National Defence committee  Definitely. It's a very good improvement from what we have now. And if I may, I will take 10 seconds to say how proud I am to see how well you've done your homework. It's always a pleasure to be here just because of that.

National Defence committee  In Capt Semrau's case, keep in mind that one of the requests made at the beginning of the proceedings had to do with the selection process. If you read the court record, you will probably see we went through all the steps in those proceedings. Once again, the problem lies in th

National Defence committee  I wasn't actually disagreeing with his comments on the makeup. My neighbour was saying that the role was different. As I see it, panel members have the exact same role as jury members do in criminal court. They show up, they sit down, they listen to the evidence and they delibera

National Defence committee  Yes, that is kind of what I was saying earlier. That is the big reason I have reservations about the current process, although I do agree it is an improvement over the previous one. This isn't the first time people have said it was impossible to do certain things in the Canadian

National Defence committee  If you mean to suggest with that example that abuses are possible with summary proceedings, my answer would be that abuses were much more likely to occur before than they are now. One of the reasons is that, over the years, the Judge-Advocate General's office has increased the nu

National Defence committee  Currently, there is no rule of evidence, or very little. I think there should be tighter controls. The Judge Advocate General put together a very clear directive of sorts as part of the last reform. But perhaps it should be incorporated into the QR&Os. That way, things would

National Defence committee  That said, there were occasions where the case was serious enough that we made counsel available.

National Defence committee  Unless they have the changed the practice since I left, “consult” was interpreted as getting in touch with counsel. It didn't mean consulting face to face.

National Defence committee  I guess someone could, yes.

National Defence committee  Unless it has changed, in those days I would also be counsel at court martial. I had clients and would defend people who were charged. Then when the system became one, we would usually receive a phone call from an accused who wanted to be represented at court martial and my secon

National Defence committee  I surely agree with what you just said, yes.

National Defence committee  Yes, and I'm so happy to be able to respond. We ran out of time on the other question that my colleague was answering. Basically it's quite open now. I must say that if there is something that is extremely open in the Canadian Forces, it is to inform the member under any circum

National Defence committee  There was a time when the services were not separated. When I was at Valcartier, I was doing court martial prosecuting in Valcartier, defending in the rest of the country and around the world, and there would be an afternoon when it would be legal aid. You just made sure not to b

National Defence committee  I'm not sure I understand that the meaning of the role of the members of the panel is not the same as the jury, because I have been in both rooms, and their role is exactly the same. They are fact-finders in the end, and they decide if the person is guilty or not. I like your ap

National Defence committee  I surely would agree that he gave a bit of latitude. I spent two and a half days with Mr. Lamer when he went down to Montreal and Valcartier and interviewed people. He was aware also that those were big changes. That's why I opened up with the questions where he said that as mu