DAOD 9005-1

By Vincent J. Curtis

Defense Administration Orders and Directives (DAOD) 9005-1 is entitled “Sexual Misconduct Response.”  Issued on 18 November 2020, it supersedes DAOD 5019-5, Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Disorders.  DAOD 9005-1 is an order that applies to officers and non-commissioned members of the CAF, and is the order on which the accusations of sexual misconduct against General Vance and others stand or fall.

In respect of Big Jon, they fall.

The DAOD opens with a definition of sexual misconduct: “Conduct of a sexual nature that causes or could cause harm to others, and that the person knew or ought reasonably to have known could cause harm.”

Harms includes: “actions or words that devalue others on the basis of their sex, sexuality, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression; jokes of a sexual nature, sexual remarks, advances of a sexual nature or verbal abuse of sexual nature in the workplace; harassment of a sexual nature, including initiation rites of a sexual nature; viewing, accessing, distributing or displaying sexually explicit material in the workplace; and any criminal code offense of a sexual nature…”

The order explains that a workplace is any location where work-related functions and other activities take place and work relationships exist, such as: travel, conferences, DND or CAF sanctioned instruction or training activities, and other DND or CAF sanctioned events, including social events.  There are also the usual workplaces: ships, planes, vehicles, offices, classrooms, garrisons, hangars, messes, dining halls, quarters, gyms, on-base clubs, on-line forums, and locations for sanctioned events such as holiday gatherings and course parties.

Key elements are ‘unwanted’ and workplace, with workplace drawing a line between private and professional life.  A consensual Friday night fling at the Angus Inn Motel isn’t 9005 material, but jokes in a classroom, a pin-up calendar, and unwanted attention at the Waterloo Officer’s Mess could be show-stoppers 

Vance is accused of having had several affairs.  Most notoriously, he was accused by Major Kellie Brannan of fathering two of her eight children over the course of a twenty year affair.  A long-term affair is not what is contemplated by the definition of sexual misconduct.  There is no issue about ‘unwanted’, and nothing apparent that involves criminal code violations.

Brennan further alleged that they had had consensual sex in Vance’s office and in his car, which, if true, still mightn’t meet the definition of misconduct unless they were caught in flagrante delicto by a third party who wanted to make an issue of it.  In that case, both would be guilty of misconduct, not by harming each other, but for harming the third party.  Section 129, conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline, could supply the service offence charge for violating the DAOD.

If the alleged affair were adulterous, Vance’s wife would have cause for complaint, but that’s a civil matter, not a disciplinary one.  The U.S. military has a legal prohibition of adultery, but the Canadian military does not.  (If we did, we could have lost the services of Lieutenant General Guy Simonds just before the Normandy invasion.)

A long-term affair, a succession of affairs, adulterous affairs, are not sexual misconduct as defined in the DAOD, which is all that is of military significance.  Vance knows his regs; he wasn’t making passes at everything in a skirt, which is what the DAOD foresees as misconduct.  Untethered from the DAOD, accusations of sexual misconduct are just subjective opinions of no disciplinary significance.  Besides, Vance is now released, making the administrative action mentioned in the DAOD moot.  (There is always politically motivated lawfare.)

To deflect unwanted political attention, Prime Minster Trudeau appointed Louise Arbour, another retired Supreme Court Justice, to look into and report upon the ‘culture of sexual misconduct’ in the CAF.  Arbour follows upon Marie Deschamps (passim) whose vagaries of 2015 led to Op Honour; and Michel Bastarache (passim) who wrote a stinker on the RCMP last year.

I watched Arbour get torn to pieces by Mark Steyn at a Munk Debate in 2016.  I look forward to her report.

Whats going on in the NDDN? The National Defence Committee All Political Parties Need to do better

By Military Women

Question: What do you think about everything that is going on right now in the National Defence Committee?

Answer: Every political party says it cares about ensuring the wellbeing of those serving in the military (and veterans)–but that sentiment isn’t always evident in these committee meetings. So, while the highly politicalized media storylines may keep shifting, from the perspective of serving and former military members the one point that hasn’t shifted is that ALL political parties can and need to do better. 

In case there are any readers not already aware, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on National Defence (NDDN) started a study into sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces mid-February.  The study was initially slated for three committee meetings, but strategically timed, laser-guided incoming media bombs have resulted in a continuation of those meetings. Spillover from NDDN is expected to soon reach into other committees such as Status of Women (FEWO) and Veterans Affairs (ACVA).

When one is discussing the need for improved federal government oversight mechanisms for Canada’s all volunteer military workforce, within a minority government situation, Canadians might have assumed that all political parties would work together towards achieving that commonly held goal. Surely, the wellbeing of women and men in uniform would be the one time and place that doing the right thing would trump individual and party political agendas. Unfortunately, that assumption has not yet proven to be correct.

Elizabeth May always elevates any political discussion she’s involved in, so kudos to her for her involvement of late in the NDDN; however, let’s face it, supporting women in the military has never been a priority for the Green Party.

The signature strength of the NDP party is its support of “the people” and yet there is no NDP call for unionization of the military. If unions are good for the RCMP and several European militaries, why not the Canadian military too? 

Québec is home to over 20% of Canadian veterans and the Bloc is usually keen to highlight and amplify that fact and support francophone voices. But we continue to watch as courageous Francophone women such as Stéphanie Raymond and Marie-Claude Gagnon take on the military system alone.

The Liberal Party says all the right things about women and intersectionality, and it did introduce gender-based analysis and named the first ever Ambassador for Women, Peace and Security (Jacqueline O’Neill).  But, the Liberal’s significant efforts to increase the number of women in the military to 25% continues to fall short. One has to be willing to boldly address the core issues behind CAF’s “diversity and inclusion” recruitment and retention woes. This includes identifying and neutralizing the dinosaurs still roaming amongst us that come from all political stripes, Liberals included. 

That leaves us with the Conservatives. While in uniform, military members are apolitical. We vow to serve Canada and Canadians faithfully and fully regardless of which political party governs. However, as per all law and order-related professions, there tends to be a natural alignment between soldiers and conservative values. For example, when a veteran recently ran for party leadership, the Conservative party successfully played to those values to help grow its constituency. The Conservative party has successfully solicited financial support and campaign volunteers through military and veteran social circles, charities and organizations—officially and unofficially. As a result, many veterans, including from the highest military ranks, have now, often for the first time, become politically active.

So where does this leave us? Instead of everyone working together to ensure the wellbeing of military members (and veterans), individual military-related vendettas and agendas are being intermixed with opportunistic party politics at the NDDN. It’s hard not to feel exploited.

The Australian Chief of Defence Staff, Gen Campbell, recently commented that sexual misconduct within the military really comes down to two problems—abuse of power and lack of respect for the individual human being. The failure of Canada’s MPs and political parties to prioritize military members’ needs for federal workplace safety conditions feels like another layer of abuse (of parliamentary powers) and disrespect for those in uniform.

Being in service means putting the mission first and self second.  Ensuring all Canadian military members a welcoming and inclusive workspace is part of the parliamentarian’s mission to achieve. We do our job, we need parliamentarians to do their job.  Members of the NDDN, we deserve your help. Together we can fix these problems. Let’s get on with it.

Is Esprit de Corps on trial for being on target against Nazism?

Marcus Kolga

By Richard Sanders

Readers of Esprit de Corps know Scott Taylor as an outspoken columnist whose trajectory can be controversial. His on-course opposition to Nazis, their collaborators and apologists, in Canada and abroad, should not be contentious, especially to members and veterans of Canada’s armed forces. 

But when Taylor stood up against the glorification of Nazi SS divisions by modern governments in Eastern Europe he took flak from some, including an Estonian-Canadian activist, Marcus Kolga. As a senior fellow of the right-wing MacDonald-Laurier Institute, Kolga targeted Taylor saying he’d “mischaracterized Ukrainian and Baltic freedom fighters who resisted Soviet occupation as Nazis.” To Kolga, this branded Taylor guilty of spreading the “virus” of “a particularly popular Kremlin narrative.”

Kolga’s report, Stemming the Virus, on “the threat of Russian disinformation,” also fired at Esprit de Corps, which, he chastened, “frequently echoes the anti-NATO views common on pro-Russian websites.” 

I should disclose that Kolga’s report also aimed epithets at my research, which he filed under “pro-Kremlin media and trolls.” Apparently, I spread the Russian virus by exposing how Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland’s journalism career began with jobs for publications promoting the WWII Ukrainian Waffen SS Galicia as heroic “freedom fighters.” Not knowing I’d be besmirched by Kolga, I posted, in March 2017, a wealth of evidence (still unreported by mainstream media) proving that Freeland and her grandfather, Michael Chomiak, the Nazi news propagandist, had both worked for the same far-right, Ukrainian-Canadian publications in Edmonton.

One of these, The Encyclopedia of Ukraine, was the postwar brainchild of Volodymyr Kubijovych.  As a top Ukrainian coordinator of Nazi collaboration, Kubijovych pushed the Germans to set up the SS Galicia and oversaw Chomiak’s work, which included publishing his call for Ukrainians to volunteer for this Nazi division.

As a teen, Freeland landed two Canadian government summer jobs writing for Kubijovych’s encyclopedia.  It romanticises ethnic-cleansing Ukrainian fascists as ethical anticommunists and whitewashes their complicity in the genocide of Jews, Poles, Roma and communist partisans who were backing the Red Army.

Visiting Edmonton, Chomiak’s wartime boss signed over his encyclopedia to a government-funded Ukrainian research centre at the University of Alberta, whose chancellor, Peter Savaryn, was a proud veteran of the Ukrainian Waffen SS and a leader of nationalist Ukrainian organizations. The Governor General subsequently awarded Savaryn the Order of Canada for volunteering with these Ukrainian groups.

As an apologist for Estonians who welcomed Nazi forces as liberators, Marcus Kolga cheerleads NATO and praises today’s SS-revering European regimes. But they are victims, he says, “targeted by Kremlin aggression.”

There is a hearty tradition of vilifying antifascists by disparaging them with offensive insults. Let’s illustrate this with a chapter from the history of the Estonian Central Council (ECC) in Canada, which Kolga served as president from 2016 to 2020.

The ECC claims to oppose those two arch-rivals, Nazism and Communism, which it falsely equates as twin evils equally to blame for WWII. But since its creation in 1954, the ECC has only aimed its fire at Reds. This, after all, was the fixation of Nazi collaborators and supporters who created and led the ECC through the Cold War until the present.

