Madam Speaker, my colleague and friend represents a wonderful area of Canada where there is a very strong military presence. He has consistently been a very strong advocate for our women and men in the Canadian Armed Forces. As someone who served in the Canadian Armed Forces a number of years ago, I think one of the changes, and I mentioned this morning, is the difference between civilian life and military life.
If service members are absent without leave or even late, they subject themselves to a potential court martial, which would then give them a criminal record. That is under the current system. Let us compare that to civilian life: if people miss days of work, they are not going to have a criminal record.
In part, this legislation tries to address that inequity and allow for more discretion so that when Canadian Armed Forces personnel retire and become veterans, fewer will find themselves with a criminal record because of something that happened while they were an active member. We do not want to see that, although we heard many examples at committee.
Could my colleague provide his thoughts on why it is important to address this issue?