Parkinson's Law

May 14, 2021. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) writes "Defence department prepares ground for victims Bill of Rights two years after the law passed."  

BACKGROUND

On May 10, 2018, Bill C-77 was tabled in the Canadian Parliament to incorporate into the Canadian military justices system the rights previously set out in the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights . Bill C-77 was given Royal Assent and passed into law on June 6, 2019. Parliament has hence spoken! It is now the law of the land! You would be wrong to conclude in such a manner because t he Bill has yet to come into force because of unexplained delays incurred in the Office of the Judge Advocate General (JAG)

This would be in accord Parkinson's Law  which is described and defined as the natural tendency for bureaucrats to make more work for each other and in so doing accumulate interminable delays by British naval historian and author Cyril Northcote Parkinson who in an essay in the ECONOMIST in 1955 wrote as follows:

"It is a commonplace observation that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. Thus, an elderly lady of leisure can spend the entire day in writing and despatching a postcard to her niece at Bognor Regis. An hour will be spent in finding the postcard, another in hunting for spectacles, half-an-hour in a search for the address, an hour and a quarter in composition, and twenty minutes in deciding whether or not to take an umbrella when going to the pillar-box in the next street. The total effort which would occupy a busy man for three minutes all told may in this fashion leave another person prostrate after a day of doubt, anxiety and toil."

It takes Canadian military more than two years to bring a Victims Bill of Rights into force

Today, CAF sailors, soldiers and aviators are being deprived of victims of crimes rights. Worse, it is not known when such rights will actually be introduced in the military justice system. In the meanwhile, members of the Canadian military, are more or less second class citizens since every other individual on Canadian soil be they citizens, residents, refugees, temporary workers, tourists are all covered by the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights which, by the way, specifically EXCLUDES victims of crimes prosecuted before military tribunals.

The failure to act on this important piece of legislation by the military gives the impression that the CAF generally, and the military justice system specifically, are NOT concerned with fulfilling the will of Parliament in a meaningful way. Truth be told, it should not be much of a daunting task for the Office of the Judge Advocate General to put into place supporting regulations. Yet, the two-year (and counting) delay to do so continue to astound, with the result that the will of Parliament is playing second fiddle. 

This is one more reason as to why the Office of the JAG should no longer be responsible for the superintendence of the military justice system. Canadian soldiers, aviators and sailors deserve to have a world class military justice system, and this is currently not the case. Far from it.