By Scott Taylor
Last week in an interview with the Canadian Press Lieutenant-General Wayne Eyre, Canada’s acting Chief of the Defence Staff, admitted that the Canadian military is beginning to exhibit ‘cracks’.
Eyre explained that these ‘cracks’ are the result of the Canadian Armed Forces facing a multitude of concurrent challenges in terms of maintaining a brisk operational tempo while dealing with plummeting morale in the ranks.
The greatest contributor to that loss of faith in the senior leadership has been the almost continuous barrage of sexual misconduct revelations involving the top brass.
The first of these bombshells exploded on Feb. 2, 2021 when Global National’s Mercedes Stephenson revealed two allegations of sexual impropriety against General Jonathan Vance.
Vance had just stepped down as CDS after a five-year stint as Canada’s top soldier, but he had not yet officially retired from the Forces.
Admiral Art McDonald announced that in addition to a Canadian Forces National Investigation Service (CFNIS) investigation into the Vance allegations, a separate independent inquiry would be initiated into the actions of the former CDS.
The ink was still damp on McDonald’s message when it was announced that he was stepping aside as CDS to allow the CFNIS investigate a sexual misconduct complaint against him.
Then came the news that Lt.-Gen. Chris Coates would not be deploying to his new position at NATO headquarters because of an extra-marital affair he had while at his NORAD posting in Colorado Springs.
Next up to bat was Chief of Military Personnel, Vice Admiral Haydn Edmundson. News reports first cited that as a young officer Edmundson had faced allegations of impropriety while an instructor at CFB Esquimalt. The chain of command at the time had cleared Edmundson, which earned him the satirical nickname of the ‘mulligan’ man.
However once that story broke, memories were jarred and a separate accusation arose against Edmundson. This was an allegation of rape that occurred aboard a RCN ship in 1991.
On Friday, May 14 it was announced that Major General Dany Fortin was suspended from his high profile post overseeing the national roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccines with the Public Health Agency of Canada.
The reason for Fortin’s removal was that he too was under investigation by the CFNIS for past sexual misconduct. Media reports have revealed that the complaint against Fortin dated back to 1989 when he was a cadet at the College Militaire Royal in St Jean, Quebec.
In less than four months Canada lost two four star generals, two three star generals and a very high profile two star general. For the purists, I realize that Canadian generals wear maple leafs instead of stars, but either way you slice it, that is a lot of brass to lose in a very short span of time.
In the wake of this sudden exodus, senior female officers have been promoted or appointed to key positions.
Lt. Gen. Frances Allen is to become Canada’s first female Vice Chief of the Defence Staff. Jennie Carignan was recently promoted to Lieutenant-General and named to head the task force to eliminate sexual misconduct.
Commodore Josee Kurtz will soon assume the post of commandant at the Royal Military College in Kingston. The first female to hold that position.
Stepping up to fill the void left by Fortin’s departure is Brigadier-General Krista Brodie who was previously Fortin’s deputy commander at the Public Health Agency.
These promotions will definitely change the face of the ‘old boy’s club’, which was previously the composition of our senior military leadership. However, this in itself will not be enough to change an institutional culture that has been defined as highly sexualized by none other than former Supreme Court Justice Marie Deschamps in her 2015 independent review of military sexual misconduct.
I think Lt.-Gen. Eyre is optimistic to describe the current crisis in the military as mere ‘cracks.’
The CAF is currently changing the senior leadership on the fly, trying to alter a decades old culture of sexual misconduct, while still managing overseas operational deployments in Latvia and Iraq, coping with a personnel shortfall of 2,300 soldiers, and still assisting Canadians in dealing with a deadly pandemic.
This is definitely no time for anymore ‘cracks’.
