Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-41 in recognition of the fact that this bill is a significant step forward in the military justice system.
Before I go any further, I would like to signal that I am going to be sharing my time with my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona.
The bill would do a number of things, which I know, after listening to my colleague from St. John's, raises some concerns as well, but let me deal with some of the positive aspects of it, which I believe are major steps forward.
The bill introduces sentencing principles. I will not say they are as broad or liberal as the principles under the Criminal Code, but they are certainly a major move in that direction, setting out principles that would guide military judges when they are imposing sentences.
Again as we heard from my colleague from St. John's, the number of trials where this would be applicable under the court martial provisions is particularly important, less so in summary trials. The principles are set out, as well as the additional powers that are given to military judges.
For instance, under the new provisions, absolute discharges would be granted. A military judge may say someone is guilty of an offence but because of the scenario, the facts or circumstances of the individual's long service in the military, perhaps, say it is an aberration, a one-time event and, although serious, not one where the person should be carrying a criminal conviction into civilian life, and grant an absolute discharge. That is just one example. There are also provisions for restitution to be ordered way beyond what is within the scope of military courts at this point.
With regard to judges, here are two additional points. One is in terms of the system's not only being fair but appearing to be fair. There is now full tenure for military judges. They will have security of tenure, and it will not be possible to remove them arbitrarily until their normal age of retirement within the system. That is important for individuals who appear before judges. It is important for them to know that the judge does not have to be concerned with some superior officer somewhere being upset by the judge's conduct and removing him or her from office. That is a major advancement.
The other thing the bill provides for with regard to military judges is that part-time military judges would now be appointed. As we have already heard from some of the comments and questions, the number of trials is increasing fairly dramatically. The availability of part-time judges is important to allow trials to be conducted in a fair and efficient manner without long delays.
With regard to the development that is occurring, it makes me think of what we have done historically in our criminal justice system in Canada. For a long period of time, the lower courts were basically assigned jurisdiction of a fairly limited nature. It was mostly magistrates not trained as lawyers who sat in judgment of those cases.
Over the years, more responsibility was assigned. More serious cases were assigned to them. As we find in the military system, because they were more expeditious in most cases, the vast majority of people who had the option of going to a higher court stayed at the lower court, even though at times the justice was less than fair, if I could put it that way.
Over the years, especially as we moved to more concerns over civil rights, civil liberties and human rights, it became such that the magistrates are being phased out or have been phased out in most cases and everybody now has legal training, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies and rules of evidence apply much more stringently than in the past. We have gone through that system in the civil criminal justice system.
In effect, we are starting down that road now, this being just one of a number of bills in this regard. We are now moving fairly dramatically to try to do the same.
However we are dealing, obviously, with a different fact situation. Everybody recognizes the need for military discipline. And so what we are really attempting to do with this legislation, and other legislation and other changes occurring within the military justice system, is to strike that balance where the senior command, as well as the command in the field, has still sufficient control to impose military discipline, at the same time balancing off against the right of the individual person, who is charged with some offence under the military code, to a fair process.
We have to say we have some concerns with the process that is being instituted here, while it is a major step forward. There may be additional things. So, when this goes to committee, and it obviously will, we will be looking at ways of perhaps enhancing that balance so that individuals who appear before the summary courts will be treated fully fairly.
Let me just say in that regard that, because that fairness is quite important in terms of the individual member of the military feeling confident that he or she will be always treated fairly, still recognizing that they have to strike that balance, military discipline is still important.
Will we ever have a unionized workforce in the military? I suppose I have a bias in favour of thinking that may happen at some point. We are certainly not there at this stage. Although other countries have moved in that direction, we are not there at this stage. This would be a major step forward; however, there may be some refinements that could be made.
