Military ends policy of swift probes of sex cases
Resolution ‘not timely’, auditor general finds
Canadian military police will no longer be required to promptly investigate sexrelated cases after the military’s top cop changed the rules governing such incidents.
The change was revealed in the report Tuesday by Auditor General Michael Ferguson, who examined how the Forces deals with sexual impropriety. Ferguson noted that there are delays in investigating such cases, which take an average of seven months before they are ready to be prosecuted. “We found that the resolution of complaints was not timely,” he added. Military police policy had formerly required that investigations of potential criminal cases be closed and the results delivered to commanding officers in 30 days or less, according to Ferguson. “Closed” meant that the investigation was concluded, and the decision about whether to lay charges had been made. The policy also required that investigators provide written justification in the file if the investigation did not meet the 30-day standard.
But Canadian Forces Provost Marshall Brig.-Gen. Simon Trudeau changed that policy in July, "so that it no longer included the requirement to close a case within 30 days,” the auditor’s report determined. “The updated policy stated that investigations must be conducted as quickly and efficiently as possible, with regard to both complexity and severity.” Of the 46 military police cases looking into inappropriate sexual behaviour in the sample the auditor general looked at, 35 were closed. But of those, only four were closed in 30 days or less. The remaining 31 cases took an average of seven months to close, and there was no written justification in over half of them, Ferguson found.
There was no announcement of the change at the time even though the Canadian Forces states it has a policy of openness and transparency. Military police spokesman Maj. Jean-Marc Mercier noted in an email Wednesday the change affects military police, but the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service, which handles sensitive cases, was never bound to any time limits. “These amendments came into effect in July 18, whereby the policy is now more reflective of Canadian Policing standards in that investigations must be conducted as quickly and efficiently as possible, with regard to both complexity and severity,” Mercier noted. Mercier suggested the changes were “more of a clerical amendment than a policy change.”
But a former senior officer in the military’s Judge Advocate General’s office says military police are taking far longer than their civilian police counterparts to investigate sex assaults and other criminal cases.