PM needs to protect military personnel who reported care home abuses: NDP
OTTAWA — Canadian Forces personnel who sounded the alarm over abuses at long-term care homes in Ontario should be protected from reprisals by senior military leaders, says the NDP’s provincial military affairs critic.
Jennie Stevens, the NDP MPP for St. Catharines, sent a letter Wednesday to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Public Safety Minister Bill Blair calling for protection for the military personnel.
She raised her concerns after reading an article in this newspaper that the Canadian Forces leadership intended to crack down on leaks of unclassified information, including in the case of military personnel who talked to Global News about the abuses they were seeing in the Ontario care facilities.
Earlier this week one of the journalists who worked on the Global News report about abuses in the long-term care homes tweeted that the Canadian Joint Operations Command in Ottawa was trying to determine which soldiers talked to the news outlet. This newspaper has also confirmed that military officials assigned to the command were hunting for those who spoke to Global News.
The military personnel had been sent to the care facilities to help overworked staff dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Stevens, the NDP critic for veterans and military affairs at the provincial level, wrote to Trudeau and Blair pointing out that had Canadian Forces personnel not spoken out about the abuses they saw in five long-term care homes, Ontarians would not have known how the residents had suffered from neglect and, in at least one case, potentially criminally negligent care. Stevens said that the efforts by the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces to clamp down on whistleblowers is wrong.
“What is needed is more attention to improving these conditions, not punishments for those with the courage to speak out about these horrendous conditions, especially as the report lagged for days without any concrete actions or repercussions,” she wrote in the letter also sent to Ontario Premier Doug Ford.
Instead, military personnel should be honoured for reporting the abuses, Stevens said in an interview with this newspaper.
The Canadian Forces and senior members of DND leadership are upset by leaks over the last month that embarrassed either the Liberal government or military leaders. In one such case, Canadian military personnel told Global News about abuses they were seeing in long-term care homes in Ontario. The Canadian Forces leadership had the information earlier about the abuses but the federal government had delayed taking action. That changed after Global informed DND it was going to broadcast details about the abuses, sources say.
On May 14, the Canadian Forces officer responsible for troops assisting in longterm care homes in Ontario submitted his report that outlined the abuses military personnel had witnessed. Military personnel saw various incidents of abusive behaviour toward seniors by care home staff, including cases where residents were force fed to the point of choking. In another case, the report noted that Canadian Forces personnel observed an incident “that appeared to have contributed in patient death.”
The report was sent for action to the Canadian Joint Operations Command in Ottawa. Public Safety Minister Bill Blair did not inform the Ontario government of the report until May 24.
In an email Wednesday the DND stated the Canadian Joint Operations Command has not launched an investigation into who talked to Global News. “Our focus is to instill confidence in our members that when reporting of conditions like this are brought to the attention of military leaders that the appropriate steps are taken to address the observations,” the email stated.
Earlier, DND officials confirmed that the new directive governing unclassified information is being written.