Madam Speaker, they say that to every new song we can find an old tune. It is a Yiddish proverb, because I am big fan of them. However, in this case, the proposed legislation has many members of the opposition on this side of the House who will support it to move to the committee stage. It is so similar to legislation in the previous Parliament, which was supported by the government at the time, that would have enshrined great protections for victims. At the time, it was Bill C-71, and now we are finding a lot of the same types of provisions in Bill C-77.
I will, as little as possible, go over the same ground that others have already gone over and steer my remarks to the 2018 spring report of the Auditor General of Canada. This was an independent report on the delays and the flawed process within the military justice system. It was a review done of cases from 2016-17, entirely within the time of the current government.
Bill C-77 would change three major things: enshrine the previous government's Victims Bill of Rights in the National Defence Act; put a statute of limitations of six months on summary hearing cases; and clarify what cases should be handled by summary hearing. These are good measures.
My experience with the military is limited, but I did work for a previous minister of national defence. He had served as a one-star brigadier general in the armed forces. Specifically on cases of sexual misconduct in the forces, he would always remind us that it was an issue of discipline and command. He reminded us sternly that if a person was accused and convicted of sexual misconduct, he believed that person did not belong in the forces anymore as there were obvious problems with discipline and the ability to follow orders. I am glad to see that we will be paying greater attention to that.
The bill proposes that special considerations be given to indigenous peoples, which match those in the Criminal Code of Canada already. Some of the differences that will be introduced regard absolute discharges for court martial. Also, there is the simple change of name from “summary trials” to “summary hearings”.
The Auditor General's report was tabled just this year. It is quite detailed and uses a pool of cases, looking at the military justice system, and it offers a list of recommendations. I will go through some of the content of that report prepared on the military justice system.
The Auditor General's report found delays, and in some cases unbelievable delays, in the adjudication of cases. The solution in many of these situations that the Department of National Defence offered was simply a new tracking system, which was some type of electronic, online, tracking database called the justice administration and information management system. However, the Auditor General found in several cases that delays had been leading to dismissal or not proceeding with a court martial in cases where it was warranted.
In the report's analysis, for some charges, and I have a list of charges, it took an average of 2.3 months to refer the charges for prosecution, an average of 3.2 months to decide to proceed to court martial and then an average of 12.2 months for the pretrial preparations and a court martial. The average time the Auditor General found it took to complete 20 cases was 17.7 months, which goes very close to what the Supreme Court of Canada ruled would be a fair amount of time between the moment when one was charged with an offence to the moment when one's trial was completed, which is at 18 months.
What we see proposed in Bill C-77 are efforts at streamlining some of those procedures to ensure that members of the forces who are accused of different alleged actions will face justice in a reasonable amount of time so it matches up to what is available to civilians in the Criminal Code.
The Auditor General looked at 117 summary trial cases and 20 court martial cases. Under the headline “Delays in summary trials”, it details the problems with investigations and delaying of charges. It details how some of those delays really raise major concerns about the way the National Defence Department deals with cases of disciplinary actions against its members and deals with the more serious cases where a court martial is necessary.
We know that what should be top of mind in all of these cases, which the Supreme Court of Canada has confirmed, is discipline; discipline of the members who wear the uniform in defence of Canada. It is of vital importance that they know justice will be served upon them. It serves as a deterrent for those who abuse not only their position, but also the particular situations in which they find themselves, doing so for either personal gain or some type of financial reward.
The analysis also showed that there was lack of time standards, inadequate communication between military police investigators and other parties, late communication with defence counsel services and a risk that sufficient military litigation expertise was not developed. All of these failings noted in the 2018 Auditor General's report give the committee an opportunity, when considering this legislation, to also consider whether Bill C-77 goes far enough in certain cases or does enough in light of the Auditor General's report.
Members on this side of the House, as all members have heard, support that it be sent to committee to give it that secondary review so we can go in-depth on the opportunities to improve military justice for members in uniform and ensure that their rights are upheld and that the rights of victims are upheld as well.
Too often the government forgets about the victim in these situations. Other members have mentioned it, including the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, with respect to the case of McClintic. I have had members of the RCMP and the military come to my office who have been victims of the system or actions of others. They feel that justice has not been served. They do not feel that the system has protected their interests. The system has not helped them get through and the trial system has not given them satisfaction.
It would ensure that those who commit criminal acts or participate in actions or behaviours that are not conducive to ensuring the proper discipline in the armed forces are actually punished. As I mentioned, I really believe that for those convicted of sexual misconduct in the forces, we should think about whether they should be serving in the forces in the first place. That type of behaviour has no place in the forces, something that has been reiterated by the chief of defence staff and the minister. Previous ministers have said it as well. Part of this legislation gets us to the point where we can do a great service to victims of those types of crimes and of other crimes to ensure the military justice system looks after them.
One of the recommendations in the Auditor General's report was “The Canadian Armed Forces should define and communicate time standards for every phase of the military justice process and ensure there is a process for tracking and enforcing them.” As I said, there is a new online digital tracking system called the JAIMS system, which is supposed to be part of what the Liberals are calling for here. However, there should be time standards as well. It is very reasonable to have, at the very onset of the process, a certain amount of expectation regarding how long the process will last.
The speed at which a trial happens in the military, just like in the civilian court system, is vitally important to ensuring that justice is done. Justice deferred is judicial failure. It is justice not delivered. In cases where men and women in uniform are serving overseas in combat roles, we owe it to them to ensure that they have faith in the military justice system and that it will look after their interests. We will be fair and just, but we will also be efficient.
Some of the proposals in Bill C-77 go toward achieving that goal, which is why I will support sending the legislation to committee to give it a further review in light of the Auditor General's report on the military justice system.