Chapter 1: Organization and Personnel

1.1. Structure of the Canadian Military Prosecution Service

1.   There has been one substantial change to the CMPS organisation during the reporting period. In December 2022, the Senior Counsel position, previously reporting to and supporting the ADMP, was reassigned as the Assistant to the Deputy Director of Military Prosecutions (DDMP) Operations (Ops). This change was made to provide additional capacity to the DDMP Ops to ensure adequate support to, and supervision of, all court martial operations and placed greater emphasis on the position’s role as a senior trial counsel. Following this change, the organisational chart was as follow:

DMP

2.   The DMP is the senior military prosecutor in the CAF. He is appointed by the Minister of National Defence (MND) for a fixed term, pursuant to subsection 165.1(1) of the National Defence Act (NDA).^{Footnote 1} Under the NDA, the DMP is responsible for preferring all charges to be tried by court martial and for the conduct of all prosecutions at courts martial. The DMP acts as counsel to the MND, when instructed, with respect to appeals to the Court Martial Appeal Court (CMAC) and the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC). The DMP is also responsible to provide advice in support of investigations conducted by the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service (CFNIS), which is the investigative arm of the Canadian Forces Military Police. The DMP represents the CAF at custody review hearings before military judges and the CMAC.

3.   In accordance with section 165.15 of the NDA, the DMP may be assisted and represented, to the extent determined by the DMP, by officers who are barristers or advocates with standing at the bar of a province. In this regard, the DMP is assisted by Regular and Reserve Force legal officers appointed to act as military prosecutors, along with a civilian paralegal and support staff. This organization, known as the CMPS, is headquartered in Ottawa and comprised of several Regional Military Prosecution offices located across Canada.

ADMP

4.   The ADMP is responsible to assist the DMP in the corporate governance of the CMPS. The ADMP also fulfills the responsibilities of the DMP in his absence.

DDMPs

5.   The roles of the DDMPs are:

1. The DDMP Operations is responsible for the management of the court martial calendar and file assignments. DDMP Ops supervises and mentors the Regional Military Prosecutors (RMP);
2. The DDMP Strategic (DDMP Strat) supervises the Appellate Counsel and the CFNIS Legal Advisor. DDMP Strat tracks all matters of national interest occurring at the trial level and develops standardized legal positions on key areas of law;
3. The DDMP Reserves (DDMP Res) is an experienced Reserve Force prosecutor who holds the rank of LCol and who is responsible for the overall supervision and management of Reserve Force prosecutors; and
4. The DDMP for the Sexual Misconduct Action Response Team (DDMP SMART) is an experienced Reserve Force prosecutor who holds the rank of LCol and who is primarily responsible for mentoring prosecutors in the performance of their duties related to serious sexual misconduct prosecutions.

ADDMP Ops

6.   The ADDMP Ops supports the DDMP Ops in supervising and mentoring the RMPs. The ADDMP Ops acts as DDMP Ops during absences.

Appellate Counsel

7.   The Appellate Counsel prepares and files written materials and appears as counsel on behalf of the MND for all matters at the CMAC and the SCC.

CFNIS Legal Advisor

8.   The CFNIS Legal Advisor is a military prosecutor embedded with the CFNIS and responsible to provide legal advice to members of the CFNIS HQ. The CFNIS Legal Advisor also provides advice to investigators throughout all stages of investigations, as well as updates on developments in the criminal law.

Regional Military Prosecutors

9.   Each of the five Regional Military Prosecution offices are managed by a Senior RMP. Offices are located in Halifax, Valcartier, Ottawa, Edmonton and Esquimalt.

10.   Senior RMPs are responsible to manage the day-to-day operations of their offices and to supervise their civilian administrative support staff. Senior RMPs and RMPs are also responsible for the conduct of courts martial, for representing the CAF at custody review hearings, and for the provision of legal advice and training to their respective CFNIS detachments. From time to time, they may participate in appellate work.

Reserve Force Prosecutors

11.   The CMPS relies on eight experienced civilian prosecutors who are members of the Reserve Force. These members consist of the DDMP Reserves, the DDMP SMART, and six prosecutors who assist their Regular Force counterparts in the prosecution of cases at courts martial.

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1.2. CMPS Personnel Update

Regular Force

12.   CMPS integrated two newly qualified Regular Force legal officers as RMPs this reporting period, one in Edmonton and the other in the NCR.

Reserve Force

13.   The three positions left vacant in the last reporting period were staffed with new personnel. At the end of this reporting period, these personnel were still in the process of undergoing initial training as legal officers.

Civilian Personnel

14.   Long term leave of two legal administrative legal assistants led to the hiring of two civilian employees on casual and term contracts. This resulted in several changes in the support model to respond to these vacancies and ensure all RMPs received sufficient support.

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1.3. Training and Continuing Legal Education

15.   The DMP continues to place a premium on training opportunities for members of the CMPS and, aside from the annual Continuing Legal Education (CLE) workshop, relies heavily on external organizations to fulfill much of its training requirements.

16.   During this reporting period, RMPs participated in legal education programs delivered by several organizations.

Host organization	Name of course	Number of attendees
Barreau du Québec	Séminaire des techniques de plaidoirie	1
Canadian Institute	13th Law of Policing Conference	1
Criminal Lawyers' Association	50th Annual Fall Criminal Law Association Conference	1
Crown School, Ontario Crown Attorney Association	Technology in Litigation	2
Crown School, Ontario Crown Attorney Association	Appellate Advocacy	1
Crown School, Ontario Crown Attorney Association	Expert Evidence	2
Crown School, Ontario Crown Attorney Association	Search and Seizure	1
Crown School, Ontario Crown Attorney Association	Trial Advocacy	1
Federation of Law Societies of Canada	National Criminal Law Program (NCLP)	7
International Association of Prosecutors	Annual Conference & General Meeting	1
Osgoode PD	Advanced Impeachment	1
Public Prosecution Service of Canada	Written Advocacy Course	1
Siracusa International Institute for Criminal Justice and Human Rights	Cours de spécialisation pour jeunes procureurs et poursuivants (CSJP)	1
York University	The Criminal Law and the Charter	1

17.   The CMPS also provides support to the training activities of the OJAG and other CAF entities. During the reporting period, this support included the mentoring and supervision by RMPs of junior legal officers from the OJAG who completed a portion of their “on the job training” by assisting at courts martial. The CMPS also provided support to military justice briefings given to JAG legal officers and military justice briefings offered by the Regional Services Division of the OJAG to other members of the CAF.

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1.4. Temporary Duty

18.   Military prosecutors are called upon to travel away from their home for significant periods of time to conduct courts martial and appeals, or to attend training events. This year, members of the CMPS were on TD for a total of 658 days. Here is a breakdown of the types of TD by region.^{Footnote 2} 

Région	ST relatif une cour martiale	ST relatif à un appel	ST relatif à une formation	Autre ST	Total du ST
QG SCPM	15	30	71	48	164
Atlantique	104	0	6	0	110
Est	144	0	6	0	150
Centre	97	0	12	0	109
Ouest	51	0	12	0	63
Pacifique	35	0	0	26	35
Réservistes	13	0	12	2	27
Total	459	30	119	50	658