Forces must root out abuse

If there’s a silver lining in the latest allegations swirling around the top leadership of Canada’s armed forces, it is this: they should settle once and for all the debate about whether the military needs strong independent oversight to deal with sexual misconduct in its ranks.

That kind of oversight should have been put in place back in 2015 when a former Supreme Court justice, Marie Deschamps, made it the centrepiece of her recommendations for dealing with abuse of women in the military.

It certainly should have been done once the self-proclaimed feminist government of Justin Trudeau took office later that year.

And it’s beyond question that it should be done now, with the two most recent chiefs of the military both embroiled in allegations of misconduct.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan says he’s committed to swift action on this front, and “the time for patience is over” when it comes to changing attitudes inside the armed forces. He says everything is on the table.

The minister should stop dithering and make it clear that the government will move as quickly as possibly to bring in effective external oversight of the forces.

Both the Conservatives and New Democrats say they support such a system. They’re right, and the government will find broad (if not unanimous) support in Parliament if it goes down that road.

There’s nothing new about this proposal, which former justice Deschamps made six years ago. But it has taken on added urgency with the investigations now underway into troubling allegations against two former chiefs of the defence staff, Gen. Jonathan Vance and Adm. Art McDonald.

Vance is being investigated for alleged inappropriate behaviour, which Global News reported involve a relationship with a woman he outranked (Vance denies any wrongdoing). And McDonald stepped aside as CDS only five weeks after taking over from Vance. He’s being investigated over allegations that CBC

News say involve his conduct in 2010 toward a female junior officer.

All that should be thoroughly investigated and the public should be informed of the outcome. But in the meantime, since the reports involve the country’s most senior military leaders, they inevitably cast a new shadow over the forces’ attempts to deal with abuse in its ranks.

Time, then, to finally follow what Deschamps made Recommendation No. 3 of her 2015 report: “Create an independent centre for accountability for sexual assault and harassment,” independent of the armed forces, that would receive allegations of misconduct and coordinate action against it.

Six more of her 10 recommendations flowed from that key proposal.

But the military stopped well short of carrying it out. Instead, the forces set up a “sexual misconduct response centre” that is part of the Department of National Defence, dependent on the department for its staffing and budget and reporting to its civilian side.

A truly independent centre of the type recommended by Deschamps would not be beholden to the military and would report directly to Parliament. That would give it the heft to call out wrongdoing where it saw it, to give victims of misconduct a safe place to complain, and to assure the public that abuse will be properly dealt with.

So far the military has successfully resisted this kind of external oversight.

Its top leaders, including Vance and McDonald, have said all the right things about the need to root out misconduct and conducted top-down campaigns such as “Operation Honour” to fight abuse.

But it clearly hasn’t been enough, and the public’s patience has run out, along with that of the defence minister.

The government should have acted earlier, rather than be pushed into action by events and calls from opposition parties. But the longer it delays, the worse it will be both for the Liberals and for the military itself.

Regardless of the outcome of the latest investigations, the government should do what should have been years ago. It should put in place an independent body to root out abuse.

Adm. Art McDonald stepped aside as CDS only five weeks after taking over from Jonathan Vance