Report secret in ‘family’s interest’
Foreign Affairs Minister Rob Nicholson says the military and government considered the interests of the family of a dead Afghan veteran when it decided to pull a cloak of secrecy over the details on how it is going to prevent such suicides from happening again.
But the soldier’s mother says Nicholson’s explanation clearly shows the arrogance the Conservative government and military displays when dealing with the issue of suicide in the Canadian Forces and how it treats families.
In an unprecedented move, the Department of National Defence has slapped a “secret” order on its response to the high-profile Military Police Complaints Commission report on the 2008 suicide of Afghanistan war veteran Cpl. Stuart Langridge.
The commission is fighting to have the military’s attempt at secrecy overturned and has filed an application in Federal Court for a judicial review — effectively challenging the legality of the military’s decision. But if the MPCC’s challenge fails, neither Langridge’s family nor the public will ever know whether the military has either accepted or implemented the recommendations that emerged from the commission’s public inquiry.
But Nicholson, the Defence minister when the decision was made to slap a secret designation on the response, indicated Thursday that the move is in the best interests of the family and falls in line with the Conservative government’s track record in taking care of such families.
“Over the years they take into consideration the interests of the family and I think National Defence has been completely consistent with that,” Nicholson, who is now Foreign Affairs minister, told journalists Thursday.
“I think the decisions with respect to the family’s interests are taken into consideration on every one of these cases.”
“Our interest is in reaching out to them and doing what we can to comfort them and assist them and that is what the government will continue to do.”
But Langridge’s mother, Sheila Fynes, said the decision by the DND and Conservative government to prevent the public from seeing how it might respond to recommendations from the commission is just the latest roadblock the family has faced in their seven-year battle to get information about what happened to the Afghan veteran.
The military initially refused to turn over the soldier’s suicide note to the family, even though it was addressed to them.
The Canadian Forces had also sent his mother a legal letter forbidding her from contacting the military as she tried to sort out the dead soldier’s estate.
Fynes said Thursday she finds it difficult to believe that Nicholson would have even made such claims.
“We have spent years trying to get answers and accountability,” she said. “His (Nicholson’s) comments are stunning in showing the level of his arrogance. He does it because he can, since no one can hold the government and military to account.”
Langridge, who had struggled with depression and alcohol and drug abuse, committed suicide at Canadian Forces Base Edmonton on March 15, 2008, shortly before his 29th birthday.
His parents claim that he was dismissed as a drunk and ill-treated by his superiors when, in fact, he was suffering from what are now widely recognized as symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder — an illness that has affected many veterans of the Afghanistan conflict. Langridge, once a highly effective, dedicated soldier, had attempted suicide several times before his death.
The Fyneses filed a formal complaint with the commission, claiming that investigations by Canadian Forces’ National Investigations Service into Langridge’s suicide were biased and more concerned with protecting their son’s superiors than revealing the truth. The complaint sparked an often controversial and acrimonious public hearing that began on March 27, 2012, and heard evidence from 90 witnesses.
The commission submitted its interim report last May to the Canadian Forces provost marshal, which commands military police.
The usual procedure is for the commission to send its interim reports to the military and to receive specific responses to its recommendations for publication in the final report.
The responses typically include a so-called Notice of Action, which outlines how the military intends to deal with the recommendations.
But the commission received the responses to its Langridge recommendations along with a “Protected B” designation that forbids it from either publishing the responses or discussing them publicly.
As it stands, when the final report into the Langridge suicide is released March 10, it will include redacted (blank) pages that represent the military’s response.
Protected B is a government designation that deals with “particularly sensitive” material and applies to “information that, if compromised, could reasonably be expected to cause serious injury outside the national interest, for example, loss of reputation or competitive advantage.”
It isn’t clear how the military’s response to recommendations from the Langridge inquiry fall into the Protected B category.
“As this matter is now the subject of an application for judicial review before the Federal Court, no additional comment will be made at this time,” military police spokesman Maj. Yves Desbiens said Wednesday.
Controversy over the Langridge hearings reached the floor of the House of Commons, with former defence minister Peter MacKay citing solicitor-client privilege when he refused to allow the MPCC access to potentially crucial documents.
Fynes said her family was “emotionally devastated” when they learned that her son had left a suicide note they were prevented from seeing.
In the note, Langridge asked for a private funeral. Unaware of his final request, the family agreed to a military funeral.
The inquiry also revealed that after Langridge had separated from his common-law wife he signed documents — a will and a form changing beneficiaries. Those documents were found behind an office filing cabinet after his death and not revealed to the family for three months.
The military has also steadfastly refused to give the Fyneses a complete copy of an internal Board of Inquiry into Langridge’s death.