In 1964, the ECC’s vice president was a German-Estonian named Karl Eerme. An embedded war correspondent for the Nazi-led Estonian SS, Lieutenant Eerme landed in a post-war US POW camp in Germany. Moving to Toronto, he continued anti-Soviet propaganda through the ECC and stated its McCarthyesque purpose as providing “the focal point for ... all Estonians in Canada ... in their avowed and active opposition to the doctrine of Communism.”

In 1960, the USSR — having lost 27 million citizens to the Nazis and their East European supporters — sought to expose some perpetrators.  It named ECC leaders, including three former SS-lieutenants, an SS-Legion staff member and two former Gestapo police commissioners. Using German documents, eyewitness accounts and other evidence gathered when forcing the Nazis from Estonia in 1944, the Soviets identified Winnipeg’s Aleksander Laak as an ECC member who represented the most brutal of Estonia’s Nazi collaborators protected in Canada.

In August 1960, the Soviets indicted Laak for “organizing extermination camp Jägala and personally shooting Jews” and reported that he’d overseen the murder of 3,000 prisoners.

“The Russian story is 99 per cent lies,” said Laak. “It is only Communist propaganda.” Dozens of Canadian journalists agreed. Headlines blaring “Red Story,” “Red Charges” and “Red Claims” rejected it as Russian “propaganda.”  The RCMP gave Laak a “clear” record. The government dismissed it as “phony.” Laak’s neighbours, co-workers and employer said he was a victim of Soviet lies. Despite this support, Laak hanged himself a few days later and papers blamed “Communist propaganda” for killing him.

The ECC joined the fray. One article, “Estonians Fear Smear Campaign,” said Toronto’s 8,000 Estonians were afraid they would “come under a Soviet propaganda barrage.” Although the USSR focused on Laak, the ECC’s leader Enn Salurand said all Estonian-Canadians were “bracing themselves for a Communist campaign designed to discredit them.” How many of Estonia’s tens of thousands of SS men came to Canada is unknown.

Salurand helped found the ECC and was its secretary-general for 25 years. In 1931, he helped create and lead an outfit back in the Baltic, the Estonian National Club. Its eugenics-based ethno-nationalism, intolerant of minorities, got it outlawed by the Soviets when they occupied Estonia in 1940. After coming to Canada, Salurand is said to have never missed a board meeting of the Estonian veterans’ publication, Combatant.

When Laak’s photo appeared in newspapers, Jewish Holocaust survivors in Canada and the US called the press, identifying him as the slave-labour camp’s commandant. “Laak was wearing the SS uniform and was in charge,” declared Toronto’s Greta Zarkower. “Laak and his men took all our valuables.... I was beaten unmercifully, regularly, with a riding whip by SS men.” The media fell silent on Laak for six months.

This silence ended when three top Estonian Nazis went on trial in September 1960. Ralph Gerrets, Laak’s deputy, confessed in Soviet court that they killed thousands, mostly Jews and “Gypsies,” and that Laak took part. Gerrets described shooting small children and dumping them in trenches. Forty witnesses identified Laak as camp commander.

Female survivors recounted being “ordered to undress on arrival at the extermination camp while being examined by Gerrets and Lt. Alexander Laak.” Some testified Laak arranged for “girl inmates” to be “forced to take part in orgies at night and murdered afterward.”

Despite this shocking testimony, no Canadian papers mentioned Laak’s name, or previous claims of innocence by the ECC, RCMP, government and media. Instead, most stories blasted the trial as propaganda. When the three Estonian war criminals were sentenced to death, Canadian journalists didn’t mention Laak but concurred the “show trial apparently aimed at discrediting anti-Soviet Estonian refugee groups.”

Estonian Canadians also went silent, except for one letter to the editor from an ECC-linked Montreal group. Its vice president, Martin Puhvel, castigated the Gazette for covering the trial at all and defended Estonian collaborators as heroes. Describing the trial as “vicious propagandists fairytales,” he said “the Soviet propaganda machine has ... launched a campaign of calumny and vilification against Estonian patriots whose only ‘crime’ lies in defending their homes against murderous, unprovoked aggression by the Russian enslavers.”

Calling the trial a “vicious smear campaign,” Puhvel denounced the media for helping “the enemies of freedom” by “spreading grisly, painful stories of massacre of infant children by men who were busy defending their homes” against the Reds.

Kolga is also active in the Estonian World Council (EWC), an international diaspora network he has served as vice president. Like the ECC, the EWC’s founders and spokesmen included Waffen SS veterans. Take for example, German-Estonian Gerhard Buschmann who joined Nazi intelligence (Abwehr) in 1940 and subsequently won two Iron Crosses. He created and lead the Sonderstaffel Buschmann, a Luftwaffe squad with 50 aircraft. Among other crimes, Buschmann aided the 900-day Siege of Leningrad that killed over one million Soviet civilians.

During the Cold War, Buschmann continued the anti-communist crusade by working for the US army and American intelligence.  Becoming the leader of the Estonian SS veterans group in the US, he was one of the EWC’s best known representatives. For example, in 1968, he was a key witness at a huge “mock trial” in Washington, DC., that blamed communism for everything imaginable.

Immediately after the trial’s conclusion, the Soviet embassy in Washington was bombed. Newspapers spread unfounded accusations by Buschmann and others involved in the trial that the Soviets themselves had bombed their own  embassy.

One article said: “Gerhard Buschmann, a member of the Estonian World Council, said adverse publicity all over the world has pressured the communists to take such action in an attempt to discredit the trial.”

For decades this “blame the victim” approach wielded by Eastern European émigré groups has been weaponized to deflect their historic links to Nazi atrocities. The ECC, EWC, and Ukrainian organizations that Freeland has identified with since her childhood, need to acknowledge their fascist roots and stop defaming those who report the truth about ongoing, state glorification of fascist war heroes. 

Author Richard Sanders’ most recent publication is called Defunding the Myths and Cults of Cold War Canada. It exposes the Canadian government’s ongoing financial support for several East European émigré groups which, having been founded, led and inspired by Nazi collaborators, continue to venerate Waffen SS veterans as heroes. References for all the quotations in this article can be found online at https://coat.ncf.ca/ 

Square Pegs, Round Holes

By Michael Nickerson

Think back to kindergarten. Remember that big piece of wood with various circles, squares, triangles and the like cut out of it? They would give you little bits of wood, point at the board, and say have at it. Now in case you didn’t know at the time, this was a test. For instance, if you sucked on the wood or tried to stuff the pieces in your shorts, then you were likely earmarked for remedial kindergarten. Put the square peg in a round hole and you might have to repeat kindergarten. Put a square peg in a square hole? You’re off to grade one! Devise a way to make the pegs levitate using only your wits and a digestible cookie, and you’ll be at MIT before your baby teeth have fallen out.

            Needless to say you don’t put square pegs in round holes. As the old saying goes, there’s a peg for every hole and home for every peg (or so my teacher always said). Good advice that, but it seems one huge viral outbreak has people everywhere creating a lot of homeless pegs.

            Which brings us to Rick Hillier. For simplicity sake, let’s make him a square peg. Back when the retired general was doing general-like things, we might say he was all snug as a bug in his square hole, with the occasional squeak and creak depending on how well he actually did the job. But he was trained for it, ready for it, and had a whole army of square pegs firmly in their proper holes. My playschool teacher could not have been prouder.

            Now in case you haven’t heard, the premier of Ontario seems to have run out of competent round pegs. But being a politician looking for a quick fix to a problem long in the making, he decided to use Gen. (ret.) Hillier to fill the spherical gap. And let it be said that on the federal level, Justin Trudeau has taken up the idea with gusto, hammering Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin into a role in which he really does not belong.

            Why you ask? For let’s be honest, these are men schooled in and experienced with problems of logistics, leadership, organization, and calmness under pressure. And I will readily admit they are some of the finest square pegs you’re going to find. The sort of pegs you’d want to bring home to meet your mother.

            The problem arises when you take generals used to people following orders as a god would his disciples and ask them to take charge of a huge bureaucracy of civil servants and health workers who consider orders suggestions, many of whom have a union to fall back on if they don’t like what’s being asked of them, or if they don’t are underpaid and really couldn’t give a damn, and in many respects are just plain exhausted and fed-up. Go team!

            So far the results have been rather predictable. Vaccine distribution has been spotty at best. The country that secured the most vaccines per capita is well behind other nations, notably the US and Israel, in actually getting people vaccinated. Bottlenecks, shortages, wasted inventory and no end of cockups on the ground has made this a deadly situation just when Canadians need their government most.

            And to be clear, this is not solely, or in any great measure, the fault of either Hillier or Fortin. They came late to the game, leading departments not savvy to the ways of military command, trying to get to grips with something federal and provincial governments knew would be coming months and months ago. Last spring, people were ‘blindsided’ by deaths in our long-term care homes, and called in the military to clean up the mess. Eight months later, seniors are once again dying; there are staff shortages, and calls for military help. We knew this winter wave was coming, knew that at some point vaccines would be available, yet once again it’s up to the military to clean things up.

            I can only assume our elected officials never passed kindergarten. Because anyone who did would tell you that you can only pound pegs into the wrong holes for so long before something cracks.

Ain’t That A Hoot?

By Michael Nickerson

Tell me if you’ve heard this one. Eight white guys walk into a conference room. The first white guy, an admiral, turns to the other white guys and says “hey, let’s talk about diversity.” A second guy (still white) pipes up and says “what’s that?” So a third puts up his hand and says “I know! I know!” So the admiral asks the third guy to explain, and he says “it’s like assorted donuts! I like the frosted ones.” Well, says the admiral, you’re on the right track, anyone else? So a fourth pulls out a set of coloured pencils that he’s been just itching to share with his fellow white guys and says “ta-da!” The admiral, so impressed with how well everyone is catching on to this novel idea, calls for a commemorative picture of the occasion and then tells an aide to post it on Twitter.

Ok, here comes the punch line…wait for it. They actually post it on Twitter! Ba-dum-bum! Bet you didn’t see that one coming.

Funnily enough, a whole lot of people didn’t see that one coming, particularly those members of the armed forces (or Canada as a whole) who are neither male nor white. Strange but true, there are actually quite a few of them about, though not particularly well represented in the higher ranks, and as Admiral Art MacDonald’s most hilarious of Twitter pics makes clear, non-existent where it counts.

            Now to be fair to Canada’s new Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS), if he had it posted with a caption that said “what’s wrong with this picture?” it wouldn’t have been nearly so hilarious. He’d be bringing attention to a serious problem, perhaps starting a discussion about how to fix it. If he’d included an after picture with women and minorities at the table, for those who learn better with pictures than words, you’d think he was being downright proactive.

