By Scott Taylor
Last week Ottawa Citizen reporter David Pugliese broke the story that Maj.-Gen. Peter Dawe had been quietly assigned a new post and brought back to work. Dawe had earlier fallen from grace when it was revealed earlier this year that in 2017 he had written a positive character reference for a fellow officer after that individual had been found guilty on various criminal charges, not the least of which being sexual assault.
The victim of the sexual assault was the wife of a fellow officer in the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. She was also a former soldier herself.
Partly on the strength of Dawe's letter and a separate character reference from the PPCLI association, the judge in the case placed the convicted perpetrator – Maj. Jon Hamilton on probation rather than issuing him a jail sentence.
Unfortunately for Hamilton he was later convicted of another, unrelated sexual assault, and the judge in that trial put him behind bars on a three-year sentence.
The story that Dawe had written a letter of support for a sex offender was made worse by the fact that he had not expressed empathy for the victim and he had ignored the expressed wish of her husband to not support Hamilton in this instance.
Recently Dawe was quietly returned to a job at National Defence headquarters. His new position was not to be just any old job, but rather he was to work in a role involving responses to the various reviews looking into sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) as well as the much maligned military justice system.
There was no fanfare of official announcement for Dawe's new assignment, but obviously his selection for this job did not sit well with fellow officers. Hence one (or more) informed Pugliese who was subsequently able to confirm the details. Again, the news of this sparked a backlash from sexual misconduct survivor groups, political opposition parties and anyone who understands common sense and bad optics.
The backlash was so swift and severe that Acting Chief of the Defence Staff, Gen. Wayne Eyre almost immediately rescinded the post. It would have been Eyre who approved Dawe of being back and given him that job, but it was Vice Chief of Defence Staff, Lt.-Gen. Frances Allen who made the formal announcement that Dawe would not be immediately going into that new position. Perhaps the military felt that putting a female face on the change of Dawe's appointment would make it look like they are finally "getting it".
Unfortunately, the underhanded way in which they tried to quietly resurrected Dawe in this new role appears to prove Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to be correct in his assessment. "It is obvious that despite the work the military has done, despite the work that we have done, the military still doesn't get that survivors need to be at the centre, and the unique priority of everything in regards to sexual misconduct and harassment in the military," said Trudeau to reporters, adding "this shows they simply still don’t get it."
Regrettably, Trudeau blanket statement should have been more targeted at the very senior command level of the CAF.
The fact that the news of Dawe's appointment generated enough internal reaction that it was subsequently leaked to the Ottawa Citizen, means that many of the rank and file do in fact "get it".
Gen. Eyre and the senior command must have known there was potential for such a backlash as the entire Canadian military has been engulfed in a steady stream of sexual misconduct scandals for the past eight months. That was why they kept it on the down low. For his part, Maj.-Gen. Dawe - who is by all accounts an outstanding combat soldier - should have known better than to accept a job involving the review of military sexual misconduct. This was yet another entirely avoidable black eye for the CAF senior command.
