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.
But some survivors of military sexual misconduct have told Parliament they want victims to be able to choose which justice system will take on their cases, and feel the government did not listen to their pleas.
Opposition MPs modified the legislation to allow complainants a choice of systems but the Liberals removed those amendments after gaining a majority in the House of Commons.
Defence Minister David McGuinty told a news conference last week the reforms will “build trust” within the military.
“This is a big part of the cultural challenges we’ve been seeking to address as a government,” he said. “We believe it’s the right next step.”
Arbour issued an interim recommendation in 2021 to transfer military sexual offence allegations to civilian police forces.
According to the provost marshal’s office, military police dealt with 879 cases related to sexual offences under the Criminal Code from 2020 to 2026.
In 227 of those cases, the victim preferred to keep their file with military police, while 284 files were referred to civilian police.
Other cases were not referred for a variety of reasons, such as the alleged offence taking place outside of Canada.
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