By Scott Taylor
Top officials at the Department of National Defence recently formulated a plan on how to crack down on those within their ranks who leak unclassified, albeit embarrassing information, to the news media. It didn’t take long, however, for details about the plan to be leaked to Ottawa Citizen reporter David Pugliese.
While this incident was clearly illustrative of how little control the DND has over the flow of internal unclassified information, it also reveals the proprietary mindset of our military leadership in that they somehow ‘own’ the truth.
What is disturbing about this revelation is the nature of the two most recent ‘leaks’ which were the genesis for this latest planned crack down.
One was regarding the recent crash of a Cyclone helicopter and the other was the allegations of abuse and neglect witnessed by troops serving in long term care facilities in Ontario and Quebec during the pandemic.
It was on Wednesday 29 April that the Cyclone helicopter from HMCS Fredericton crashed into the Mediterranean Sea. Although news of the crash was circulating on Greek media sites almost immediately, it took DND over 24 hours to issue a formal statement.
That statement advised Canadians that “One member of the Canadian Armed Forces was killed … and five others remain missing following an accident involving a Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) CH-148 Cyclone helicopter.”
No details as to the possible cause of the crash were provided but we were told that the crew of Fredericton “had lost contact with the helicopter” prior to the crash.
Statements made at the time by Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and Chief of Defence Staff General Jonathan Vance implied that the Cyclone had crashed some distance from the warship.
All the initial Canadian media reports portrayed this as an extensive and ongoing search and rescue effort to save the five CAF members who were ‘confirmed missing.’
On the afternoon of Friday 1 May, over 48 hours after the crash DND issued an updated statement advising the public the five missing souls were ‘presumed dead’ and the nature of the effort was now that of search and recover.
It was around this timeframe that one of those nefarious ‘leakers’ contacted the CBC with some contradictory information. It turned out that the Cyclone crashed in the immediate vicinity of Fredericton while doing a flypast for a photo op.
The ship did not ‘lose contact’ with the Cyclone as had been suggested, as some of the crew witnessed the crash in real time. Once pressed, DND confirmed that there were indeed witnesses and that their testimony would be included in the investigation into the crash.
One can only imagine the frustration, which led to the leaker or leakers contacting CBC with this vital piece of information. For more than two days journalists – myself included had been sharing the DND provided false narrative, and someone felt the truth about the fate of their comrades needed to be told.
Instead of hunting down the leakers of truth, DND should be investigating who thought it would be a good idea to insert the false element of ‘mystery’ to this tragedy, and why?
There would be no rhyme or reason for the Fredericton to have misrepresented the true nature of this incident to NDHQ. So it seems likely the idea to provide misleading information to the news media originated within National Defence headquarters in Ottawa.
As for the leak of the report detailing allegations of abuse and neglect in the long term care facilities; one has to believe the motivation was to prompt some immediate reforms. As we have seen, the outrage generated by the details of that report have already set in motion a flurry of policy reviews in both Ontario and Quebec.
By their nature service-members are not natural ‘leakers’ and under normal circumstances they are very comfortable reporting things through their chain of command.
When a leak occurs, it is not about embarrassing the institution, it is about setting the record straight. If DND wants to prevent leaks, they need to tell the truth in a timely manner rather than trying to control and manipulate the message.
