Keith Martin

[Judges Act, March 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. friend from Montreal who has repeatedly demonstrated in the House her deep interest, expertise and experience in the issue of crime prevention.

I would like to address a couple of points. I am glad she mentioned the Reform Party's attitude toward gun control. If the gun control bill, Bill C-68, would make our streets safer this party would vote for it. I looked at all the data in this regard very carefully. In fact, I appeared before the House standing committee on justice. I would be happy to speak with the member on this matter, to deal with the facts and to have good discourse with her. We feel very strongly. We would do anything to ensure that guns were not in the hands of 11 and 13 year olds.

We are completely in favour of responsible gun control. We would fight along with the government to ensure that firearms are not in the hands of children and to ensure that automatic weapons are not in the hands of criminals. We want restrictive gun control laws to ensure that guns and weapons which are not useful to hunters and such would not be in their hands. We have fought very hard for that. Unfortunately Bill C-68 would make our streets less safe by taking money out of the judicial system to put into gun registration.

We wanted to divide the bill into two sections. We supported the good parts of the bill but wanted to get rid of the bad parts that would make our streets less safe. We wanted to support the government in its pursuit of a bill that would make our streets safer. My colleagues and I would be very happy to speak to the member about that issue.

[Judges Act, March 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague and fellow graduate of Neil McNeil high school in Scarborough for his question.

All things being equal, we do not equate salaries within a country based on what the exchange rate du jour happens to be. That is irrelevant. All salaries are based within the confines of our own country. The salaries of judges in the United States are one third less than the salaries of Canadian judges.

It would be nice if our salaries were taken into consideration according to the exchange rate. That is not the reality we live in. I will put this in his lap. He has been very constructive throughout many of the debates he has entered in this House. I hope the hon. member works with the Minister of Justice to deal with the issue of civil courts and what is happening with the civil court situation.

We unfortunately are moving toward the situation in the United States where civil courts and cases they are hearing are becoming spurious. I bring up the situation involving McDonald's. A woman had a cup of McDonald's coffee sitting on her lap. She spilled the coffee and received burns. She also received an extraordinarily high million plus dollar judgement in her favour.

We as a Parliament have to seriously look at the civil court situation to ensure we do not get tied up in spurious civil litigation that has a very onerous effect and very restrictive effect on society. It makes for a very fearful society. I hope the government and my hon. colleague will address the situation and use his expertise in the area.

[Judges Act, March 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-37. This bill seeks to amend the Judges Act, something which the government has put forth on a number of occasions. I will go through this bill briefly and provide some constructive solutions for the government so it can truly make meaningful amendments to this act.

The primary purpose of the bill is to increase the pay of federally appointed judges. They will receive a 4% increase both for 1997-98 and for 1998-99. Their salaries have been frozen like those of the rest of us for several years. That is a fact of life, given our fiscal restrictions. No one has any complaints about that. Our judges should be paid fairly. No one has problems with that.

Let us take a look at what the judges make here and what they make in the United States.

What are the yearly salaries for judges of the Supreme Court of Canada? The chief justice makes $163,800. The yearly salaries of judges of the federal court are as follows: the chief justice of the federal court makes $139,700, an associate chief justice makes $139,700, the 13 other judges of the trial division each make $127,700. As I said before, no one has a problem paying for competence.

Now let us look at what judges make in the United States. I will look at the salary reports in the U.S. as of January 1, 1997. The average salary of associate judges of the highest courts was $101,782. For intermediate appellate courts the average was $100,400, and for judges of general jurisdiction of trial courts the average was $91,000.

To put this in perspective, we can see that our judges make roughly one-third more than judges in the United States who have a relatively equivalent stature.

While the judges are receiving an 8% increase in their salaries, the people in our military are receiving 1.5%. There is no equity. As well, the proposals for MPs' salaries were much higher than what anybody else in the private sector would get. All we are asking for is some fairness and equity for people across this country who are being paid, in effect, by the taxpayer. In other words, one group should not get much more than other groups.

