Last Thursday’s release of the long-awaited report on sexual attitudes in the Canadian Armed Forces was depicted as a bombshell by the national media. Headlines on April 30 proclaimed that Canada’s military suffers from a “sexualized culture,” and statements that women in uniform “endure a toxic work environment” sent pundits, analysts and feminists to the pulpit to shake their fists at the perpetrators of this perpetual misogyny.
In response, senior military brass were paraded in front of the cameras, where they once again vowed to enforce a zero-tolerance policy toward any and all sexual bias in the ranks. But they have steadfastly refused to set up an independent office to deal with complaints.
For long-time observers of the Armed Forces, these latest revelations are not shocking, for the simple reason that we have heard them all before – 17 years ago to be exact, when the Liberal government of the time set up the first office of the military ombudsman, headed by André Marin, in response to similar revelations. We’re back to square one.
This latest internal report was commissioned one year ago by Chief of Defence Staff General Tom Lawson to quell the raging media storm following a series of damning articles in Maclean’s Magazine and its French-language counterpart, L’Actualité, that included allegations of widespread sexual harassment and abuse. In interviews, victims painted a picture of a military culture that not only condoned sexual assault but ostracized those who suffered abuse.
Lawson appointed former Supreme Court Justice Marie Deschamps to conduct a sweeping internal investigation into the allegations. Over the following 12 months, Deschamps and her investigators travelled across Canada and interviewed more than 700 witnesses. Given that there are approximately 100,000 uniformed personnel in both the regular forces and the reserves, that has to be considered a very thorough cross-section of the Canadian military.
Deschamps’s conclusion is in lockstep with the Maclean’s and L’Actualité findings in 2014. “There is an undeniable problem of sexual harassment and sexual assault in the CAF which requires direct and sustained action,” Deschamps writes, adding that the military brass, despite their protestations to the contrary, refused to admit “the extent and pervasiveness of the problem of inappropriate sexual misconduct.”
Deschamps tabled a list of 10 recommendations for the CAF to adopt in order to address these shortcomings and alter the existing culture of tolerance. While the military immediately agreed to accept two and agreed “in principle” with the remaining eight, they have refused to create a process of reporting sexual abuse that is independent of the chain of command.
Analysts have been quick to seize upon this point and to note that a number of our key allies, including the U.S., France and the Netherlands, have successfully implemented such independent oversight. What is still missing from the current debate is any mention of the fact that this whole clamour about the sexual climate in the CAF has been brought to public attention before – in the spring of 1998. Once again it was Maclean’s leading the charge, only at that time it took an unprecedented four consecutive front-cover feature exposés to force the political leadership of the day to announce sweeping reforms.
The 1998 stories were eerily similar to the most recent revelations, in that victims of rape had also been victimized by a military chain of command intent on protecting careers and the reputation of the institution at the expense of administering justice.
But back then, the public had already soured on the Canadian military after more than two years of a public inquiry into a top-level attempted cover-up of the 1993 murder of a prisoner at the hands of Canadian paratroopers, a sequence of events that became known as the Somalia affair.
Liberal defence minister Art Eggleton had at first attempted to label the bombshell a tempest in a teapot, but the public outcry became too loud to ignore. In response, Eggleton announced the appointment of keen young lawyer André Marin as the first-ever ombudsman for the CAF. (In the interest of full disclosure, I consider him a personal friend.)
However, despite all the fanfare that accompanied the creation of the ombudsman’s office, the powers that Marin insisted he needed to effectively challenge the chain of command were never granted.
Now we are here again, almost two decades later. Perhaps the solution is not to create another non-independent layer of oversight, but to simply revisit those powers the military ombudsman’s office recommended but never received.
Scott Taylor is a former Canadian infantry soldier, founder of Esprit De Corps Magazine, author and documentary filmmaker.
6 key findings from Justice Deschamps’s review on sex abuse in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF)
1. There is an “underlying sexualized culture in the CAF that is hostile to women and LGTBQ members.” One witness interviewed for the review says, “There is not a female [in the CAF] who has not had a problem.”
2. Senior NCOs are not only responsible for condoning a culture of sexually inappropriate conduct, but also for actively deterring the reporting of sexual assault incidents.
3. Many men continue to hold negative views of women in the military. It’s not uncommon for men in the Forces to refer to women soldiers, sailors and aviators as “ice princesses,” “bitches” or “sluts.”
4. Male-on-male sexual abuse, including gang rape, is used as a means of punishing or ostracizing members of the Armed Forces perceived as weak or who may be gay.
5. There is an “undeniable link” between negative and discriminatory attitudes toward women in the CAF and the low representation of women in senior ranks. The CAF is 10 years behind the corporate world when it comes to promoting women.
6. “A clear lack of trust in the chain of command.” Many participants expressed the view that when a complaint is made, the chain of command’s main focus is protecting the reputation of unit leaders and minimizing negative publicity.
Compiled by NOW staff
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