Military police will no longer accept Criminal Code sexual offence complaints as of Monday, in anticipation of passage of the Liberal government’s military justice system reform bill.
Bill C-11 will strip the military of its jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute sexual offences involving Canadian Armed Forces members committed within the country, and hand those cases over to the civilian justice system.
The military justice system will still take on cases that happen overseas.
The legislation follows on past recommendations from former Supreme Court justices Louise Arbour—the current Governor General—and Morris Fish.
Arbour concluded in a 2022 report that Canadian Armed Forces members do not trust their own military justice system to handle these cases….