            But where would the laughs be in that, I ask? Thankfully, the CDS has quite the sense of humour. Here’s how the CDS put it: “Conversations on diversity, inclusion, and culture change are not incompatible with our thirst for operational excellence. I count on my senior leaders to champion culture change. Diversity makes us stronger, inclusion improves our institution. We are #StrongerTogether – ArtMcD.” If that doesn’t have you rolling on the floor, I don’t know what would. A comic genius that admiral is.

            Thing is, it gets better. Because as everyone knows timing is everything in comedy. If he’d pulled this joke off even ten years ago it would have fallen flat. Misogyny, sexual assault, and discrimination were hardly in the public eye. Who cared if there were barriers to women and minorities then? The whole thing would have fallen flat. White guys sitting around a table feeling privileged making decisions that impact anyone but them. Ho hum.

            The admiral’s timing was impeccable, however. Just last fall the military released its new and exciting plan to end discrimination and sexual harassment, The Path to Dignity and Respect, perhaps one of the greatest setups in comedic history. Proof positive Canada’s military is willing to play the long game for a good joke.

            During the CDS change of command ceremony last January, Admiral MacDonald publicly apologized for racism and hateful conduct in the military, stating “I apologize to you my teammates, our teammates who have experienced racism, discriminatory behaviour and/or hateful conduct. I am deeply sorry. I want you to know I will do all that I can to support you; to stop these unacceptable acts from happening; and to put into practice our guiding principle: Respect and dignity for all persons.” Now how sly was that?

            An amateur would probably have let the proverbial cat out of the bag almost immediately after taking command and posted that hilarious tweet. But our new CDS is no amateur. He waited until not only did accusations and investigations concerning sexual misconduct of his predecessor came to light (he had to know, right?) but almost two weeks into Black History Month to finally post the punchline and drop the mic.

            Now ain’t that just a hoot?

Square Pegs, Round Holes

By Michael Nickerson

Think back to kindergarten. Remember that big piece of wood with various circles, squares, triangles and the like cut out of it? They would give you little bits of wood, point at the board, and say have at it. Now in case you didn’t know at the time, this was a test. For instance, if you sucked on the wood or tried to stuff the pieces in your shorts, then you were likely earmarked for remedial kindergarten. Put the square peg in a round hole and you might have to repeat kindergarten. Put a square peg in a square hole? You’re off to grade one! Devise a way to make the pegs levitate using only your wits and a digestible cookie, and you’ll be at MIT before your baby teeth have fallen out.

            Needless to say you don’t put square pegs in round holes. As the old saying goes, there’s a peg for every hole and home for every peg (or so my teacher always said). Good advice that, but it seems one huge viral outbreak has people everywhere creating a lot of homeless pegs.

            Which brings us to Rick Hillier. For simplicity sake, let’s make him a square peg. Back when the retired general was doing general-like things, we might say he was all snug as a bug in his square hole, with the occasional squeak and creak depending on how well he actually did the job. But he was trained for it, ready for it, and had a whole army of square pegs firmly in their proper holes. My playschool teacher could not have been prouder.

            Now in case you haven’t heard, the premier of Ontario seems to have run out of competent round pegs. But being a politician looking for a quick fix to a problem long in the making, he decided to use Gen. (ret.) Hillier to fill the spherical gap. And let it be said that on the federal level, Justin Trudeau has taken up the idea with gusto, hammering Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin into a role in which he really does not belong.

            Why you ask? For let’s be honest, these are men schooled in and experienced with problems of logistics, leadership, organization, and calmness under pressure. And I will readily admit they are some of the finest square pegs you’re going to find. The sort of pegs you’d want to bring home to meet your mother.

            The problem arises when you take generals used to people following orders as a god would his disciples and ask them to take charge of a huge bureaucracy of civil servants and health workers who consider orders suggestions, many of whom have a union to fall back on if they don’t like what’s being asked of them, or if they don’t are underpaid and really couldn’t give a damn, and in many respects are just plain exhausted and fed-up. Go team!

            So far the results have been rather predictable. Vaccine distribution has been spotty at best. The country that secured the most vaccines per capita is well behind other nations, notably the US and Israel, in actually getting people vaccinated. Bottlenecks, shortages, wasted inventory and no end of cockups on the ground has made this a deadly situation just when Canadians need their government most.

            And to be clear, this is not solely, or in any great measure, the fault of either Hillier or Fortin. They came late to the game, leading departments not savvy to the ways of military command, trying to get to grips with something federal and provincial governments knew would be coming months and months ago. Last spring, people were ‘blindsided’ by deaths in our long-term care homes, and called in the military to clean up the mess. Eight months later, seniors are once again dying; there are staff shortages, and calls for military help. We knew this winter wave was coming, knew that at some point vaccines would be available, yet once again it’s up to the military to clean things up.

            I can only assume our elected officials never passed kindergarten. Because anyone who did would tell you that you can only pound pegs into the wrong holes for so long before something cracks.

Ain’t That A Hoot?

By Michael Nickerson

Tell me if you’ve heard this one. Eight white guys walk into a conference room. The first white guy, an admiral, turns to the other white guys and says “hey, let’s talk about diversity.” A second guy (still white) pipes up and says “what’s that?” So a third puts up his hand and says “I know! I know!” So the admiral asks the third guy to explain, and he says “it’s like assorted donuts! I like the frosted ones.” Well, says the admiral, you’re on the right track, anyone else? So a fourth pulls out a set of coloured pencils that he’s been just itching to share with his fellow white guys and says “ta-da!” The admiral, so impressed with how well everyone is catching on to this novel idea, calls for a commemorative picture of the occasion and then tells an aide to post it on Twitter.

Ok, here comes the punch line…wait for it. They actually post it on Twitter! Ba-dum-bum! Bet you didn’t see that one coming.

Funnily enough, a whole lot of people didn’t see that one coming, particularly those members of the armed forces (or Canada as a whole) who are neither male nor white. Strange but true, there are actually quite a few of them about, though not particularly well represented in the higher ranks, and as Admiral Art MacDonald’s most hilarious of Twitter pics makes clear, non-existent where it counts.

            Now to be fair to Canada’s new Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS), if he had it posted with a caption that said “what’s wrong with this picture?” it wouldn’t have been nearly so hilarious. He’d be bringing attention to a serious problem, perhaps starting a discussion about how to fix it. If he’d included an after picture with women and minorities at the table, for those who learn better with pictures than words, you’d think he was being downright proactive.

            But where would the laughs be in that, I ask? Thankfully, the CDS has quite the sense of humour. Here’s how the CDS put it: “Conversations on diversity, inclusion, and culture change are not incompatible with our thirst for operational excellence. I count on my senior leaders to champion culture change. Diversity makes us stronger, inclusion improves our institution. We are #StrongerTogether – ArtMcD.” If that doesn’t have you rolling on the floor, I don’t know what would. A comic genius that admiral is.

            Thing is, it gets better. Because as everyone knows timing is everything in comedy. If he’d pulled this joke off even ten years ago it would have fallen flat. Misogyny, sexual assault, and discrimination were hardly in the public eye. Who cared if there were barriers to women and minorities then? The whole thing would have fallen flat. White guys sitting around a table feeling privileged making decisions that impact anyone but them. Ho hum.

            The admiral’s timing was impeccable, however. Just last fall the military released its new and exciting plan to end discrimination and sexual harassment, The Path to Dignity and Respect, perhaps one of the greatest setups in comedic history. Proof positive Canada’s military is willing to play the long game for a good joke.

            During the CDS change of command ceremony last January, Admiral MacDonald publicly apologized for racism and hateful conduct in the military, stating “I apologize to you my teammates, our teammates who have experienced racism, discriminatory behaviour and/or hateful conduct. I am deeply sorry. I want you to know I will do all that I can to support you; to stop these unacceptable acts from happening; and to put into practice our guiding principle: Respect and dignity for all persons.” Now how sly was that?

            An amateur would probably have let the proverbial cat out of the bag almost immediately after taking command and posted that hilarious tweet. But our new CDS is no amateur. He waited until not only did accusations and investigations concerning sexual misconduct of his predecessor came to light (he had to know, right?) but almost two weeks into Black History Month to finally post the punchline and drop the mic.

            Now ain’t that just a hoot?

Illusions of Trust

By Michael Blais

In the interest of full disclosure. I have known Gary Walbourne since the Canadian Veterans Advocacy (CVA) began its formal engagement in Ottawa as a VAC stakeholder in 2011. At the time Walbourne was Deputy Veterans Ombudsman. In my opinion, Walbourne can be an intense individual and admittedly, I have increasingly enjoyed the robust conversations we have shared this past decade in respect to both the Conservative and subsequent Liberal governments' provisions to Canada’s veterans. After his appointment to lead the Office of the Military Ombudsman, we discussed topics such as; DND’s obligations on transition of the wounded/injured to civilian life, sexual assault/harassment in the CAF, Operation Honour and Military Sexual Trauma. I came to admire the former ombudsman’s tenacity and equally important, his dedication to assist those who have turned to his office to report incidents of concern.

Naturally, I was profoundly disappointed to read about the dismissive manner in which Mr. Walbourne was treated by the Minister of National Defence (MND), Harjit Sajjan as a consequence to performing his duty as Ombudsman. Hopefully, Prime Minister Trudeau will realize that Sajjan has violated the trust of the rank and file and will finally, after years of ineptitude, put someone in the MND’s office that will be respected, admired and trusted by Canada’s sons and daughters in uniform.

Is this desire perhaps too harsh? I think not. Ostracizing the Office of the Military Ombudsman because he is doing his job to the best of his abilities sets a dangerous precedent. It clearly demonstrates how an inept minister can corrupt the legislative intent at the Ombudsman’s office at both DND and Veterans Affairs Canada.

When Prime Minister Harper's Conservative government created these two positions, he legislated fail-safe protocols to ensure that the MND and  the prime minister retained ultimate control over the respective ombudsman’s and when necessary they retained the power to rein in the appointed ombudsperson’s activities should they become politically embarrassing or untenable. Readers need only to recall Ombudsman Stogran’s summary dismissal when he dared to go public about Veterans Affairs Canada intransigence and ineptitude?

These provisions are purposefully obstructive, designed to marginalize the ombudsperson’s effort and through a formidable legislative muzzle, negate the ombudsman's ability to affect justice for serving members or veterans who come forward to him or her at the departmental level.