There are enormous opportunities for the government to really deal with this issue. I just returned from the United States. They have done some innovative things in California to put accountability back into the judicial system. They elect their judges, instead of appointing them. Competence is ensured through the electoral system. I will illustrate how they do this in California in the hope that the government will adopt it so we can elect judges in our country.

In California they use one election system for trial court judges and another for appellate court judges. The judges serve six-year terms and they compete in a non-partisan election. That is important. It has nothing to do with politics. It is a non-partisan election in which individuals run on what they will offer and on what they have done as judges. Anyone who gets more than 50% of the vote is declared elected.

The justices of the supreme court serve 12-year terms and are on the ballot in November every four years. There is a revolving door, with one-third of the judges being on the election ballot every four years.

Individuals from the public who will be putting their ballots forward can get information on the judicial candidates in a number of ways. They can read the local newspapers which cover the judges. They can call the county bar association. They can read the candidate's own campaign literature and evaluate the campaign literature of the judges themselves. This way the public can evaluate the judges based on what they are going to offer in the position. Again, they will be evaluated on the basis of merit.

There was a supreme court judge in California who tried to overturn this. The judge tried to strip the ability of citizens to have the power to decide whether an individual should run as a judge. Every state in the United States has a system of election and all but one, Rhode Island, has a term system of six, eight or twelve years. It does not extend for life.

Any enlightened court system has to blend executive appointments with public votes. It is probably the most sensitive way of ensuring that our judicial system is non-partisan, has merit and ensures that the people are the ones who are going to judge the people who are going to judge them if they come into a court of law.

I would ask the government to consider the suggestion of an elected judiciary. I urge the government to look at the California system. The California system also has the ability to review the behaviour of judges.

Not so long ago there were a number of court rulings that had members of the public shaking their heads. There was a man who was charged and convicted of sexually assaulting a five-year old girl. The judge gave this person an extraordinarily low penalty. His argument was that the five-year old girl was being sexually provocative by sitting on the man's lap and rubbing herself up and down on him. Five-year olds do not think that way. This was a judgment that was beyond comprehension and it let somebody who had committed a foul, egregious crime out onto the streets to probably do it again. Where was the accountability? It simply did not exist.

Competence and a continual review process has to be in place. In California they have a system whereby a judge can be reviewed when his or her behaviour has been completely out of line.

We have to ensure that the judiciary is independent of the House. Their behaviour has to be independent, but competence and accountability in what they do as individuals has to be ensured. We are all accountable in this country.

Let us look at the incredible costs that exist today in our legal system. We have a legal aid system which is costing us billions of dollars. Perhaps there is another way to ensure that people who cannot afford the system will be able to get a good, competent legal defence and a fair trial at an affordable price.

In the United States, as well as a system of crown prosecution there is a system of crown defence. People are appointed to defend a person who cannot afford to pay for his or her defence. These appointed individuals give a good competent defence as salaried lawyers within the department of justice. This works very well in the U.S. I urge the government to look at that system. Perhaps Canada could appoint public defenders to give a good, competent defence to individuals who cannot afford a lawyer.

To streamline and expedite the system is extremely important. Unfortunately I am not a lawyer. Sometimes I wish I were. However, we have a system which enables individuals to put forth constructive solutions. I have a challenge for all the good, competent lawyers who work in the trenches in the legal system. I would ask them to provide us with good constructive ideas on how we can streamline the system, to come up with a good and fair legal system, an expeditious system that ensures people get a fair trial within a reasonable time.

Right now we have such a morass that we have justice delayed and justice delayed is justice denied. Justice denied is not justice. There are ways of doing this. Let us look at those ways and ensure these changes are made to the system. My colleague for Calgary—Nose Hill mentioned an example of adjournment proceedings where they are far too lenient with how those adjournment proceedings are performed.

Crime and punishment is another situation where our party has been accused of being, for want of a better word, far too right wing on the issue. We have really been given a hard time with this. Fortunately for us it is not true.

We look at justice in two ways. We look at it in a balanced way. We say that for those people who have been proven to be a threat to society, who are a danger to society and particularly those who are violent, it is the role of the justice department to ensure that those people do not go out and harm innocent people again. Those people should be met with the full force of the law, the objective being to protect innocent people.

