Jack Harris

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, March 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the testimony at committee is somewhat belied by the accountability framework itself, signed by Vice Admiral Garnett, the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, and the colonel, then the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal in 1998, who put that very provision in an accountability framework developed as a result of the recommendations made out of the Somali inquiry.

We may have different opinions, but I accept the testimony of someone who is experienced in the field who says that military police officers do not walk into the line of fire to conduct an interview with somebody during a police investigation. They are not stupid people. Not only that, they would certainly take advice from the commanding officer in the field if he said, by the way, it was not a good idea to go over there or to that place.

This is not about somebody in the field telling what is going on. This is about the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff sitting in Ottawa issuing written instructions to somebody anywhere, maybe even in Ottawa, that they shall not do a particular investigation. That is what we are trying to avoid.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, March 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I want to assure the Speaker and the hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake that I have no intention to talk about ranching in western Canada or any other matters extraneous to the bill and the legislation before us, which would clearly be irrelevant.

I said that there were a number of amendments, 22 amendments, proposed by us in committee. One of them was very much related to what we have here in the House.

I will say that not a single one of the amendments was accepted by the government members, showing a total lack of flexibility in terms of trying to make a better military justice system.

However, one of our amendments was to remove this power because, as was pointed out, it was a backward step. The accountability framework was put in place as a result of recommendations from the Somali inquiry to ensure that the relationship between the military police and the understanding of its role was in fact spelled out. That is where this came from, and it has been in place for 15 years. No one before our committee, whether they were government officials, the Judge Advocate General representatives or anybody else, indicated that there was any problem with it, that it did not work.

The parliamentary secretary says that the change has been brought to give effect to the accountability framework in legislation because he says it could be gotten rid of at any time. Well, this is taking away one of the most significant parts of this, which would guarantee the independence of the military police, which I think is the important principle at work here.

There is, and there was, as the parliamentary secretary said in his intervention, a long history of trying to seek to change this. We have been part of that. We have been trying to make the bill better and have spoken quite at length in this Parliament, and in the last Parliament, and in committees in both Parliaments, to seek to make this better.

One of the focuses, of course, has been on the criminal records. My colleague opposite referred to the urgency of that because of people getting criminal records. I do not disagree with that, although I would note that provision would be retroactive: it says not only those who have committed particular offences but also those who have been convicted of those offences. I think my colleague would agree that the provision would be retroactive, so if we pass it today or if we pass it tomorrow or next week, anybody who may be convicted of an offence during that period would not get a criminal record because the legislation would have looked after that. We are not certain that it is given effect to properly and we made amendments to see that. However, we will be watching that extremely carefully to ensure that the military men and women who ought not to have criminal records do not in fact have a record lying around somewhere, on some computer, that might affect their future. We are very attuned to that and have paid great attention to it in committee.

The positive aspects of this legislation do include spelling out the role of the Provost Marshal and do include spelling out the principles of sentencing and military justice, which is quite appropriate to do. The positive aspects of this include the possibility of having an absolute discharge, which was not there before, and allowing an intermittent sentence if someone is confined to detention.

There are a number of positive aspects to this legislation that move the bar somewhat forward, but not to where it ought to be.

One thing that came through during the hearings at committee was an overwhelming confidence by the witnesses on behalf of the government. The government witnesses were extremely certain that all the measures that were being proposed were constitutional and were within the Charter of Rights and Freedoms—charter-proof, in fact.

However, that has not been the experience of the military justice system since 1990, when the Court Martial Appeal Court determined that the standing court martial was unconstitutional, that the procedure for selection of mode of trial was unconstitutional and that the general court martial was unconstitutional. These are things that have happened despite the fact that the government took the position that everything was within the Constitution and charter-proof.

We have a concern about that. There is a need for an overall review. This, however, is a backward step and ought not to happen.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, March 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know what that point of order is about other than maybe to use up the 10 minutes I have to speak about it. I hope it will be taken out of that.

However, when someone is talking about report stage of a bill, it does not seem to be irrelevant to talk about the fact that we are in report stage of the bill, that we had a committee hearing and that there are a number of amendments, including this one, to which I was about talk.

It has not been the practice of the House to be as ruthless in the application of a relevancy rule as the hon. member suggests. It certainly was not applied when the parliamentary secretary and others were speaking in the last half hour, and there is no reason it should apply now.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, March 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the bill at report stage, an important bill about reforming military justice in Canada.

