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OTTAWA — Some survivors of military sexual misconduct said they were not listened to by the Liberal government, which comes as a major military justice reform bill nears its end stages in Parliament.
The bill would strip the military of its jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute sexual offences involving Canadian Forces members committed within the country, and hand it over to civilian police. The military would retain its jurisdiction over such cases outside of Canada.
Christine Wood, a former air force logistics officer who experienced sexual misconduct in the military, said survivors of sexual offences deserve to choose which system will handle their case.
“Choice is the first thing that sexual assault victims were denied. Consent and choice and having agency is really important in this part of the process,” she said.
Donna Van Leusden, co-founder of the Survivor Perspectives Consulting Group, and other survivors of military sexual misconduct will testify Tuesday before a Senate committee studying the bill.
“We’ve been telling them since the very beginning — you need to be giving survivors more choice, not less,” she said.
“Now the bill is continuing along, all of our input again was ignored or pulled out of it.”
Second reading amendments to the legislation would have established that those alleging sexual misconduct could choose between a court martial or a civil court.
But the Liberals, who now command a majority in the House of Commons, restored the original version of the bill in May and passed it through third reading.
Sen. Rebecca Patterson, a Canadian Armed Forces veteran, has called on senators to consider putting a sunset clause in the bill to force the government to review and renew the law after a few years.
The Liberal government has indicated it’s open to the Senate amending the bill to add a sunset clause. The Senate defence committee turns to clause-by-clause review of the bill on Wednesday.
The Canadian Forces Provost Marshal, Brig.-Gen. Vanessa Hanrahan, said Monday that she has already issued interim direction to the military police that they must cease to accept new complaints that fall under the scope of Bill C-11 as of June 15.
Van Leusden said she worries about transferring these cases to an already overburdened civilian criminal justice system.
Wood also said she worries about whether civilian police have the capacity to take on cold cases, and whether military members would still go to local police about sexual harassment incidents less severe than rape.
Defence Minister David McGuinty promoted the bill before a Senate committee Monday as a force for cultural change within the armed forces.
“Survivors should have access to the same legal protections and processes available to every other Canadian,” McGuinty told senators.
McGuinty pointed to a landmark 2019 class-action settlement over sexual misconduct, which saw nearly 24,000 Canadian Armed Forces and National Defence members’ claims approved, as evidence the military “had a problem.”
“We’ve got to deal with this,” the minister said.
The law follows on past recommendations from former Supreme Court justice Morris Fish and Gov. Gen. Louise Arbour.
Arbour, also a former Supreme Court justice, led an independent review that in 2022 found Canadian Armed Forces members did not trust their own military justice system to handle these cases.
She was sworn into her new role on Monday, which also makes her the commander-in-chief of Canada.
In her speech at the ceremony in Ottawa on Monday installing her in the viceregal post, Arbour cited efforts to step up military recruitment and bring in more “diverse genders, backgrounds and perspectives.”
Arbour did not name this bill in her speech, nor did she testify before Parliament during its study.
But she also said in her Monday speech “significant progress is also being made within the forces to foster inclusion with dignity” as the military undergoes modernization.
The provost marshal said military police has been transferring sexual offence cases to civilian police since 2021, but the bulk of case files were not transferred, largely because of requests by survivors.
“Over the last few years, we’ve seen an increase in the number of victims requesting that their files remain with military police,” Hanrahan said.
Col. Dylan Kerr, director of military prosecutions, told senators he has directed prosecutors since 2021 to stop exercising jurisdiction on new Criminal Code sexual offenses.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government reintroduced the military justice reform bill after it died on the order paper in the last Parliament under Justin Trudeau’s government, when it was Bill C-66. That virtually identical bill was first introduced in March 2024.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 8, 2026.
— With files from Sarah Ritchie
Kyle Duggan, The Canadian Press