There is another group of people who are non-violent and perhaps there are alternative ways of dealing with them such as the use of restorative justice. There are some very good programs in my province of British Columbia where restorative justice is used to ensure that people are going to be able to pay a penalty to society, pay a penalty to the victim and also ensure that they receive the rehabilitation and treatment they require, that they do not go into the cycle of crime, punishment and recidivism that takes place in far too many cases.

There is also the issue of prevention. Many months ago I introduced in this House a private member's motion calling for a national headstart program. There have been horrible shootings in Arkansas where 11 and 13-year-olds have been charged with committing some very foul murders, and in some recent tragic situations within our own country such as the terrible murder of Reena Virk in my riding of Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca. Their history does not exonerate these individuals from their actions but at least by looking at it we will be helped to understand that the origins of crime in many of these youths start at time zero.

It has been estimated that half the people in jail suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal alcohol effects. Fetal alcohol syndrome is the leading cause of preventable birth defects in this country. These individuals have an average IQ of 68. It is preventable. We can do something about that. But it has to start at time zero. We have to identify families at risk. We have to ensure that those families receive their basic needs and the children receive their basic needs. There are programs that have done that.

The member for Moncton, from the government, has been a leader in the Moncton headstart program, a program that has been very effective at preventing children from entering into lives of crime at worst or at best suffering indignities that give them fractured psyches and make it very difficult for them to interact with society in a constructive fashion.

There is the Perry preschool program in Michigan, the Hawaii headstart program, the Montreal longitudinal study with Professor Tremblay which shows very clearly that if we are to address and prevent crime starting at time zero, when the building blocks of a normal psyche are developing, when we prevent the trauma to that developmental process, we will have a cost effective and indeed humanitarian way of preventing crime in the future.

This is how we prevent crime. The Reform Party is really taking a multipronged approach to crime. I know there are members across this House who have been working very hard, members from the NDP, members from the Liberal Party, members from the Conservative Party, members from the Bloc and members from our party, the Reform Party, who have been working very hard to develop a balanced approach to crime and punishment.

Many of us came to this House to ensue that we would have sensible proposals to crime and punishment so we can change the tide of what is occurring in our streets today. Let us not forget that with respect to youth crime the number one victims in youth crime are youth. They are the ones who have the most to lose and the most to gain from what we do in this House. They are also people who are not represented well in this House because none of them sit in this House. They are too young to be elected.

Let us do our job and ensure we can put our minds together to put forth these sensible, constructive, pragmatic and cost effective solutions to prevent crime. Headstart programs work. Let us introduce one. It does not have to be some huge sink hole of money. It can be done within existing resources.

I was in Atlanta where schools along with medical, professional and existing resources are used to make sure that basic needs are met. Parents need to know what proper nutrition is. Members would be surprised to know the number of parents who are in underprivileged situations who often had parents who did not teach them how to be parents, who do not know what proper nutrition is, who do not know what proper discipline is, who do not know what setting appropriate boundaries are for children, who do not know what substance abuse and violence do to the development of a child.

These are not just words. These are cold, hard scientific facts. The medical community has done studies and has ways to look into the brain through something called positron emission tomography which illustrates how brains work. Using a PET scanner we can see how the brain develops and how the brain is affected by various things. We can prove conclusively and scientifically that the traumas I mentioned before have a deleterious and disastrous effect on the development of that child's psyche.

We can prevent this. I hope the government uses the collective knowledge that is in this House today and all the tremendous experience and expertise in our country and in others to build these constructive solutions, work with the medical community, work with the counsellors, work with the schools and we will have a comprehensive plan to do this.

Of course it is absolutely essential that the government work with the provinces because most of the control has to be on a local basis where they can meet and fit with the needs necessary for the local community because not all communities are the same. An aboriginal community off reserve is different from an aboriginal community on reserve. It is different from a multicultural setting in urban Toronto. They are different. They have different needs but they can all be modified to address those needs.

It may be difficult to argue for it but pragmatically if we deal with the facts we will ensure that our society and our country will have a dramatic benefit in the next 10 years. The cost savings are massive.