It is any wonder very few serving members actually trust the Office of the Military Ombudsman?

Is it any wonder that few veterans or their families trust or respect the Office of the Veterans Ombudsman?

Former OVO Craig Dalton identified this existential problem in the summer of 2019 when he publicly expressed his concerns that the office of the Veterans Ombudsman was neither trusted nor respected by veterans and their families while he concurrently requested that the government conduct an “independent” review of the office’s mandate.  

“I am concerned with what has been reflected to me around the lack of trust in our office, questioning what value we offer to veterans, noting that we’re not independent enough to generate confidence in veterans,” Dalton told Murray Brewster atCBC news. “If veterans are not coming to us because they don’t believe we’re independent and they don’t believe we can support them. Then I think looking at other reporting relationships of an ombudsman office is certainly a component of the review I’d like to see included.”

Daulton was not, alas, prepared to take the required step of recommending that the OVO report directly to parliament instead of the minister. Minster McCauley was not, alas, prepared to do anything and Ombudsman Dalton’s request was filed in the dusty drawer where all OVO reports ultimately wind up.

Tragically, Harper's fail-safe mechanisms preclude any legitimate effort to conduct a review into the former CDS General Jonathan Vance's allegedly inappropriate conduct.

Why would that be the case?

Simply put, the ombudsman has no recourse at their disposal other than to report such allegations to the minister only.

The situation, in respect to General Vance’s allegedly inappropriate 2012 email to a female corporal, in which he proposed a joint vacation on a clothing optional beach, is further complicated by the accuser’s wish to remain anonymous. The legislation under these circumstances is specific, Mr. Walbourne, as Ombudsman for the DND, is duty bound to maintain General Vance’s accuser’s confidence and privacy.

For his part, MND Sajjan, claims he too was bound by legislative restrictions that compelled him to bring the accusation of Vance’s allegedly inappropriate email to the Privy Council Office (PCO). By doing so, Sajjan effectively relegated authority in respect to further investigations or any potential disciplinary acts to the PCO.

The secretive PCO apparently did nothing because General Vance’s accuser had requested anonymity and they did not have enough information upon which to proceed.

How can justice be served under these circumstances?

The government tell us to ‘trust them' but those words ring as hollow as those of the Mexican beach vendor who offers you a special deal because he is your ‘Amigo’. Trust me, he is not your friend.

Pandemic Wellness Checks Veterans at Risk.

By Michael Blais CD

The ongoing restrictions inherent with pandemic counter measures, continues to adversely affect the mental health of Canadians. Being isolated for long periods of time has certainly already borne out repercussions, and it would seem this will only increase as the virus mutates and the infection rates continue to soar within our communities.

 The COVID-19 situation has exacerbated the challenges for many who have been enduring heightened levels of discord as a consequence of being locked down alone, with their primary support elements either suspended or reduced in regularity. 

The personal, human touch inherent with doctor’s appointments or organized peer support meetings is absent. For many veterans, audio/visual interrelationships orchestrated through an internet forum does not provide them the same level of relief and comfort.

Having fears for the well being of a mentally traumatized veteran experiencing a crisis during the pandemic can heighten anxieties  for concerned family members and friends. This is particularly true when misgivings about alcohol and/or drug abuse, pharmaceutical addictions, erratic behaviour, self harm and/or fears of suicide are present. 

Canada’s vast geographic disposition often precludes personal interventions, which as a consequence, leaves loved one’s and friends with no alternative but to reach out to some distant community emergency service to initiate a Wellness Check on the individual.

If one is fortuitous, the community will field a Crisis Rapid Response Team to deal with the crisis. Ontario has designed such a program to cope with mental health related 911 calls and due to the pandemic induced surge, recently increased funding to support an expansion of the program.

In partnership with the Canadian Mental Health Association, this program acknowledges the futility of hospitalization or resorting to the justice system in addressing  a mental health emergency. Distinct crisis resolution training is provided to selected law enforcement officers and once qualified they are teamed up with mental health professionals to participate in 12 hour shifts, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 

The focus is on de-escalation with resolution without resorting to restraint, physical force, collateral criminal charges, incarceration or psychiatric internment at hospital. The Ontario program has so far proven to be very successful, having engaged with 612 distraught Ontarians over the past year. Three quarters of those individuals were provided mental health care or addiction resources without the need for hospitalization. Crisis de-escalation bereft of arrest or the use of force in order to restrain occurred over 80 percent of the time.

If one is not fortuitous… the response to your request for a wellness check may not result in the positive conclusion envisioned.

Police officers will be dispatched.

These officers may or may not be adequately trained in responding to a civilian mental health crisis let alone the protocols required to calm a traumatized combat veteran. Many of these law enforcement officers, having seen Rambo or other Hollywood endeavours wherein the stigma surrounding PTSD is perpetuated by portraying the traumatized veteran as being unstable, and also being capable of instant levels of ultra-violence, trained to kill, and possessing a deadly proficiency with weapons. 

Such apprehension heightens levels of alarm which in turn fosters de escalation protocols being built on restraint instead of dialogue, incarceration or consignment to a psychiatric hospital instead of compassion and immediate mental health provisions or substance abuse addiction counselling/assistance. Any form of resistance inevitably results in criminal charges after the employment by police of varying levels of force (inclusive of tasers and firearms) as they deem fit.

One veteran, one standard!
 

National standards, inclusive of de-escalation/resolution protocols that directly pertain to calming a traumatized veteran are clearly required. Veterans Affairs Canada has the obligation to establish these standards. Ministerial leadership is crucial, particularly in respect to creating the appropriate mechanisms through consultation with their Mental Health Advisory and the recently established Centre of Excellence on PTSD. 

Comprehensive guidelines for family and friends must be established and made public. Furthermore, a 24 hour a day, 7 days a week contact for liaison service must be established, so those who are concerned about a veteran’s well being can contact VAC for advice prior to initiating a wellness check. Once these protocols have been developed, the department must launch a dedicated liaison program with the Canadian Mental Health Association and the relevant law enforcement agencies to ensure successful crisis management when the occasion arises.

I emphasize this means ‘when’ and not ‘if'.

Stolen Valour and the Criminal Code of Canada

By Michael Blais

I have been travelling to Ottawa on a regular basis since 2011, when the Canadian Veterans Advocacy was first invited to participate with Veterans Affairs Canada stakeholder group. I was soon appalled to note that reprehensible crimes of stolen valour were being perpetrated even as we assembled on the National War Memorial at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day, of the eleventh month. 

At the poser level, -a poser being an individual who has never served yet poses as a soldier-, one incident was particularly remarkable. Readers will remember the case of an individual being interviewed prior to the National Remembrance Service wearing a CAF dress uniform and posing as a sergeant of The Royal Canadian Regiment. The individual brazenly added the Medal of Bravery to his other illegitimate medals, jump wings and pathfinders badge to complete his bogus ensemble. His false but impressive symbols of martial merit drew the attention of the national media. The consequences were immediate, starkly profound and by mid-afternoon, sharp eyed Royal Canadians had “outed” the individual as a fraud. As a result, I was invited to the CBC studio in Ottawa to do an interview on the subject of Stolen Valour for The National. Criminal charges were levied, and justice in this case was served. 

There have also been instances of deplorable embellishment, wherein yes, the individual did serve yet felt compelled to dishonestly embellish their service by adding medals, parachute wings and other unearned honorifics to their uniforms. A prominent charity and several veterans organizations were adversely impacted by such acts of fraud, with reputations being besmirched (guilt by association) and relationships being irrevocably destroyed. 

Stolen Valour Canada (SVC) emerged in 2014 as an independent, self funded, group of veterans willing to volunteer their time and military experience to provide an internet-based platform which investigates reports of alleged Stolen Valour across Canada. During the past 7 years, these veteran volunteers have exposed over three score of posers and embellishers who were exploiting national service & sacrifice in order to deceive Canadians across the nation. The accused have invariably been  provided with options.  An apology letter and the return of the medals is all that is required and many who have been exposed have availed themselves of this option, measly surrendering their fraudulent “trinkets” along with a public apology in order to escape those punitive provisions set out under the Criminal Code of Canada (section 419). For years now, SVC has provided expert advice to affected law enforcement agencies with one precedent setting conviction in 2019 resulting in a steep monetary fine and probation. A number of other cases currently remain in the cue, with criminal proceedings proceeding.

So why do these individuals do it? Why do they pose as a soldier or, in my opinion even worse worse, a soldier who embellishes their military service by adding undeserved medals, parachute wings, commendations and other trinkets? 

The SVC response line to this question is blunt: Most individuals reported to SVC  were declared to be “grifters and con artists who lie, cheat and steal for their personal gain.” Some posers have used “their Special Status to attend military ceremonies, Remembrance Day services, parades or charity sponsored galas and high profile sporting events as VIP guests.” Others have participated in fully funded commemorative pilgrimages and expeditions abroad. Some have used “fake military narratives and tales of battlefield injuries to advance their employment opportunities and political aspirations.” 

The list of motives to impersonate a soldier includes; Intimidation, theft, fraud ( which includes examples of nefariously applying for veteran/military discounts), questionable charity schemes, embezzlement and dating schemes. In one bizarre incident, the miscreant poser went so far as to claim that he had committed war crimes as a Special Forces Chief Warrant Officer, while at a presentation to six hundred schoolchildren! 

Every time this occurs, of course,  truly deserving veterans are increasingly doubted and our reputation as a unique community is blighted.  

So, how does SVC oversight work? 

First, most of the ‘poser' reports of Stolen Valour SCV receives are levied by veterans. When instances of embellishment arise, the suspect is often identified by veterans who served in the individual’s same regiments or units. Specific details are required, and if the allegations have merit, SVC conducts an investigation based "on open sources, public information, unit war diaries and timelines”. Please note that SVC has a rigorous set of Standard Operating Procedures. Research information is peer reviewed, and should the “smoking gun” or an admission of guilt be absent, the names of the suspected posers/embellishers are not published. It is also noteworthy that SVC does not have access to MPRR and depends on protocols inherent with the Access to Information Act to confirm or deny service and medal-commendation-parachute wing aberrations. 

Should you feel that there is a poser or embellisher preying on your community, reach out to SVC through this link.

www.stolenvalour.ca

Good Luck with That

By Vincent J. Curtis

Nearly twenty-five years ago there was a guided discussion concerning the dangers of “western hate groups” infiltrating the Canadian Forces.  In those days, the Heritage Front, founded in 1989 by Wolfgang Droege, Gary Lincoln, and CSIS agent Grant Bristow, was the most infamous of Canada’s “far-right.”  The Heritage Front was, by then, practically defunct, and went officially defunct in 2005. 

