Sajjan backs decision to reassign officer
OTTAWA • Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan’s office is standing by the military’s decision to reassign a senior officer who wrote a reference for a convicted sex offender to a new job that involves reviewing ways to eliminate sexual misconduct from the Canadian Armed Forces.
Yet survivors and experts of military sexual misconduct are expressing outrage over Maj.-gen. Peter Dawe’s new role, saying it raises even more questions about the Armed Forces’ ability and commitment to addressing the problem.
“This decision clearly illustrates an inability to think rationally about the (military sexual trauma) file and the challenges it presents,” said Sam Samplonius of It’s Not Just 700, which represents survivors of military sexual misconduct.
“This decision also perpetuates the perspective that the senior officers are more concerned with taking care of each other at the expense of others.”
Dawe was relieved as commander of Canada’s special forces in April when the CBC reported that he had written a character reference four years earlier for a soldier convicted of sexually assaulting a comrade’s wife.
Dawe quickly apologized, and acting chief of the defence staff Gen. Wayne Eyre said in a statement at the time that he remained confident in the senior officer, “who has accepted full responsibility and has learned from this tragic case.”
Eyre nonetheless acknowledged Dawe’s actions had caused “division and pain” in the military, and that he would take his time before deciding if and when the former special forces commander would return to duty.
Yet the Defence Department on Tuesday confirmed an Ottawa Citizen report that Dawe has since been tasked with collecting and reviewing recommendations from three separate external reviews conducted by retired Supreme Court justices.
While Sajjan had in April questioned a “serious lapse in judgment” by Dawe, spokesman Daniel Minden on Tuesday indicated the minister’s office stood by Eyre’s decision to assign him to the new post.
However, Samplonius and others questioned not only the absence of any previous announcement that Dawe was being reassigned, but also the message that his new appointment has sent to victims of sexual misconduct.
Charlotte Duval-lantoine of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute said the move “shows that there is a dearth of big-picture, strategic thinking here.”