Madam Speaker, as we know, the new defence policy of “strong, secure, engaged” puts the men and women serving our country at the very heart of our decision-making process. It puts them at the very heart of our new and improved policies.
As the member would have heard me say in my speech, part of what the bill would accomplish is to make sure that service members are treated in a fair and reasonable way relative to non-service members and in a way that they can understand, and that they can have an expectation of being treated fairly. This is fundamental to creating a service that draws people to choose to serve, to take on the possibility of the greatest possible sacrifice for this country that we can imagine.
One of the wonderful things in the bill to make that happen is the creation of the victim liaison officer to pick through what can be an intimidating or daunting process. We are very happy that the liaison officer will help members to understand the code of service discipline as they proceed through it.