A step in the right direction

It was 16 months ago that Gen. Jonathan Vance, chief of the defence staff, issued his very first command. Sexual harassment and abuse within the military “stops now,” he ordered.

So it’s understandable that Vance expressed disappointment and anger that his first order has not been followed. Indeed, a Statistics Canada survey he released this week found that nearly 1,000 members of Canada’s military say they’ve been sexually assaulted in the past year. That works out to 1.7 per cent of regular personnel, almost double the comparable rate of 0.9 per cent in the general population.

Still, there was one glimmer of good news in the report: 80 per cent of regular force members say they have confidence that complaints about inappropriate sexual behaviour will be taken seriously.

That’s progress. To successfully tackle the widespread sexual misconduct in the military, reported on by former Supreme Court justice Marie Deschamps in April 2015, members must feel they can trust the system to act on it and stop it.

And on that front Vance has taken several successful steps.

First, he rolled out what he called Operation Honour with a view to promoting “heightened awareness” of the issue. It included changes to training and education to provide clear definitions of what constitutes misconduct and the creation of dedicated teams of sexual offence investigators.

Most importantly, he set up a Sexual Misconduct Response Centre to offer help and encourage victims to come forward.

So it’s not surprising that they are. Especially when they see that Vance has already removed 30 people from command or supervisory roles this year as a result of sexual misbehaviour.

After decades of military leaders turning a blind eye to abuse in the military, Vance is showing he won’t tolerate it.

With more victims stepping forward and more punishments being meted out, it is only a matter of time until sex abusers finally realize they are no longer welcome in the forces.