Madam Speaker, today is an important day for many survivors. I want to begin by recognizing the women and men who are watching this debate on the bill today. There are generations of survivors of military sexual trauma who will be closely following the debate on the legislation. I have heard from many of them. They told me about how they felt invisible. Some have felt invisible to the institution they committed their lives to in the Canadian Armed Forces. Some have felt invisible to the senior leadership of the military they served. Some have felt invisible to the greater public, who do not know all the complex layers of their experiences. Some have felt invisible to us, the few hundred Canadians with the rare privilege to serve in the House of Commons, who hold a sacred obligation as decision-makers to protect those who protect us.
Every day these survivors are working for change. They build resilience by supporting and holding each other up when the institutions will not. They empower each other and assist with making claims when institutions will not. They organize and demand reforms to politicians when our priorities do not meet them where they are at. They come together to support each other when they choose to make the impossible decision to share and reshare their trauma to the media or to parliamentary committees.
Today is another chapter in their fight. I want to highlight this to the women and men watching, to those brave survivors. This piece of legislation is not the last chapter, but one step in a large list of changes that are needed, and I am with them. We will not stop until there is justice for survivors and until everyone who steps up to serve their country can do so in a safe environment. I want them to know they are not invisible. They are remarkable, and they are not alone.
Today, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-66, the military justice system modernization act, which, among other things, is legislating Justice Arbour's fifth recommendation of the independent external review to remove criminal sexual offences from the military justice system. This will give exclusive jurisdiction to the civilian justice system.
This legislation also works to implement some of the recommendations by Justice Fish's third independent review of the National Defence Act, expanding the eligibility criteria to be appointed as a military judge to allow non-commissioned members to become judges, not just military officers. This legislation removes the minister's power of appointing and removing the director of military prosecutions—