With crime costing us $44 billion a year, even if we shave off 5% that is over $2 billion saved. Imagine what we could do with that $2 billion. We could provide tax relief to ensure that families are able to better meet their needs, strengthen our social programs, strengthen our health care system, strengthen our education system. These are cold, pragmatic arguments for this approach and it can be done.

Getting back to this bill, there are some innovative solutions to revamp our judiciary. I have mentioned them in my speech and my colleagues have mentioned it in their speeches. I hope the Minister of Justice takes these suggestions and implements them.

[Judges Act, March 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of my hon. colleague from Calgary—Nose Hill, who is a lawyer and who has brought her expertise on legal matters to this party which has been greatly appreciated.

In the beginning of her speech she mentioned that the justice system has ground to a halt. She brought forth a heart-wrenching example. This is a situation that we are faced with across the country. Justice is being delayed. Justice delayed is justice denied. If we want to make sure that justice is done, it has to be done in an expeditious fashion.

The problem is that the government has failed to adopt any of the constructive solutions that have been put forth to ensure that we have an expeditious criminal justice system so that people who are arrested get a fair trail in a timely fashion, in a reasonable timeframe. The system right now does not provide for that.

I ask my colleague from Calgary—Nose Hill whether she can provide to the House some constructive solutions that the government can adopt to ensure that individuals who are in our criminal justice system will go through the system in an expeditious and fair fashion.

[Judges Act, March 30th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his fine intervention and for bringing his expertise to the House today on this important bill.

He is a former RCMP officer. I am sure he has a lot of experience with arresting individuals, sending them to court, going through the legal process and then finding out that some members of the judicial community rather than interpreting the laws, have decided to make the laws. They have set precedents in a number of areas which have made it very difficult for the police officers to do their job.

In fact they have turned the judicial system to some extent on its head. That is not what they were there for in the first place. The role of the judiciary is to interpret the laws made by the House of Commons and we as the representatives of the people have that duty.

I would like to know from my hon. colleague in his experience whether he agrees with that assessment. Does he agree that the judiciary rather than interpreting the laws is making the laws? Does the hon. member see that the House can play a role in trying to turn that around? I would also like him to address the issue of accountability.

There has been a number of egregious statements made by judges. They have put forth penalties that seemed completely out of proportion to the offence committed. In the last few years particularly there have been rape cases where individuals basically got off scot-free for committing some heinous crimes. I would like my hon. colleague who has experience in these matters to address these two issues.

[Petitions, March 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I have in my hand a petition signed by thousands of residents of my riding of Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca.

The petitioners indicate that incidents of violent crime, particularly among youth, are becoming more frequent, that the incidents of violent crime cause harm to the public and that there should be fewer such incidents.

The petitioners call upon parliament to enact legislation to repeal the Young Offenders Act and to replace it with an act that will provide penalties for violent crime committed by young people and which will act as a deterrent to such actions and provide safety and security to the general public as well.

[National Defence Act, March 30th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, tax relief, tax relief, tax relief is what the military needs, as all Canadians need. I thank my friend from Calgary Northeast, our defence critic. He has done an enormous job of trying to be the advocate for our military.

Treasury Board hacks away at our defence department personnel's accommodation. It has raised their rents repeatedly while freezing their pay. That is the kind of situation we have.

[National Defence Act, March 30th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I am not as well versed as the hon. member on that issue.

With respect to our relationship with the American military, it is co-operative. It is not incestuous. We do retain our autonomy. Our friends in the United States military understand that our soldiers are Canadian soldiers and not American soldiers in Canadian uniforms. That has always been very clear. Perhaps the hon member would be very interested to know of the enormous respect Canadian soldiers have in the United States when they help our friends in that country with their military initiatives.

As I said before, I am not as well versed as the member but I would certainly appreciate the member's giving me some information on this so I would be able to read about it and give him my opinion on it.

[National Defence Act, March 30th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. friend for his question, which hits the heart of two issues.

What is the role of our military? There is no clear description of the military's role. If it has a role as a fighting force with ground forces and if we need tanks to fulfil our NATO obligations or for our peacekeeping roles, then this would make absolute sense.

My colleague illustrated the important issue of why we do not hear whether or not we are accepting those tanks. It is like the submarine situation. We do not know why the submarines were rejected. We do not even know if they were considered properly.

