(photo courtesy Sherry Bordage)
By Scott Taylor
This past week saw the burgeoning military sexual misconduct scandal continued to spiral out of control. Inspired by what many are referring to as the Canadian Armed Forces “Me Too” moment, victims who were long silenced and sidelined are finding their voice.
In what will probably prove to be the most damaging development for those in CAF officialdom still trying to contain the fallout from this scandal, is that the latest revelations are coming out on social media.
In a recent Facebook video, retired Corporal Sherry Bordage makes disturbing allegations of a 2010 sexual assault. Bordage alleges that her breast was groped at a mess dinner by her platoon NCO, Master Warrant Officer D.J. Prosser.
Following the proper procedure Bordage reported the sex assault that same evening. An investigation resulted in charges being laid against Prosser and a court martial was convened.
However, without consulting with Bordage, the military prosecutors stuck a plea bargain with Prosser. In exchange for the Master Warrant Officer pleading guilty to a service charge of having “ill-treated a person who by reason of rank was subordinate to him” the more serious criminal charge of sex assault was dropped.
Prosser’s punishment was a $1500 fine and a reprimand.
The presiding judge at the court martial, LCol Louis-Vincent d’Auteuil noted in his decision that Bordage – the victim in this affair – had been poorly treated by the military leadership after lodging her complaint.
“She had to endure, for some time, the fact that she was the one who acted wrongly while it was never the case.” concluded d’Auteuil. “There were rumours and conjectures and it had some psychological trauma on her.”
Despite the judge’s observation Bordage’s career remained sidelined by her chain-of-command and in 2014 she retired from the CAF, diagnosed with PTSD.
This case is only the most recent example of the military justice system offering the accused a similar plea bargain wherein the male defendant admits to a service offence and thus avoids both serious punishment and a criminal record.
If that in itself was not enough reason to question the military’s ability to police itself, one need to only look at how this whole current scandal began to unfold.
On 2 February 2021, Global News reporter Mercedes Stephenson first reported allegations of sexual misconduct leveled against recently retired Chief of Defence Staff General Jonathan Vance.
Vance had just stepped down as Canada’s CDS, but he remains a serving four-star General. Vance’s successor as CDS, Admiral Art McDonald, announced an independent inquiry into the matter. In addition, military police launched an investigation into the allegations about Vance.
Then the second shoe dropped a short while later when the media were informed that Admiral McDonald was himself the subject of a military police investigation into alleged sexual misconduct.
By nightfall of the same day McDonald had stepped aside as CDS pending the outcome of that investigation.
This unprecedented set of circumstances has proven to be a bit of a head scratcher for military legal experts. No one is quite sure of what the process will be if either Vance or McDonald – or both – end up facing a court martial.
As the military is an autocratic top down authoritarian system, who would sit in judgement of Canada’s only two serving officers that have a full general rank?
The sad fact is that this troubling state of affairs at the most senior level has our allied militaries studying how Canada will handle this.
One would like to think that our military was attracting international attention for our professionalism rather than the fact that we have two top generals being investigated for sexual misconduct simultaneously. A world first.
The worst part of all is the fact that this could have been avoided if the Canadian military would have accepted the recommendations of the 1997 Somalia Inquiry Report Dishonoured Legacy. In their report the Commissioners advised DND to amend the National Defence Act in order to establish the Office of the Inspector General as an independent review body.
Nearly twenty-five years later this remains the only course of action which could restore trust in the military leadership.
