Mr. Speaker, we are taking our lead from Madam Justice Arbour, one of our most distinguished Supreme Court of Canada justices.
Here is really what is at stake: Victims and survivors deserve legal clarity, transparency and trust in the process. Justice Arbour herself called a victim's choice between military and civilian courts “a false choice”. This is because we would be placing a burden on a victim in a time of high stress, trauma and in fact duress to choose between two unequal options. Asking victims and survivors to choose between two unequal options, one of which has the potential for chain-of-command interference, in a Criminal Code case does not provide victims with clarity, transparency or certainty.