We do not know what the minister of defence is thinking, be it regarding submarines or tanks because a direction for the military has not been articulated. The government waffles all over the spectrum. It is as if it goes with the breeze. We do not know what the government's plan is for the military. If we knew what the plan was, then we would know whether or not we should buy the Abrams tanks or the submarines. First should be the role. The government has been sitting here for five years and has not articulated a strong clear position on what the role of the military should be.

A second issue is that of the U.S. military. The U.S. military, as much as some people in our country like to criticize it, has been an enormous friend to Canada. We cannot do our job without its help. In many cases the U.S. military relies on our help.

The co-operation that exists between both countries on a military level is astounding, be it in the use of military satellites, communications skills, or our frigates protecting their ships against submarines. There is an intimate relationship between the U.S. and Canadian militaries which serves us both well. Our ability to protect ourselves would not be nearly as good if the U.S. military did not have such a co-operative relationship with our men and women in the military.

It is important that we do not treat Bill C-25 or this discussion as a witch-hunt against the military. There have been criticisms against the leadership in the military. As in any organization there are good eggs and bad eggs. It is the minister's role to separate them. Get rid of the bad eggs and keep the good eggs. Enable the many good people in the military to percolate up to the top, to strengthen our military to be the best that it can become.

There is so much dissatisfaction with the military personnel in their ability to advance. As a result huge numbers of extraordinarily talented people in the prime of their lives, in their thirties, forties and fifties have been lost to early retirement. They do not have the faith in the military to contribute to the organization they originally went into because they believed in it with their hearts and souls. Many of them came from families who gave their lives to the military for our country. What a sad reflection of our country that we cannot support an institution which has served our country and the world so well for so long.

[National Defence Act, March 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure today to speak to Bill C-25.

The Esquimalt base is in my riding of Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca. Marine Pacific command is in my riding and as such provides me with an enormous amount of information and insight into what is taking place within the military today. As the No. 1 employer in my riding, the number of constituents dependent upon the military is vast. Therefore the bill is exceedingly important to the constituents of Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca.

We are disappointed because Bill C-25 had an enormous opportunity to make some substantive changes within the military that would enable men and women in our fighting force to be able once again to do the best they can in an institution that traditionally has served our country exceptionally well.

Parliament as an institution has not served the military well. We have not provided the military with the tools to be able to do its job. Bill C-25 was an opportunity to enable us to give the military the tools to do its job, to strengthen the faith it has within its own institution, but unfortunately again we failed.

We ignored the recommendations of the $30 million plus Somalia inquiry. We ignored the recommendations of many learned people within and without the military to build a stronger Canadian fighting force. This cannot be a witch-hunt. We must focus on the constructive solutions that would enable the Canadian military to be the best that it can become.

We have put forward a number of constructive suggestions regarding the military police. We suggested that it be taken out of the chain of command and be given more independence. It should report directly to the military attorney general. This was ignored.

We asked that the office of the judge advocate general be split into defence and prosecutorial roles. Judges should not come from the same office and probably should come from the federal court trial division. Removing the judicial role of the judge advocate general would allow for the offices to be renamed the attorney general with the responsibilities of policing and prosecuting.

The Somalia inquiry recommended the creation of an independent inspector general. We believe this was ignored because the inspector general would be independent. If we believe in transparency, if we believe that we should have independence and the ability to investigate potential problems within the military, as in any other organization we should give this group independence.

The Somalia inquiry recommended numerous things. It recommended that the Minister of National Defence report to parliament by June 30, 1998 on all actions taken in response to the recommendations by the inquiry.

Is the Somalia inquiry to be just another study that is tossed under the table and forgotten? We repeatedly do this, be it the inquiry into aboriginal affairs, the Somalia inquiry or committee reports. After they get their day of media attention the vast majority of committee reports, which contain superb ideas and suggestions, are merely tossed under the carpet and forgotten. This is an enormous waste of opportunity. It is also an enormous waste of taxpayers' money.

