Freedom to manoeuvre
Regardless of where one stands of the issue, few would deny that the Harper government has muzzled government scientists. In doing this they have prevented them from sharing research findings and information, both within the scientific community and with the public at large, that could be deemed critical of government policy and practice.
But there is another category of the public service whose profession remains exempt from any public relations and information-sharing gag order. This profession, in the realm of academic research and discourse, continues under Harper to have the freedom to analyze and scrutinize past and present government policy relating to their area of professional practice and how it applies to Canada and the world at large.
Welcome to the life of the senior officers of the Canadian Armed Forces.
Obviously, open political action on the part of serving military members is not permitted. Nonetheless the Department of National Defence has maintained a decadeslong tradition of providing and promoting post-graduate educational opportunities and taxpayer-funded scholarly journals that give military members (mostly officers) the opportunity to bring their interests, observations and experiences into the realm academic debate and scrutiny. Thousands of serving officers and veterans, myself included, are the product of these robust post-graduate opportunities within the Forces.
And in no way are these military scholars expected to pander to existing government policy and procedure, as can be seen from the numerous military research papers available to the public online.
Take, for example, the 2011 research paper “Throwing a Bird” by Maj. Lisa Elliott, which was critical of the linear approach to problem solving that the army was taking during the war in Afghanistan. This serving officer insisted that her army should take a non-linear approach, implying that her wartime army (and by extension, the Conservative government) was erring in their approach to the Afghan conflict. In her study, Elliott states that “the Canadian Forces is facing Complex Adaptive Systems in Afghanistan and that it must employ a form of ‘soft systems,’ non-linear thinking, rather than use a strictly linear approach to problem solving.”
Today, Harper’s negative reaction to disabled veterans and their complaints are well-known. Yet, there is no apparent censure to Lt. Col. Michael Higuchi who, in a 2015 Can- adian Forces College paper called What is Fair Public Policy?, provided a detailed comparison of veteran care programs in Canada and the United States. Higuchi concluded his detailed study with a list of innovative suggestions (such as free university/college education now being proposed by Justin Trudeau) to improve the situation of veterans in Canada.
And while government scientists are coerced into keeping their mouths and minds shut to climatechange, it may be slightly comforting to know that one Lt. Col.C laire Bramma has recently published a research paper called Directing the DART Towards Climate Change, suggesting that the military’s Disaster Assistance Response Team should begin focusing its mandate to deal with the environmental disasters that will come as a result of global warming. In this thoughtful officer’s opinion, climate change “is now scientifically proven and politically charged issue because the consequences are being felt worldwide as population vulnerability increases and extreme weather events become more frequent.”
All of these papers, and many more, are available online on the Canadian Forces College website for the entire wired world to see.
Then there are DND-funded journals where military members can academically critique areas of the Forces which they think need a reset in terms of focus. Take, for example, Capt. Brad Benns, a military intelligence officer who is critical of the way the army is recruiting and train- ing recent intakes of intelligence officers. In his paper Leadership in Army Intelligence: Preserving our Most Critical Capability, published in the Canadian Army Journal, Benns publicly states to all Canadians and interested sources around the world that today’s intake of Canadian military intelligence officers “do not necessarily possess the same skill set that the majority of intelligence personnel did coming into the trade throughout the 1990s.” He then goes on to say to the world that, “as a result, the members reach their respective postings unprepared, and the function, their subordinates, and the members themselves suffer failures due to a lack of fundamental leadership abilities.”
Of course, with criticism like this, it’s no surprise that these papers include prominently-placed disclaimers stating the opinions are that of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the policy or opinion of the Department of National Defence or the government of Canada.
Such discourse is not merely a luxury, but vital part of a military officer’s professional training, as it will clearly help prepare them for the advisory role they will have whenever the government requires their professional feedback. An intelligent, analytical mind has always been seen as vital to sound military leadership. I sincerely hope that future generations of officers never lose the right to develop and foster a healthy, academic discernment of the job they do, its impact, and how it can be improved.
However, shouldn’t we, for all the same reasons, allow the same right to government scientists who do not wear uniforms and carry guns? Why must the current government have so much fear for the analytical, exploratory mind of the government scientist, whose only weapon might be the microscope and the computer?
There is still one group of public servants who can strongly and openly criticize government policy: the officers of the Canadian Armed Forces