Justice Act. For Canadians watching, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, a lawyer, went to the bar when he was sworn in and pledged an oath to uphold the law. When he was sworn in to the role as a lawyer in the province of Ontario, he was sworn in to uphold the law for his entire legal career.
I would argue that since the arrival of the Conservative government, in some quarters described as a regime, it has seen fit to consistently leave aside its responsibilities in this regard. I think the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada may, for example, be in breach of his own code of conduct and his code of ethics as a lawyer. However, that is not what we are debating today.
I am reminded of the words of David Daubney. Mr. Daubney, for my colleagues in the Conservative caucus who do not know, was a member of Parliament with the Progressive Conservative Party. He then went on to a very distinguished career as a lawyer in the Department of Justice, where he served in his last post as director of the criminal law policy unit.
Two day after retiring from his distinguished career, he lashed out at the Conservative government in terms of its conduct with respect to the use of evidence, analysis, research, things that we would rely on as parliamentarians to make the right calls for everyday Canadians, in this case, everyday members in our Canadian Forces.
Mr. Daubney went on to say that he was extremely disappointed and that was one of the reasons why he left his career. Despite the fact that with his team he delivered hard evidence and good analysis to the government, particularly in areas like mandatory minimums, the government would not hear them. It was more than tone deaf; it simply shut it off.
Here we have another example of a bill. I would like to go back to some words spoken earlier by the MP for Ajax—Pickering, who stood up and boasted that Canada was the envy of the world. He is right. I could not be in more agreement with my colleague, but he knows better. During his time serving as a young ambassador in Afghanistan, he knew that one of the foundational documents we were trying to inculcate into the Afghani system of criminal justice was to use the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as the baseline.
For Canadians who are watching or following, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is now the number one document used in the world for strengthening the rule of law for helping to amend and strengthen constitutions all over the world. When I trained in the former Soviet Union after the wall fell in over 20 countries, I used the Charter of Rights. When I was in the Ukraine last fall, strengthening its legal system, I used the Charter of Rights. Many jurisdictions now look to Canada and look to our charter as the foundational document.
When my colleague for Vancouver Quadra rose to express her concern about the human rights implications in the bill, she was right. I know many members in the Conservative caucus know in their heart of hearts that the bill is incomplete, but it is capable of being, not perfected, but certainly improved, which is why the Liberal Party of Canada is raising these important foundational questions today.
This is about the average man and woman in the Canadian Forces. Should they make a mistake, should they make the wrong choice, as so many Canadian citizens do in their lives from time to time, we want to make absolutely categorically sure that these citizens have the same protections afforded to them as any other citizen living in Canada and walking our streets today possess.
This was why I raised questions this morning around why, for example, the government of the United Kingdom, the British government, had ensured that the requirements for independence and impartiality were woven into its domestic criminal justice system so it was in compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights. That is a powerful precedent for Canada and for this Parliament, and I think the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada knows that.
In the U.K. context, the British government has ensured that the accused may be represented by counsel and entitled to an appeal under a newly created summary appeal court. It has ensured that the summary appeal court would be presided over by a civilian judge, yet assisted by two military members who were officers or warrant officers to ensure adequate military representation. Also, as a general rule, it has moved to ensure that imprisonment or service detention cannot be imposed where the offender is not legally represented in court or in a court martial. This sounds to me to be an important and powerful precedent that we should look to weave into our amendments to the criminal justice system.
Comparatively, beyond our common law founding mother ship United Kingdom, why have countries like Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, France, Belgium, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands and dozens more all moved to ensure that independence, impartiality, fairness and justice are hallmarks of their amendments and improvements to the criminal justice system?
Why only here are we seeing, as I described earlier, the stubborn pigheadedness that seems to find its way into every justice bill the Conservative government brings forward? When in the face of so much evidence, in the face of the opportunity to get it better, why is the government not seizing the opportunity and doing right by Canadian citizens, and more important, doing right by the men and women in our Canadian Forces?