Bill C-25 also failed to address the suggestion that action be taken regarding witnesses who lied or broke officers trust or oath. It ignored twelve recommendations addressing the creation of the office of the inspector general. It ignored five recommendations charging the CDS with clarifying and strengthening the change of command. It ignored eight recommendations charging the CDS with more effective screening with respect to promotions, self-discipline and how personnel impose discipline on others. Bill C-25 ignored twelve recommendations charging the CDS with applying merit as the prime factor in promotion through improving the performance and evaluating reporting system.

Today in the military, as in other organizations, people are not necessarily promoted on the basis of merit but on the basis of some other characteristic. That is not fair. It erodes the very essence of any organization.

When people, regardless of where they happen to be from, say that they cannot ascend through the ranks of an organization on the basis of merit, why should they improve themselves? Why should they give the best performance? Why should they be the best they can become?

They are not being promoted on the basis of merit. They are being promoted on the basis of some other characteristic. That erodes the very heart and soul of the system and what we get is an organization that is far less than what it could be.

The bill has ignored numerous recommendations. I will not go through the rest of them because my colleague has eloquently spoken about them. There are numerous other things that the military has failed to deal with. One particularly important situation is what has been occurring in my riding on the dockyard and in the depot.

A few months ago military personnel heard through the grapevine that roughly 18,000 jobs were to be lost. Can we imagine being people in the military and hearing that our jobs might be lost?

I told the Minister of National Defence that these rumours were flying around. The NDP asked questions, as well they should and should be commended for doing so. When we asked these questions of the minister he said that they were just rumours, that they would not really lose 18,000 jobs. I then asked the minister to tell the personnel on these bases what would or would not happen. Have we heard anything? No, we have not.

Representatives of the Union of National Defence Employees have asked the minister what is going on. There might be some reallocation of jobs through the alternative service delivery plan. How many jobs will it be? Who will have to do this? Will personnel be allowed to bid for their jobs on a fair and level playing field? These are important issues.

I would like to point out the backdrop against which this takes place. In my riding men and women at the base service depot have gone through the downsizing. In fact they are a model of downsizing in the country. They have cut where they have needed to cut. They streamlined where they needed to streamline. They improved their efficiency where they needed to improve their efficiency, so much so that they are a model of downsizing. They have been held up as a model of downsizing.

For over 10 years many of those personnel have been working at a wage level with no raises that is less than they would make on welfare. Some people for 12 of their 14 years in the military have been working at a wage less than they would make on welfare. They stuck out the job because they felt it was the right thing to do. They felt committed to the institution. They wanted to make a contribution. They liked their job. They felt strongly about the military. They felt the military was a part of Canada. They felt it was a duty and responsibility to the country to support the institution even though they could have made more money not working.

Against this backdrop the ministry said to them that their jobs may be cut. They have also not said to them that they could apply for their jobs if it is under the ASD or bid for their jobs in a fair and equitable fashion.

What kind of a situation do we have? What kind of a minister do we have? What kind of a ministry do we have that will kick hard-working men and women in the teeth who have done their jobs faithfully? What kind of a government kicks its employees in the teeth when they are down, when they have given more honour, more credibility, more faithfulness to the institution than perhaps the government has?

These people are not asking for miracles. They just want a fair shake. The Union of Defence Employees wants a fair shake. They want to be able to bid for their jobs on a level playing field. They want to be treated fairly. They understand that cuts have to be made. They understand that streamlining has to occur but they do not understand that when they have done this and have done it very well they are kicked in the teeth.

I challenge the minister to speak to the employees in the military, tell them the truth, tell them what is going on, treat them fairly and enable them to compete for their jobs on a level and fair playing field.

If cuts are to take place it would do the taxpayer and the military an enormous disservice if the reorganization is to make the military less effective than it is today. That is also a concern of these people.

If an ASD is to be used, will the people this is being given to be able to do a better job? There are concerns that the people who will be getting these jobs might be friends of the military, friends of the people in power. Will these hard working people who have been working for years for the military be tossed aside because the contract will be awarded to somebody who knows somebody in the ministry or in the defence department? Is that fair?

The truth has to come out and it is the minister's responsibility to do that. There have been no responses to my questions so far. I want those answers and I want them now. The employees of the defence department, members of the UNDE, who live in my riding want and deserve answers. They want them now.