After some discussion, one of the course candidates said that he knew a couple of members of a “western hate group.”

“Really?”  asked the instructor.  “Tell us about it.” 

“Well,” replied the candidate quietly, “they have guns.  They wear these uniforms, and they practice fighting in the woods.” 

The other candidates leaned in, eyes widening.

“Can you tell us who they are?”  asked the instructor.

“I don’t know the name of the group, but their initials are P-P-C-L-I.”

Everybody laughed.  They liked the association of western Canada’s Regular Force infantry regiment with ‘western hate group.’  

The Canadian military has dealt with “far-right” “hate groups” before.  The promise by Lt-Gen Wayne Eyre, the new Commander of the Canadian Army, to deal with the “infiltration” of “far-right” “hate groups” is ploughing old ground. 

Eyre told CBC News that he wants to rid the army of soldiers who are “suspected of hateful conduct and extremism.”  (One wonders if killing people, destroying things, and the practicing thereof are acts hateful conduct and extremism.  But, I digress.) 

Eyre faces legal obstacles.  The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees freedom of thought, belief, expression; peaceful assembly, and association.  On the face of it, holding unpopular political beliefs is protected by the Charter and protected from disciplinary or administrative action under the National Defense Act.  So long as the member causes no disciplinary issues and acts on his beliefs lawfully on his own time, he should be in the clear.  Reservists especially.

This crusade for ideological purity began with Corey Hurren’s mad-cap attack on Rideau Hall, where the Governor-General resides and Prime Minister Trudeau currently has a hovel.  Hurren allegedly had firearms in his truck.  Nobody was hurt, Hurren arrested, and neither the GG nor PM were on the property at the time.  It so happened that Hurren was a member of a Canadian Ranger Patrol, and a rather good one at that.  Being a Ranger was all the hook needed for the CBC to associate the Canadian Armed Forces with an alleged attempt on the lives of Julie Payette and Justin Trudeau.  Hurren’s alleged connection with “far-right” “hate-groups” juiced the story.

Then, in hot pursuit of ideological enemies, the CBC revealed that Erik Myggland not only supported two “far-right” groups, but was allowed to continue as a Ranger.in northern B.C.  after a counterint investigation. 

It gets worse.  Former reservist sapper Patrik Mathews allegedly became a member of “The Base” (al-Qaeda in Arabic), another alleged “far-right” “neo-Nazi” group.  A naval reservist in Calgary, Boris Mihajlovic, reportedly administered a neo-Nazi hate forum that gave rise to a group called “Atomwaffen Division,” both now defunct 

The harassed Lt-Gen Eyre admitted to the CBC that “the army has a growing problem of “right-wing extremism,” and reiterated his determination to “crush hateful ideology and acts in the ranks.”  He expressed his disappointment at members who hold Nazism as a way of life 

“There is absolutely no place in the Canadian Army for those who hold hateful beliefs and express these beliefs through hateful behaviour.”

The CBC, the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and no doubt Superior Commanders are pressuring Eyre for “action.”  However, high-handed and possibly unconstitutional disciplinary action to eradicate certain political beliefs sets precedent for morale crushing hypocrisy as other, politically sensitive, beliefs are allowed.  BLM, Islam, anyone?

Perhaps education in how the Canadian Army kicked Nazi ass in Sicily, Italy, and from Juno Beach to Wismar might get the point across.  Or is that culturally insensitive?  An over-reaction to mollify the far-left by savaging a small number of losers could be worse than patiently letting the problem disappear on its own.

Stolen Valour – Exposing the Fraudsters

By Michael Blais

My first experience with Stolen Valour occurred over a decade ago shortly after being elected as president of the local chapter of The Royal Canadian Regimental Association (RCR). The branch had participated in a veterans orientated event in Niagara and after the parade, some Korean War veterans cornered me at the local legion. They pointedly noted there was an elderly member within our branch who was wearing Korean War medals despite the fact that, while he was serving at the time of the conflict, he did not actually deploy to Korea. They were not impressed. They had approached the individual themselves but to no avail and they therefore expressed expectations of me to resolve the matter as a fellow member of the RCR.

Never Pass a Fault is the regimental motto, and the issue was quickly sorted.

The second time was of far greater consequence. We were proudly flying the regimental banner, while participating in a convention level parade through the streets of Niagara Falls which was hosted by the local Legion. Afterwards, I was approached by a retired Company Sergeant Major (CSM) of The Royal Canadian Regiment and Canadian Airborne Regiment (CAR). He was an older fellow who certainly looked the part! His pants were sharply creased, shoes polished, medals affixed perfectly on a sharp blue blazer adorned with The RCR’s Snr NCO’s crest, medals, American and Canadian parachute wings inclusive with the white leaf of the CAR. 

This Sergeant Major claimed to be a member of The RCR Association’s Toronto Branch, who had been dispatched by Regimental HQ to escort one of The Regiment’s Memorial Cross Mothers to Niagara for the parade. Naively our group welcomed him. Throughout that summer he travelled to Niagara to participate with the Support the Troops rallies which our RCR Branch was organizing in Niagara Falls, Niagara on the Lake and Fort Erie in support of the Crystal Beach Volunteer Firemen (CBVF). The CBVF were seeking to create the Albert Storm Memorial Park and Boat launch on shores of Lake Erie. Pro Patria, mission accomplished.

Tragically, it was the cruel loss of another regimental brother in Afghanistan and the subsequent provision of the Memorial Cross (MC) to his family which revealed this case of stolen valour. Seeking guidance from Regimental HQ in respect to potential MC protocols should the family accede to our offer of support, I mentioned Sergeant Major X and the Memorial Cross mother whom he had previously escorted, supposedly at RHQ's request,  to Niagara earlier that summer.

"Who’s that?” they asked. Fly the Red Flag!

Some due diligence research into the regimental archives revealed that no such CSM ever existed!

I was shocked and I thought to myself;  What kind of individual does that? Who would deceive a grieving Memorial Cross Mother in such a cruel manner? What kind of individual perpetuates such deception on the veterans community by exploiting the spilled blood of the Royal Canadian Regiment? Why go to such elaborate lengths to obtain all the trappings and uniform items to complete his deception?

More importantly the question begs, why? What purpose could this possibly serve?

Could this have been part of a nefarious scheme designed to grift a distraught Memorial Cross mom out of any financial settlement accorded to her by the government in respect to her son's tragic death in Afghanistan? My concerns were shared by RHQ in Petawawa. The Military Police were alerted, which in turn initiated an investigation that would ultimately include the Niagara Regional Police Service. Military emissaries were dispatched to the home of the Memorial Cross mother to explain what was transpiring and to provide her support if needed.

The case unfolded thus:

Mr. Stolen Valour was invited to the Niagara Falls Police Station police station for an interview.

Mr. Stolen Valour admitted that he had never served, let alone attained the rank of CSM,  in The Royal Canadian Regiment.

Mr. Stolen valour admitted that he had never served in the Canadian Airborne Regiment. (Nor did he earn the US or Canadians wings he so often boasted about).

Mr. Stolen valour admitted that he had never served in Cyprus, and therefore his medals were as bogus as the rest of his cruel hoax.

However, as no charges were laid in this case and since there was no other recriminations, Mr. Stolen Valour soon reinvented himself once more as a member of the Royal Regiment of Canada. He has since lain wreaths on Remembrance day, and even went so far as to participate in a documentary series. The episode never aired yet it was this interview which ultimately proved to be his downfall.

Stay safe over the holidays and stay tuned for Stolen Valour part 2, where I shall recount some of my experiences with stolen valour as a national veterans advocate. 

The Benefits of Anonymity

By Military Woman

Question: Why is the Military Women column anonymous? 

Answer: We publish this column anonymously for several reasons. One simple reason is to allow serving and released/retired women and men to input into the column without any worries of first needing workplace permissions before voicing their opinions on what could be viewed as government-related policy matters. 

Anonymity also removes all concerns around how to best recognize and order multiple inputter’s names into the column’s byline.

Another reason for anonymity relates to the original purpose behind this column—to spark thoughtful reflections and open honest conversations around topics that can be considered by some as politically sensitive and/or controversial. Keeping the column’s readers blind to the authors’ identities (including their rank, age, gender, race, trade, military experiences) helps to keep the focus on the issues, and not the authors. 

A final reason for anonymity is for our own piece of mind. Throughout society, including the defence community, it largely still remains a position of privilege to be able to challenge the status quo without concurrent concerns that doing so may negatively impact the security and safety of one’s work and personal life. Most women, and some men, do not (yet) hold this privileged position, and must still choose between full participation in public life and compromising their sense of safety for themselves and their family. 

Talking about women and women specific issues in any public forum can, unfortunately, result in unwanted attention. The fact remains that women who publicly challenge the status quo are still being met with gender-based aggression. One has only to look at the Amnesty International report titled “Toxic Twitter – A Toxic Place for Women” to see the validity of such safety concerns. This report lists numerous online abusive behaviours aimed specifically at women, including name calling, body shaming, racism, sexism, homophobia, misogyny, doxing, stalking, rape threats, death threats, and threats against women’s
families.  

Furthermore, a disturbing trend of late is the increasing prevalence of online threats crossing over to real life threats. Sometimes the perpetrators are unknown to their targets as was the case for then Environment Minister Catherine McKenna, MP for Ottawa Centre, and for Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Other times the perpetrators are well known to their targets, often previous intimate partners, as was the case for Private First Class Vanessa Guillen. It should be of no surprise, then, that women’s voices remain underrepresented in many areas of public discourse—including the defence community.

Many military women’s issues, including the benefits of online anonymity, have been eloquently explored in the “Wavell Room”, a British contemporary military thought website. In one such article, “Second Order Sexism”, the anonymous author acknowledges that men can also find themselves open to receiving online backlash, but “when a man gets into an argument on Twitter, the worst that tends to happen is he gets called a few names. The game for women is entirely different. Putting our real names to our accounts opens us up to doxing, stalking, trolling, revenge porn and worse.” 

The article goes on to assert that an anonymous author’s arguments and ideas are no less worthy of consideration, and that “we should be looking at the quality of the argument/debate/discussion that an individual provides rather than getting caught up in the name they use. Engage with the argument, not the individual.” 

