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Top Canadian Forces officer vows to address sexual misconduct

The Canadian Forces’ highest-ranking woman tasked with acting on a damning inquiry into sexual misconduct in the military said she will move forward with the 10 recommendations, including an independent complaints process for victims of sexual abuse.
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At a news conference at CFB Esquimalt on Wednesday, Maj.-Gen. Christine Whitecross said the Canadian Forces will implement the recommendations of an inquiry on sexual misconduct in the military, including establishment of an independent complaints process for victims.

The Canadian Forces’ highest-ranking woman tasked with acting on a damning inquiry into sexual misconduct in the military said she will move forward with the 10 recommendations, including an independent complaints process for victims of sexual abuse.

In a news conference at CFB Esquimalt, Maj.-Gen. Christine Whitecross echoed statements made Wednesday by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Defence Minister Jason Kenney that the Canadian military will implement all recommendations laid out by retired Supreme Court justice Marie Deschamps.

Whitecross dismissed reports that her work on the strategic response team was constrained by a directive sent by Canada’s chief of defence staff that suggested senior military leaders should be prepared to ignore certain recommendations.

The CBC reported that Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Tom Lawson sent a written directive to top generals and military managers in late February — two months before Deschamps’s report was made public but after his office obtained a draft copy — telling them to effectively ignore three of the retired justice’s recommendations, including the creation of an independent agency outside the military chain of command for sexual-misconduct complaints.

“I’m surprised by the response that I’ve been somehow constrained in my mandate. ... My job is to bring a comprehensive option on an independent centre,” said Whitecross, who visited CFB Esquimalt as part of a cross-country tour of Canadian military bases to talk with members about how to prevent and better respond to sexual misconduct and harassment.

Lawson said in a statement released Wednesday that the directive was not an order to ignore Deschamps’s recommendations, but consisted of planning assumptions to “guide” Whitecross’s work.

“These planning assumptions should in no way be viewed as restrictions or orders for her to ignore the recommendations of the final report,” Lawson said.

Wednesday’s question period was dominated by NDP Leader Tom Mulcair and NDP defence critic Jack Harris asking if the government will guarantee that the Canadian Forces will establish an independent agency.

Kenney replied yes.

The military initially accepted the recommendations “in principle,” but Kenney said in the House of Commons that all would be implemented.

Later, Kenney told the Commons defence committee that a victims’ bill of rights for the Forces has been in the works for a year or more and will be introduced soon. “That would strength procedural rights for victims of sexual aggression and other crimes in the Canadian military.”

Justice Minister Peter MacKay, meanwhile, said there may be ways to take some sexual-assault cases out of the military justice system entirely and deal with them in the regular court system.

MacKay said he has been looking at ways to deal with some tricky cases and has discussed the situation with the judge advocate general, Canada’s top military law officer. In late April, Deschamps released a scathing report that found sexual misconduct is rampant in the Canadian military, which she blamed on a male-dominated leadership that tolerates or ignores abuse and a sexualized culture that is hostile to women and people who are gay or transgender.

Deschamps found a large percentage of sexual assault and harassment cases go unreported for fear of career repercussions. She said many of those who did report an offence had “atrocious” experiences afterwards.

Deschamps wrote that victims were worried about not being believed and being stigmatized as weak, labelled as a troublemaker, criticized by peers or diagnosed as unfit for work.

“Underlying all of these concerns is a deep mistrust that the chain of command will take such complaints seriously,” she said.

Whitecross held three town hall-style meetings attended by CFB Esquimalt personnel Wednesday.

“The first thing that we’re doing is to change this [sexualized] culture … by talking to all the members of the Canadian Armed Forces so that they can start realizing that words hurt and that inappropriate jokes won’t be tolerated,” Whitecross said.

She said her team is working on other issues identified in Deschamps’s report, including training, education, policy development and victim support.

Whitecross said she has already been to Washington to learn about the U.S. system and plans to travel to Australia to learn about their sexual-misconduct complaints process.

The U.S., Australia and France all have an independent process to deal with sexual-misconduct complaints.

kderosa@timescolonist.com