With respect to the soldiers in our defence department, they have been labouring under an egregious situation for years. In a presentation at the defence committee over a year ago to General Roméo Dallaire who was there, along with the assistant deputy minister, I pointed out some constructive solutions from the men and women at the base in Esquimalt. They were solutions that would have enabled them to provide a better standard of living and to improve the situation within the military without costing the military more money.

It could have been a win-win situation. We could have made the accommodation assistance allowance applicable to all members in the military. When someone in the military is moved from an area where accommodation is cheap to an area where it is very expensive, such as Victoria or Vancouver, the person has to bear the cost. There is very little accommodation for that particularly if the person lives off base.

People in the military understand that they can be moved around and that they have no say in where they go. However, these people want to have some fairness built into the system. People who work in an embassy and who are moved to another country where the standard of living is much higher and more expensive are accommodated for that. Our military men and women should have the same consideration.

We can do this by making sure that the accommodation assistance allowance applies to everybody and that the AAA is tax free. It is not much but it would provide them with some money.

The raises the military personnel received were an absolute disgrace. As we have said before, the military has to live within its budget but for heaven's sake, when we are sending people out to fight for our country, we should provide them with enough money to feed their children back home.

Right now a soldier can make $800 a month and an extra $400 a month if he or she goes away. It is clearly to the soldier's advantage to go away. But what does that do to the family? When those soldiers are away they worry about their spouses and children. There has to be some fairness built in.

A large number of our military personnel travel half a world away to fight in areas such as Iraq and they worry whether there is enough food on the table to provide for their children. Our military people are not looking to get rich but they are looking for fairness. If they are going to put their lives on the line, they want fairness.

Another thing which is eroding our military is the inability of our soldiers to move up the ranks based on merit. I and my colleague have addressed this issue before. There is the perception, and I would argue the reality, that members in our military are not moving through the ranks on the basis of merit. Other factors extraneous to merit are taken into consideration.

It is discrimination if someone is not able to move up the ranks because they are not of the right category. A level playing field must exist within the military as in every organization. A person must be able to ascend the ranks of an organization on the basis of merit, competence, experience, on the basis of their qualities, not on whether they fit within a certain demographic group.

Our armed forces demand and deserve a game plan. What is their role in the world? They do not know. The military personnel will do the job they are tasked to do if we task them with it. They will do it with honour and they will do it well. We have to give them direction. Are they going to be a peacekeeping force? Are they going to be a military force that intervenes in active combat? Are they going to be a force that is going to live up to our obligations as a country under NATO?

We know that our individual security as a nation is intimately entwined with the security of other nations. In this era of globalization we have to live up to our obligations in international organizations such as NATO.

If we are going to have security, we have to provide our military personnel with the tools to do their job. There is no compromise on that. We must give them the required tools. This means the equipment and direction. We are not doing that in spite of repeated white papers, commissions and studies that have called for just that. Give our military personnel a game plan. Give them the tools to do their job.

In this era of cutting, efficiency can be put into the military. By giving base commanders the ability to manage their affairs more closely without the intervention of the Treasury Board there will be more money, more flexibility and better bases for the Canadian men and women in the military.

Treasury Board repeatedly meddles in the affairs of the military. It ties the hands of the military. Base commanders cannot actively try to provide support nor can they use their intelligence and abilities to ensure their bases are as good as they can be.

It is true that in the past the minister and the government have done some good things to try to give base commanders some flexibility. It is a significant departure from what occurred before. They can do more. A lot more could be done to give base commanders the flexibility and the ability to improve the social and economic conditions among our military.

The armed forces need our help. Their social and economic situation needs improvement. The government needs to listen to the solutions we have put forward, solutions which have been given by our military, the men and women in uniform and their families. The government needs to listen to our critic. It needs to work with members across party lines. It needs to work for our military.

We will not accept the subterfuge that has taken place for so long. We will not accept the military being ignored. We will not accept that it has not been listened to. The government must be held accountable. It must act on the solutions and suggestions it has on its plate. We will work with the government to help our military become the best it can become.