These are especially wise words when applied to defence-related discussions where it is still possible to find regimental “tribal” loyalties, combined with ingrained gender and rank hierarchies, that serve to dismiss, intimidate, and silence dissenting voices and opinions. “If we really want to be a diverse, inclusive and female-friendly organisation”, concludes the author, “let’s come away from the outdated idea that only troublemakers choose to be anonymous and accept that for some of us, personal security is far more than just a phrase, it’s embedded in everything we do.”  

For all these reasons and more, that’s why this column is anonymous, for now.

Thinking Like A Businessman

By Vincent J. Curtis

Recent equipment purchases on behalf of the CAF – shockingly! – do not accord with business sense. Only superficially are they sensible. Let’s examine how a businessman might go about the acquisitions of the C-19, the Harry DeWolf class of patrol vessels, and an acquisition of handguns.

The C-19 is the new bolt-gun for the Canadian Rangers. It is replacing the venerable Long Branch No. 4 Mk I* Lee-Enfield, last manufactured in the early 1950s. The C-19 is a modified Tikka T3x Arctic. It employs a Mauser-like two-lug bolt action, and has a ten round detachable box magazine. The bolt handle and the trigger guard are oversized for work with gloved hands. The bolt handle is angled to that the hand is placed next to the trigger on closing, and the bolt turns at a quick 60 degrees, mimicking the No. 4. It has a 20” medium-heavy barrel with nice iron sights and a blaze-orange composite stock. It comes with a Picatinny rail over the action for optic mounting. The rifle offers good, but not superb, accuracy

A nice rifle, priced at $2,800 retail. The Canadian government paid $4,000 for the Ranger version. The businessman would ask, “Why are we paying a premium to Sako when Colt Canada can make brand new No. 4 Lee-Enfield actions royalty free?” The Lee-Enfield is what the Rangers were used to. Into a Colt-built No. 4 action, Colt can thread one of their magnificent medium-heavy barrels and bed the barrelled action in a blaze orange composite stock like the Tikka. This rifle can use the same iron sights. The Lee-Enfield comes with a detachable ten round magazine. A Picatinny rail can be installed over the No. 4 action by modifying the contour of the charger bridge to serve as the rear mount, and the front of the receiver for the front mount. There’s your C-19 built around a No 4 Lee-Enfield action instead of a Tikka. A better No. 5 carbine?

A strategic business benefit falls to Colt Canada. Besides having a famous new product to sell, at least half a million No. 4’s remain in private hands in Canada. Many need spare parts to remain serviceable, and Colt would be the manufacturer of these spare parts. There would be ongoing business for Colt Canada beyond the government.

Now, let’s take a quick look at the Harry DeWolf Arctic Patrol vessels. A short detour. Auto parts manufacturers used to buy moulds and dies from North American machine shops. A bumper or a fender would be stamped out of sheet metal in one of these moulds. Let’s say a mould cost $100,000. During the recession of 2000-2002, China joined the World Trade Organization. When the car business came out of recession, the parts makers went to China for moulds. Of course, they came back out of spec, and the Chinese moulds were sent to the North American mould makers to be put right. The parts maker paid the Chinese $20k for the mould, and $30k for the re-work. The parts maker saved himself $50k. Now, apply this to ships.

Let’s say a DeWolf costs $1 billion. We could buy an ice-breaker from Russia for $200 million, and then pay Irving $500 million to have the Russian vessel put into the condition we want. Canada saves herself $300 million.

I’ve written about handguns before, and the sticking point seems to be that Canada wants only 10,000 of them and Colt Canada has to build them. Glock isn’t going to let Colt build Glocks. Likewise, Beretta, Smith & Wesson, Walther, and Sig.

But, the Colt M45 is a perfectly viable sidearm in today’s militaries. As is the Browning Hi-Power. Why can’t Colt Canada build new Hi-Powers? During the War, Canada acquired the rights from FN to make 250,000, and built nowhere near that many. We’re using Hi-Powers now. Don’t let “tacticool” pistol snobs deflect you from making a good, practical decision.

Businessmen think different when it’s their money.

Pregnancy and Society/Safe Military Pregnancies: Part 1 & 2

By Military Women

Q: If pregnancy is a normal fact of life, why is it still a big deal in the military?

A: In the June 2020 Military Women column, pregnancy was indeed highlighted as a perfectly normal physiological life event, however pregnancy is also a commonly cited bone fide sex difference that we know can impact military employment and operational effectiveness. Let’s consider some of the unique aspects of pregnancy in the military first within the context of the history of women in Canadian
society.

 Did you know that women only became legally recognized as “persons” on October 18th, 1929 (Edwards v Canada)? This constitutional change paved the way for women’s increased participation in public life, a milestone acknowledged annually with the official designation of October 18th as Persons Day.

During both world wars, women were asked to temporarily fill traditionally male military and civilian work roles. However, once World War II was over, married women were expected to return to the home, while unmarried women were pushed back into gender normative civilian positions. Employee pregnancy was not something the male dominated workspaces, military or civilian, expected to be seeing or dealing with.

In 1960, all Canadian women were finally accorded the right to vote. In 1965, due to human resource shortages, the military allowed a handful of gender-appropriate trades to recruit up to 1,500 unmarried women into the regular forces. Military women were still being released upon marriage, in part due to the assumption that they would soon become pregnant. Those assumptions were no longer valid when the oral contraceptive pill was made legal in 1969. The ability of women to control their own reproductive status was a gamechanger.

The pivotal Report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women (1970), noted that society has “a responsibility for [the] special treatment of women related to pregnancy and childbirth”. The Commission opened the doors for women to potentially return to the workforce after a pregnancy with recommendations for both maternity leave and guaranteed job security. The report also opened up military colleges, gave women access to previously men-only military pensions, and removed marriage and pregnancy as reasons for mandatory military release. Finally, women didn’t have to choose between a family and a military career—at least not on paper.

In the same decade, the Canadian Human Rights Act (1977) prohibited federal workplace discrimination related to sex, marital status and/or family status, and the military conducted a complete personnel policy update review (1978).

Momentum for women to stay in the workforce, both during and after pregnancy, grew in the 1980s. Canada signed the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1980) that, among other things, called for special workplace protections for women during pregnancy.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982), prohibited workplace discrimination based on sex. The Employment Equity Act (1986) required the identification and elimination of unnecessary barriers to employment in federal workspaces for identified groups, including specifically women. The decade ended with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (1989) supporting a complaint against the military for employment discrimination based on sex. The result was that the Canadian Armed Forces was ordered to fully integrate women into all jobs within 10 years. Since the 1990s, women have entered with ever growing numbers into the previously male-only military operational combat roles and environments.

The last 100 years have seen the legal barriers to workplace equity for Canadian women removed—including in the military.
However, many employers have put more resources into enrolling women into the previously male-only trades then proactively ensuring their safe retention through enabled, appropriately accommodated workspaces. In the military, the politically driven focus on total numbers of women working in non-traditional and operational military roles continues to overshadow the parallel concurrent need to knowledge generate evidence-based protections and supports for those working women, especially while pregnant or breastfeeding. How to best address that is another discussion for another day.

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Part 1 – Pre-conception 

Question: Do military women need more workplace considerations to ensure safe pregnancies? 

Answer: Last month we discussed whether military women need “special” occupational health and safety (OHS) workplace considerations. We concluded that both military women and men can have biological sex-specific needs, and that these facts of life shouldn’t result in the naming of one sex’s issues as “normal” and the other’s as “special”. 

One obvious OHS workplace difference between women and men relates to pregnancy. Pregnancy is a natural life event that all Canadian employers should include as part of their OHS workplace plans and preparations. Ideally, pregnancy and subsequent parenthood should not adversely affect a woman’s health or career progression in any job setting. For many traditionally women-friendly workplaces, the large number of women who have worked while pregnant has already paved the way for reproductive hazard identification and the implementation of required risk mitigation measures. 

Women entered with significant numbers into “non-traditional” operational workplaces, such as the military, starting in the 1980s. Since the number of women in these workplaces is relatively small compared to men, and the number of pregnant women is even smaller, there is a dearth of research into women-specific hazard exposures. This means that operational military environments are in a bit of a “research desert”, with little robust science available to base policy or recommendations on.  So military women and their employers are left unclear on how to best scientifically quantify and address workplace reproductive hazards. 

The military’s present risk management approach to reproductive health hazards requires three different, and sometimes competing, determinations of what is in the best interest of the: (1)  woman’s health and career in the short and long-term; (2) pregnancy; and, (3) military’s need to meet OHS and legal standards, while also addressing operational effectiveness and mission success requirements.

One strategy to ensure the health of the mother and baby, while also meeting the needs of the military, is to pre-plan pregnancies whenever possible. In the US military, every medical encounter is viewed as an opportunity to confirm whether or not a military member wishes to conceive in the year ahead. If the answer is no, various ways to decrease the chances of an unintended pregnancy are reviewed. If the answer is yes, a pre-conception counselling medical appointment is booked.

The purpose of a pre-conception counselling session is to maximize a woman’s general health and ability to successfully conceive. Whereas these medical sessions are recommended at least three months prior to conception in civilian healthcare, they are recommended a year ahead for military personnel. Topics to be reviewed include past reproductive history, family history, diet, exercise, folic acid supplement, weight, nicotine use, alcohol use, prescription drug use, cannabis, pets, relationship status, and any anticipated near-term needs for dental work, vaccinations, x-rays and /or surgery. 

Unique to military pre-conception counselling, a full workplace reproductive hazard review is also conducted for both current and possible future hazard exposures. Hazard exposures include chemical (gas hut, pesticide exposure), biological (Zika virus, COVID-19, live vaccines, partner’s potential workplace exposures), physical (noise, radiation, hypobaric oxygen, egress training), ergonomics (prolonged standing, shift work), psycho-social (stress levels, available social supports, risk for gender-based violence), and anthropometrics (need for specialized uniforms or equipment while pregnant that might need to be ordered far in advance).
Some of these exposures come with medical recommendations to wait as long as a full year before a planned conception. 

To optimize the safety of pregnancies, military women (and men) need more Canadian research and workplace awareness about reproductive hazards, risks and mitigation strategies. One, of many, windows of opportunity for the employer is to ensure the screening and education of all military members before planned conceptions. Other militaries provide generic reproductive information through open source phone apps (e.g., the US Navy’s “Pregnancy and Parenthood” app), followed up with specific individualized information at pre-conception medical counselling sessions. Is there a reason Canada couldn’t do the same?

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Part 2: First Trimester

Question: Do women need more military workplace considerations to ensure safe pregnancies? 

