National Defence Act  Madam Speaker, I appreciate the good work the hon. member does on the defence committee, where I am pleased to serve with him. When this bill was at committee stage, I proposed an amendment in committee to take advantage of this opportunity to remove the question of self-harm as

National Defence Act  Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for those comments on the round table and the role of the Judge Advocate General, but my question was very specifically about the amendment that was defeated through procedural manoeuvring, I will call it, in committee. I will ask him once

National Defence Act  Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to support Bill C-77. It has a title that would not let anyone know what it is about. It is called “an act to amend the National Defence Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other acts”. What it really ought to be calle

National Defence Act  Forty-five? Again, we do not have a good count of the reservists. We know that even though the strategy was put in place, this continues to be a serious challenge for the Canadian Forces. It is a challenge, obviously, on the humane grounds of taking care of those we ask to do di

National Defence Act  Madam Speaker, I have three things to say. First of all, the minister wrote to the members of the committee 30 minutes before we were going to vote. It was clearly an attempt by the minister to influence the committee and to not allow the committee to be independent on this iss

National Defence Act  Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Cariboo—Prince George for his tireless work on behalf of veterans and on the issue of PTSD. What we are trying to do is change attitudes. I commend the senior leadership of the military for taking on the task for trying to change attitudes,

National Defence Act  Madam Speaker, of course I agree that there are other things we have to do in addition to the legislation. However, one of the things that is most important in treating mental illness as an illness is changing those attitudes. When we enshrine in law that it is a serving member's

National Defence Act  Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Saskatoon West for her comments. She has restated the argument much better than I did originally. She hit the nail directly on the head. Certainly, what we hear from families is that the stigma prevents access to services. It c

Corrections and Conditional Release Act  Mr. Speaker, as I often like to say, I love to see the Conservatives and Liberals argue about who provided less for the public services we need. In this case, we know that the key problem with the management of offenders is the lack of resources for treatment programs and rehabil

National Defence  Mr. Speaker, the defence committee just returned from visiting the Canadian troops that are supporting the U.S. mission in Mali. While there, we heard universal praise for the contribution that Canada was making by providing high-quality medevac services. However, we also heard

Corrections and Conditional Release Act  Mr. Speaker, anyone who has looked at this question of solitary confinement, administrative segregation or its new title, structured integration units, knows that those with mental illness problems are the ones most likely to end up in this situation. I know the hon. member was n

Corrections and Conditional Release Act  Mr. Speaker, I wish I were rising today to support Bill C-83. We have a problem in our corrections system with the use of what was originally called solitary confinement, which then became administrative segregation and is now being rebranded as structured integration units. We a

Corrections and Conditional Release Act  Mr. Speaker, I would have to say that the hon. member is wrong. We opposed this bill at all stages. However, what I said at the beginning still remains. New Democrats would have liked to support a bill that recognized the realities in the corrections system. There needs to be so

Corrections and Conditional Release Act  Mr. Speaker, the hon. member raises an important point. The independence and impartiality of our criminal justice system, and the firewall that should be there to protect politicians of any stripe from using that system to advance the interests of their friends, is important. I

Corrections and Conditional Release Act  Mr. Speaker, the research on the phenomenon of solitary confinement is quite clear that solitary confinement exacerbates mental illness problems. It makes what we call psychiatric disorders much worse. It does that through the conditions under which people are held. Quite often,