The parliamentary secretary talked about the changes that arose since Somalia. One of them was the document I have in front of me called the “Accountability Framework Between the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff and the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal”. It was the Somalia inquiry that brought to light the need for a review of these matters, and there have been some iterations of change since then.

The amendment before us now is a backward step. Most of what is in the bill is positive. We spent considerable time in the House debating what needs to be done to fix it, particularly with respect to the issue of criminal records, to which the parliamentary secretary referred.

We do not believe, as a matter of principle, that individuals going before a military tribunal, who do not have access to the full rights that any defendants in a civil criminal trial in civil society has, should, if convicted, end up with a criminal record. We fought to change that. We argued in the House for many days about that. We argued in the House in the last Parliament to seek to change that. We in fact changed it in committee in the last Parliament, but it never got through because an election was called. There has been a whole process going on to seek to reform the legislation. Our position is that the bill does not go far enough.

This is report stage. We brought forth 19 amendments at committee stage to seek improvements to the bill. One of them involved the removal of this—

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, March 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary would know it was not just one or two witnesses who opposed this. Glenn Stannard, the current chair of the Military Police Complaints Commission, and Mr. Peter Tinsley, a former chair of the Military Police Complaints Commission and a person of long-standing military police experience, both testified. Retired Colonel Drapeau, a military person who is now a practising lawyer and law professor spoke out as well.

Peter Tinsley called it a “backward step”, and it is a backward step. Since 1998, the accountability framework that was put in place and signed by both the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff and the Provost Marshal provided that there would be no direction by the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff with respect to specific military police operation decisions. It set out the roles of the relationship and that is in the act and we like that. However, this is a backward step. He knows that. There is no justification that makes any sense that has been given for it.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, March 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands for bringing forth these amendments. It gives us another opportunity to talk about this important issue.

I wonder if she would comment on the fact that the parliamentary secretary said that the idea was to bring the accountability framework into the legislation, but in fact the amendment actually refers, specifically, to the existing accountability framework bringing it into legislation and it says that in fact the VCDS shall not direct the CFPM with respect to specific military police operational decisions of an investigative nature. That would clearly give legislative effect to the accountability framework that was brought forward, so I do not understand why the parliamentary secretary is saying he wants the accountability framework in legislation and does not seem to be supportive of an amendment that would do just exactly that, by specifically referring to it.

[Ethics, March 20th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the 2011 Conservative campaign in Labrador readily admits it cheated. It tried to bury illegal corporate donations and $18,000 in free flights, but when Peter Penashue resigned, Conservatives had already purchased full-page ads and booked the website. All this was done while he was still a minister. Once the investigation is said and done, Mr. Penashue may be subject to a five-year ban on running for a federal office. Why are the Conservatives putting this candidate forward knowing full well that he may not in fact be eligible to take a seat in the House of Commons?

[Search and Rescue, March 20th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, this shows that the Conservatives have played a shell game with search and rescue resources, especially in Labrador. Up until the tragic death of Burton Winters in 2012, DND was claiming there were three helicopters stationed at CFB Goose Bay, when in fact there were only two. After the Burton Winters tragedy, its cover was blown. Then DND claimed that the helicopters had no dedicated stand-by role in search and rescue. Labradorians are smarter than the government gives them credit for. Why are the Conservatives threatening to punish Labradorians if they reject Peter Penashue?

[Ethics, March 19th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, we will take no lessons on integrity from that member. He is defending one set of rules for the Conservatives and another one for everybody else and blindly defending a man who made government spending announcements after learning he had violated election laws, a man who had his re-election campaign running before he resigned, a man trying to spend his way out of financial corruption allegations.

Why will the government not allow the investigation to be completed? What is it trying to hide from the people of Labrador?

[Nuclear Terrorism Act, March 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately we have a situation in which Canada has not measured up to the reputation we had in the past for co-operation with other nations, so much so that Canada, unthinkably, lost the opportunity to have a seat on the Security Council of the United Nations.

It was a tradition that Canada would be able to win that seat every 10 years. However, despite vigorous campaigning at the last minute, it was clearly a negative thing. We would certainly want to see more emphasis on that, and this failure is something that we will wear for quite a while.