Answer: In July 2020’s Military Women column we talked about military workplace considerations pre-conception. In this month’s column, we continue that conversation  into the first three months, or trimester, of pregnancy. 

Pregnancy may be a normal physiological life event but the risks, even in “normal” environments, are different for every person, every time.  For example, during the first trimester, up to 70% of pregnant women experience nausea and vomiting that can vary in severity from mild to profound and up to 20% of pregnancies result in threatened or completed miscarriages. Miscarriage symptoms can vary from minor to debilitating uterine cramping, emotional distress and/or bleeding; and can require urgent access to specialized medical care. Ectopic pregnancies, the implanting and growth of the embryo outside of the uterus, affects up to 2% of first trimester pregnancies. Ectopic pregnancies can cause sudden incapacitation and even be life threatening—needing emergency surgical intervention. Other pregnancy-induced physiological changes increase a women’s risk of urine infections, kidney stones, and ear blockages. 

So how should workplaces best accommodate for these baseline pregnancy risks for all while concurrently ensuring no additional or new risks? Unfortunately, there is no easy answer.

Workplace standards that ensure safety for the average healthy adult cannot be assumed safe for medically compromised adults, children and/or pregnancies. Specific reproductive hazard research is required to know if pregnancy loss and physical and cognitive birth defects are being kept to baseline “normal” levels or not. Because we can’t deliberately expose pregnant women to potential hazards, it’s not possible to do “gold standard double-blind randomized control trial” types of research. Most workplace reproductive safety standards are therefore determined “after the fact”, using observational studies documenting the workplace exposures of men and women and the final pregnancy outcomes from hundreds, if not thousands, of pregnancies.

Well-studied workspaces, such as office administration and teaching, are generally proven safe to work in while pregnant without limitations. Other large workplace studies, for example hospital nursing and commercial aviation flight attendants, identified the need for decreased exposures while pregnant to operating room anesthetic agents, radiation, circadian rhythm disruptions, and prolonged standing.

Less well-studied workspaces include the many areas women have only recently been entering in significant numbers  (e.g., military, first responder services, mining).  Given the research gaps of what, if any, sex-specific health impacts these non-traditional environments have on adult non-pregnant women, it’s no surprise even less is known about these workplace’s impact on pregnant women. 

To establish pregnant military worker’s safety standards, researchers will need to review literally thousands of pregnancy records. Given the magnitude and complexity involved to study military specific exposures (e.g., military flying, diving, isolated field environments, serving at sea), international collaboration is likely needed. In the meantime, the gap between “what is known to be safe” during pregnancy and “what is known to be unsafe”, in military specific environments remains unacceptably wide. 

Thermal, vibrational, biological, chemical, ergonomic or acceleration workplace exposures can negatively impact pregnancies at any stage, but especially so in the first trimester. Workplace reproduction hazard identification and avoidance are therefore especially important to enforce during the first trimester, the time when pregnancies are known to be the most sensitive to them.

The present lack of knowledge surrounding military workplace reproduction safety raises many questions. How can military operational effectiveness be best achieved without any worker discrimination based on sex? What is the employer’s responsibility to identify and minimize potential hazard exposures?  What is the right of the military woman to decide the level of workplace risk she is willing to take vis-à-vis her own health and that of the pregnancy? How can informed decisions happen without more information? 

One thing we can all agree on, is that more sex-specific (male and female) military workplace reproductive research is needed. When we know better, we can all do better.

SAFE MILITARY PREGNANCIES: Part 2 – First Trimester Military Woman

By Military Woman

Question: Do women need more military workplace considerations to ensure safe pregnancies? 

Answer: In July 2020’s Military Women column we talked about military workplace considerations pre-conception. In this month’s column, we continue that conversation  into the first three months, or trimester, of pregnancy. 

Pregnancy may be a normal physiological life event but the risks, even in “normal” environments, are different for every person, every time.  For example, during the first trimester, up to 70% of pregnant women experience nausea and vomiting that can vary in severity from mild to profound and up to 20% of pregnancies result in threatened or completed miscarriages. Miscarriage symptoms can vary from minor to debilitating uterine cramping, emotional distress and/or bleeding; and can require urgent access to specialized medical care. Ectopic pregnancies, the implanting and growth of the embryo outside of the uterus, affects up to 2% of first trimester pregnancies. Ectopic pregnancies can cause sudden incapacitation and even be life threatening—needing emergency surgical intervention. Other pregnancy-induced physiological changes increase a women’s risk of urine infections, kidney stones, and ear blockages. 

So how should workplaces best accommodate for these baseline pregnancy risks for all while concurrently ensuring no additional or new risks? Unfortunately, there is no easy answer.

Workplace standards that ensure safety for the average healthy adult cannot be assumed safe for medically compromised adults, children and/or pregnancies. Specific reproductive hazard research is required to know if pregnancy loss and physical and cognitive birth defects are being kept to baseline “normal” levels or not. Because we can’t deliberately expose pregnant women to potential hazards, it’s not possible to do “gold standard double-blind randomized control trial” types of research. Most workplace reproductive safety standards are therefore determined “after the fact”, using observational studies documenting the workplace exposures of men and women and the final pregnancy outcomes from hundreds, if not thousands, of pregnancies.

Well-studied workspaces, such as office administration and teaching, are generally proven safe to work in while pregnant without limitations. Other large workplace studies, for example hospital nursing and commercial aviation flight attendants, identified the need for decreased exposures while pregnant to operating room anesthetic agents, radiation, circadian rhythm disruptions, and prolonged standing.

Less well-studied workspaces include the many areas women have only recently been entering in significant numbers  (e.g., military, first responder services, mining).  Given the research gaps of what, if any, sex-specific health impacts these non-traditional environments have on adult non-pregnant women, it’s no surprise even less is known about these workplace’s impact on pregnant women. 

To establish pregnant military worker’s safety standards, researchers will need to review literally thousands of pregnancy records. Given the magnitude and complexity involved to study military specific exposures (e.g., military flying, diving, isolated field environments, serving at sea), international collaboration is likely needed. In the meantime, the gap between “what is known to be safe” during pregnancy and “what is known to be unsafe”, in military specific environments remains unacceptably wide. 

Thermal, vibrational, biological, chemical, ergonomic or acceleration workplace exposures can negatively impact pregnancies at any stage, but especially so in the first trimester. Workplace reproduction hazard identification and avoidance are therefore especially important to enforce during the first trimester, the time when pregnancies are known to be the most sensitive to them.

The present lack of knowledge surrounding military workplace reproduction safety raises many questions. How can military operational effectiveness be best achieved without any worker discrimination based on sex? What is the employer’s responsibility to identify and minimize potential hazard exposures?  What is the right of the military woman to decide the level of workplace risk she is willing to take vis-à-vis her own health and that of the pregnancy? How can informed decisions happen without more information? 

One thing we can all agree on, is that more sex-specific (male and female) military workplace reproductive research is needed. When we know better, we can all do better.

Eyes Front!

By Michael Nickerson

Here’s a pop quiz. Imagine you are being briefed by a senior officer. It might concern an important operation, a training exercise, or perhaps a critical shortage of sherry in the officer’s mess. Regardless, during said briefing do you a) gaze at your toes, b) look out the window behind you and consider the lovely fall colours that have begun to appear, c) finish that crossword you started in the latrine only minutes before, or d) stare straight ahead and pay bloody good attention to what’s being said? Your career might depend on this, so think carefully before answering.

Now the answer should be rather obvious, particularly when it comes to sherry shortages, but looking the other way seems a tad more common in our great nation’s military than one might expect. In fact, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) has been afflicted with nothing-to-see-here syndrome for quite some time. For decades leadership turned a blind eye to issues of mental illness and PTSD, conditions rationalized away as mere personality quirks that a good 10km run would fix in a jiffy. And one suspects there are still some trying to convince themselves that Operation HONOUR has more to do with patriotic parade planning than the sexual harassment and assault it’s there to stamp out.

So let us discuss the issue of racism in the ranks, and see how many have a sudden urge to look up and count the cobwebs on the ceiling. And before you get yourself in a lather thinking that this humble scribe is about to paint the whole of Canada’s military with one big brush as a bastion for neo-Nazis and Klansmen, pour yourself a sherry (assuming there is some around) and relax. Much as with the issue of sexual misconduct, this is about the exceptions, not the rule. 

But to turn a blind eye to those exceptions is in itself a dereliction of duty, and one that has gone on for far too long. Only with the recent killing of George Floyd and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests has leadership publicly acknowledged in a letter to forces members the “systemic racism within the defence team.” That any CAF members of colour, First Nations, and other minorities have had to feel not just unwelcome, but unsafe and fearful within a military and ministry that represents a multi-cultural country such as Canada is, quite frankly, a disgrace.

But what is a further disgrace is how such behaviour, when reported, gets swept under the rug with perpetrators and those responsible for them receiving mere slaps on the wrists, be it with mild reprimands or sensitivity training, rather than dismissal. Is it any wonder that racists with affiliations to neo-Nazi organizations feel comfortable sharing their hate publicly on social media, or proudly wear patches and symbols of the same?

Up to now a common rebuttal has been that the level of racism and hate is no different than one finds in general Canadian society. That may be true, but it’s a rather low bar for a proud organization to set for itself. And more to the point, members of the CAF are not the average Canadian. They are trained, as Gen. Rick Hillier once so proudly proclaimed, to kill people: proficient in the use of weapons, explosives and hand-to-hand combat. It’s the sort of training that comes with immense responsibility, and certainly not trivial skills to be wielded by hateful, angry neo-Nazis and far right anti-government nut cases with pointless axes to
grind.

I ask you this: what would those who fought and died fighting those lovely folks behind the holocaust in World War Two think of a situation today where soldiers wearing the same uniform as they once did now proudly identify with that enemy’s sick ideology? I’m going to take a guess and say that they would be disgusted to see even one allowed to wear that uniform. So eyes front soldier! Give that some thought the next time you want to look the other way.

ADO: The FEC for the AoT, Part Deux

By Vincent J Curtis

You’ve been given your assignment. Develop a capstone concept for “The Army of Tomorrow”, tomorrow being the year 2021. To recap, it’s 2006. After a dark decade of underfunding, money will start to flow but you have no idea for how long. History cautions you to assume the government is faithless in their commitments to the CF. A battlegroup was committed to Kandahar, and the tactical situation is hazardous. Casualties will be taken. The new CDS is Rick Hillier, and the Liberal government that appointed him and made the commitments has fallen. A new Conservative minority government under Stephen Harper, with MND Gordon O’Connor (a former CF BGen), has taken over.

