National Defence committee  I have not visited the centres. I have been in contact by telephone with the director of SAPRO, in the United States. With SeMPRO I received written correspondence from the organization that did the review, which lasted for years, of what I was asked to do, but the organization t

National Defence committee  It depends. For example, in France, it is a model that is quite different from what you can still find in the United States, in New Zealand, in Australia and in Canada and the U.K. In France their sexual assault was processed through the civilian justice system for a long time. W

National Defence committee  The report contained 10 recommendations. The wording of some of them has changed a little but the substance remains the same.

National Defence committee  Yes.

National Defence committee  The objective of my recommendations is to give victims as many avenues as possible. One recommendation bears more specifically on military justice, and I recommend that victims be asked to choose. I made that recommendation because I noted that civilian courts have a lot more me

National Defence committee  I mentioned several in my report. For instance, it is very important that an independent centre be the central authority for collecting information. In my report, I note that there is not much reliable data on sexual harassment and assault. The independent centre would have to b

National Defence committee  I'm sorry....

National Defence committee  Your question goes to the culture and to how the centre can be linked to the culture. The culture is a notion that's much broader than the centre. The centre goes to the support of the victims and to the re-establishment of their confidence. They know there will be no conseque

National Defence committee  There is a review process that is provided by the statute of the military justice system. There is a report that was handed to me in the fall of 2014, the LeSage report. I understood my mandate as looking at what goes on upstream. Because there are so few reports, very few cases

National Defence committee  In my report and in my opening statement I mentioned that independence is crucial, fundamental—the many words I use in my report. I'm still of that view. I don't have any other facts that have come to my attention. My review is completed.

National Defence committee  This issue is a recurring one and it's an evolving one. Of the people I met, a number indicated to me the situation has improved a lot, but that there are still improvements to be made.

National Defence committee  I can give you as examples, in Australia or in France, the first thing you see when you open their website is an incident report. There are many ways in which the members can communicate with the organization, by telephone, email, or in person. It also indicates they can go throu

National Defence committee  I don't know why this is so, but in terms of this question, the discretion exists even in the civilian justice system. Whether it's more used in the military might be a question. As I mention in my report, my mandate was not to do a kind of survey or to do a comparison in terms o

National Defence committee  Yes, certainly. This is a reaction that is very positive. It demonstrates at least that the leadership is committed to doing something. I should add that I was pleased that the report was released very quickly after it was submitted; in fact, it was submitted at the end of March.

National Defence committee  In many ways it called me to draw on my experience as a litigator and also my experience as a judge because we had to sit with people and ask questions. Sometimes it was easy to get the people to talk, or to confide in a certain way, and at other times it was much less easy. Both