Military culture must change, says general

Misconduct complaints first priority

The general in charge of reforming Canada’s military culture following the ongoing scandal over sexual misconduct says she’ll start by first targeting how complaints are handled.

Lt. Gen. Jennie Carignan told a House of Commons committee Tuesday the Canadian Armed Forces has a culture in which there is a “belief that tasks are to be done at all costs, that people’s well-being and operational effectiveness is a zero sum game.”

“This premise is false. When applied indiscriminately, it contributes to toxicity within our units. Treating people with dignity is not a trade-off for operational effectiveness,” Carignan said.

The Liberal government appointed Carignan to lead its chief professional conduct and culture group on April 29, as it launched a new review of sexual misconduct in the military led by former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour. Carignan’s group will “unify and integrate all associated culture change,” the government said at the time.

Carignan told MPS that she expects the details of her mandate will be finalized by the end of the month. In the meantime, she will prioritize work on the mechanisms and the structure for misconduct complaints. Carignan said that was the priority because it was something identified by survivors.

“We want to improve the ways that systemic misconduct is reported,” she said. “We want to give greater agency and support to those who have experienced misconduct as well, see it from the eyes of the survivors.”

The other short-term priority is targeting change in the military leadership. She said her team is preparing guidelines and clear expectations for those in leadership positions.

The culture change efforts will focus on prevention. “We want to make sure that we create this environment so that it reduces the opportunities for this misconduct to happen,” she said.

Carignan told MPS there is mandated training on sexual misconduct that soldiers receive through the various units of the Canadian Armed Forces, in addition to earlier training when recruits join the military.

“What we are observing, however, is that training is not actually achieving the aim of reducing misconduct in any type of way,” Carignan said. “So we will have to revisit this training and we will have to focus at the leadership level in providing tools for leaders to set an inclusive climate. So this is where we will put the emphasis on.”

The misconduct scandal that began three months ago has included allegations of inappropriate behaviour against those at the very top of the military, including former defence chief Gen. Jonathan Vance. The Prime Minister’s Office has been under scrutiny in recent weeks over how much the prime minister and his staff knew about that complaint.

Carignan said the current training is focused on telling people what not to do. “We want to reverse this and put the emphasis on the behaviours that we are looking for,” she said. The new training will be delivered throughout the armed forces and National Defence. The first initiative that will “kick start” the culture change efforts will be new “guidance on the expected behaviours from inclusive leaders” that Carignan expects to issue within a few weeks.

Carleton University professor Leah West, who spent 10 years in the Canadian Armed Forces, also appeared in front of the committee Tuesday and spoke about her experience as a survivor of sexual assault in the military.

Carignan’s efforts to change the culture will have to go beyond the issue of assault, West said, because the issue is fundamentally about men and women in the military not feeling like equals.

“If you’re constantly trying to conform to the behaviour, this toxic masculine behaviour, it’s incredibly challenging to stand up for yourself, because the idea you have is that you have to be like them. And if you’re not, you’re wrong. You don’t belong, and it’ll just prove that you don’t belong. And so you stay silent,” West said.

The government said in documents tabled in the Parliament last month that 581 incidents of sexual assault in the military were reported in the past five years. Of those, the vast majority, 411, involved female victims and male perpetrators.

“This is not just about sexual assault. It’s also about the jokes, the showing of pornography, the ridiculous comments, the unwanted touching. It’s all of it. And women and men need to be treated equally for that to stop, and that I think is the root problem that general Carignan has before her,” West said.

West was optimistic about the armed forces’ ability to make those changes.

“I powerfully believe in the CAF’S capacity to change, because I know that you have the strong leaders that are still there that take this issue extremely seriously,” West said.