The current military fashions are: Fourth Generation Warfare, Three Block War, Effects Based Operations, Network Centric Warfare, Full Spectrum of Operations, and, of course, Maneuver Warfare. You have to come up with a Future Security Environment (FSE), a Force Employment Concept (FEC), and a structure for the AoT, (Hint: It would look weird if you disregarded current theories.)

The document has come across as intellectually impressive. It has to be general enough to be effectively non-falsifiable. Since the work is going to be reviewed by committees and senior officers, there is no point in using your secret crystal ball that enabled Billy Mitchell to foresee in 1925 the Japanese attacking Pearl Harbor by air. You can only extrapolate from what is known. You can moderate trends in developments, but a dramatic acceleration has to be well justified. You cannot, for instance, forecast the tank combat of Kursk, 1943, on the basis of the mechanization of 1928. Your crystal ball’s insights don’t constitute justification, and could get you consigned to a loony bin.

What do you do? (Don’t check you iPhone – it isn’t invented yet!)

You start by writing your exegesis in an elevated, technical, and abstract vocabulary. You sprinkle acronyms throughout the text. Conceptually, the document is highly structured, engineered you might say. You incorporate those diagrams that imply without specifying relationships among its elements. (These diagrams are both fashionable and futuristic looking, so you might as well stick with that program.). You carefully define each term of the copious technical jargon you employ. (Any connection between reality and abstract technical jargon is fortuitous.) Your approach is highly ideological, and you fill up space by describing ideological processes.

You pay tribute to hoary, arcane, idiosyncratic ideas of the past, “The Five Operational Functions” (Command, Sense, Act, Shield, and Sustain), which themselves are the product of undeclared, unexamined ideological commitments. Being so abstract, they are untouchable, and also much beloved.

For an FEC, you start with Kandahar and begin extrapolating. The fundamental deployed formation is no longer the brigade group but the battle group, because that’s all Canada has ever committed since Germany. The FEC style you dub “Adaptive Disperse Operations” (ADO) because Op Medusa has just happened. The Kandahar battle group had been operating in company-sized roving patrols, but in Medusa a brigade group minus was pulled together that surprised and annihilated a Taliban brigade. So the FEC is to operate dispersed until a concentration of force is necessary. In ADO, you concentrate and disperse ‘adaptively,’ FSO in accordance with maneuver warfare, network-centric warfare, and effects based operations theories. ADO is FSO IAW MW, NCW, and EBO. 

Because the Leopard Is have yet to prove the value of tanks in the Afghan theatre, and the expectation is that new tanks will not be purchased for the CF, you go without tanks in your conceptual battlegroup. Everything is wheeled.

In accordance with 4GW, the FSE enemy will be ‘tech-savvy non-state actors.’ 

Since close air support from the RCAF is unimaginable, you make no provision for ground-air cooperation, such as that managed between a rag-tag Kurdish militia and the USAF, which annihilated the ISIS Caliphate.

The purpose of this exercise is not to ridicule ADO, the AoT, or ABC. It’s to have fun with the ideological mindset, and to demonstrate the futility of projecting far into the future.

Déjà Vu All Over Again For O’Toole?

By Michael Blais

The Canadian Veterans Advocacy, by definition, is not a traditional veterans’ organization: This is deliberate. Founded in the aftermath of the 1st Canadian Veterans National Day of Protest, the CVA’s primary objectives are;  to proactively champion parliamentary changes essential to reforming VAC and to secure Pension Act equality in respect to the national sacrifice for thousands of physically and/or traumatized Canadians service personnel subsequent to the harsh realities of the Afghanistan War. 

Our approach has been purposefully apolitical, message-centric and inclusive of a multi-level focus on issues which are identified through extensive consultation with mentally or physically disabled veterans and their families. As a formal stakeholder, we have engaged effectively with respect to the implementation/application of VAC policy since 2011. At that juncture Minister Steven Blaney, a Conservative, invited CVA to participate at the “stakeholder” level. 

Parliamentary advocacy during Minister Julian Fantino's era proved particularly robust, predicated on increasing levels of discord amongst Afghan War casualties and the lack of definitive movement by the conservatives in addressing the central issues which CVA represented. Collective efforts within the veterans' community proved productive, generating levels of national, regional and local awareness. Perhaps concerned by this growing solidarity among vets, Harper abruptly replaced Fantino with novice parliamentarian, former CAF member, and ex RCAF navigator Erin O’Toole, CD. 

Whereas Fantino seemed cold and aloof, O’Toole was a smooth talking Bay Street lawyer, media savvy with a personable public persona. The façade deftly concealed his zeal to curtail departmental expenses by ‘streamlining' VAC’s bureaucracy and policies. This reform was predicated upon the looming demise of WW2 and Korean War which will shift the department’s focus towards modern veteran’s who are deemed moderately to severely disabled, as determined by VAC’s Table of Disabilities.

That is the theory but not the reality. For example, a veteran may be deemed Totally and Permanently Impaired by Manulife’s SISIP LTD or VAC Earning Loss Benefits program yet the same incapacity is rated by VAC’s ancient Table of Disabilities below that level which VAC requires in order for a client to be deemed moderately to severely disabled. This disparity in reality affects access to the Retirement Income Security Benefit at age 65, which only recognizes VAC’s  moderate to severe disability rating as a qualifier. 

O’Toole’s tactics and management of disenfranchised veterans represented by the Equitas group proved very effective in maneuvering them into an abeyance during the election period. Simultaneously, O’Toole supervised a dedicated process of ‘streamlining' hundreds of vital front line positions into oblivion. The consequences of these cutbacks on the veterans' community were immediate, increasingly profound and are perpetuated to this day. Case management, for those few assigned a case manager, have blossomed into an unsustainable ratio. Veterans seeking acknowledgement of their national sacrifice  experienced prolonged delays as the overwhelmed processing staff ‘ streamlined' decisions through new conservative policies designed to appease the few yet exclude and deny the majority. Of particular note was the criteria established for the Combat Injury Benefit.

Quite the legacy has been established under O’Toole’s leadership. 

As a result VAC was mortally dysfunctional by the time the conservative mandate ended in 2015, and it has yet to recover, despite dedicated efforts on the part of Trudeau’s Liberals to improve the quality of service.  

Objectively, there have been significant improvements in respect to mental health, suicide prevention, support for caregiving spouses and for the family unit’s financial and psychological requirements.
Hundreds of millions of dollars have been committed to veterans over the past six years. This has resolved many contentious issues. The much reviled Lump Sum Award has been elevated to $360 thousand and a choice of the Liberal’s version of Pension For Life (PFL), which, while remaining deficient when compared to the recognition of an individual's national sacrifice which the Pension Act accords, it is as they say 'better than nothing'! 

Will the conservative mantra of balancing the budget repeat itself should O’Toole and his Conservative Party form the next government?

When confronted with the Liberal’s massive pandemic deficit, will O’Toole implement draconian austerity programs, which would include drastic civil servant staff reductions under the never ending guise of ‘streamlining' services? Will the $1150 at 100% Pension for Life and/or definitely positive improvements which were only made possible under a Liberal government be subject to review and fiscal reforms? Will Veterans Affairs Canada, always the target of past austerity programs, be ‘ streamlined’ in order to balance a deficit fighting Conservative budget? Will the national debt once again be prioritized ahead of the blood sweat and tears of disabled veterans?  

Will it be Déjà vu all over again for O’toole?

Pregnancy and Society

By Military Woman

Q: If pregnancy is a normal fact of life, why is it still a big deal in the military?

A: In the June 2020 Military Women column, pregnancy was indeed highlighted as a perfectly normal physiological life event, however pregnancy is also a commonly cited bone fide sex difference that we know can impact military employment and operational effectiveness. Let’s consider some of the unique aspects of pregnancy in the military first within the context of the history of women in Canadian
society.

 Did you know that women only became legally recognized as “persons” on October 18th, 1929 (Edwards v Canada)? This constitutional change paved the way for women’s increased participation in public life, a milestone acknowledged annually with the official designation of October 18th as Persons Day.

During both world wars, women were asked to temporarily fill traditionally male military and civilian work roles. However, once World War II was over, married women were expected to return to the home, while unmarried women were pushed back into gender normative civilian positions. Employee pregnancy was not something the male dominated workspaces, military or civilian, expected to be seeing or dealing with.

In 1960, all Canadian women were finally accorded the right to vote. In 1965, due to human resource shortages, the military allowed a handful of gender-appropriate trades to recruit up to 1,500 unmarried women into the regular forces. Military women were still being released upon marriage, in part due to the assumption that they would soon become pregnant. Those assumptions were no longer valid when the oral contraceptive pill was made legal in 1969. The ability of women to control their own reproductive status was a gamechanger.

The pivotal Report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women (1970), noted that society has “a responsibility for [the] special treatment of women related to pregnancy and childbirth”. The Commission opened the doors for women to potentially return to the workforce after a pregnancy with recommendations for both maternity leave and guaranteed job security. The report also opened up military colleges, gave women access to previously men-only military pensions, and removed marriage and pregnancy as reasons for mandatory military release. Finally, women didn’t have to choose between a family and a military career—at least not on paper.

In the same decade, the Canadian Human Rights Act (1977) prohibited federal workplace discrimination related to sex, marital status and/or family status, and the military conducted a complete personnel policy update review (1978).

Momentum for women to stay in the workforce, both during and after pregnancy, grew in the 1980s. Canada signed the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1980) that, among other things, called for special workplace protections for women during pregnancy.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982), prohibited workplace discrimination based on sex. The Employment Equity Act (1986) required the identification and elimination of unnecessary barriers to employment in federal workspaces for identified groups, including specifically women. The decade ended with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (1989) supporting a complaint against the military for employment discrimination based on sex. The result was that the Canadian Armed Forces was ordered to fully integrate women into all jobs within 10 years. Since the 1990s, women have entered with ever growing numbers into the previously male-only military operational combat roles and environments.

The last 100 years have seen the legal barriers to workplace equity for Canadian women removed—including in the military.
However, many employers have put more resources into enrolling women into the previously male-only trades then proactively ensuring their safe retention through enabled, appropriately accommodated workspaces. In the military, the politically driven focus on total numbers of women working in non-traditional and operational military roles continues to overshadow the parallel concurrent need to knowledge generate evidence-based protections and supports for those working women, especially while pregnant or breastfeeding. How to best address that is another discussion for another day.