By Scott Taylor
In a string of recent articles, Ottawa Citizen reporter David Pugliese has exposed the senior leadership of the Canadian Armed Forces to be a bungling behemoth of misguided bureaucracy.
In particular Pugliese has focused on outgoing Chief of Defence Staff, General Wayne Eyre.
Back on March 7, General Eyre appeared before an Ottawa conference, wherein he called for increased openness and transparency within the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces. Eyre said more information about the military had to be provided to Canadians.
This was a speech delivered in a public forum to retired and serving military officers, parliamentarians, diplomats and defence analysts. It is something which would normally be posted to the DND website to ensure that media outlets reporting on General Eyre's comments would be accurate.
However, when Pugliese asked General Eyre's office for a copy of the 'openness and transparency' speech, he was told to make a formal request under the Access to Information Act (ATI).
Obviously General Eyre and his advisors do not understand the word 'irony'. It is now evident that General Eyre and his advisors also do not understand that the Access to Information Act is a federal law, not merely a suggestion.
On April 8, Pugliese did file a formal request for General Eyre's 'openness and transparency' speech along with the requisite $5 fee. The ATI stipulates that those documents requested under the act are to be released within 30 days. That stipulation was ignored. General Eyre's office has yet to release a copy of that 'openness and transparency' speech, putting Canada's Chief of Defence Staff at odds with the laws of the country he is entrusted to defend.
At this point it appears that General Eyre's refusal to release his speaking notes is both petty and petulant. His staffers would be wise to remind him that such actions reflect upon the office of the CDS and not just General Eyre personally.
Understandably General Eyre would have some animosity towards Pugliese, who is without a doubt the most connected defence reporter in Canada. Those inside the CAF and DND know that if they want an embarrassing truth to see the light of day, then Pugliese is the conduit through which to make it public.
To wit, last month Pugliese asked General Eyre's office for a copy of the video from a virtual town hall meeting hosted by the CDS and the Canadian Armed Forces Chief Warrant Officer Bob McCann. Again, the brain-trust in General Eyre's office told Pugliese to pound salt as that video was intended of 'internal use only'.
But as reported in the Ottawa Citizen, a copy was eventually leaked to Pugliese. That video copy came from military staff who have grown increasingly frustrated with attempts to clamp down on information that could be considered embarrassing to the senior leadership or the Liberal government.
The contents of that townhall provided material for no less than three revealing stories, not the least of which being the assessment by CWO McCann that the reason for the current retention problem in the CAF is due to 'toxic leadership'.
A prime example of that toxic leadership would be General Eyre's failure to live up to his own 'openness and transparency' speech, or to abide by the federal ATI laws.
Last Wednesday Pugliese wrote about another issue raised in the townhall video, with a story headlined "Too much bureaucracy at NDHQ, top general says, but no changes offered to status quo".
Eyre noted to those in attendance that the CAF/DND currently has too many 'Level Ones'. For those unfamiliar with this term, a 'level one' executive reports directly to the Chief of the Defence Staff or the Deputy Minister of the department. On the military side this would be the Commanders of the Royal Canadian Navy, the Army and the Royal Canadian Air Force. For those old timers doing the math, it is a head scratcher to determine how that number is now at a staggering 23.
In terms of General Officers and Flag Officers, Canada currently has 140 of these GOFO's for just 86,175 regular and reserve personnel. This must be one of the highest ratios of GOFO's-to-personnel in the world.
While General Eyre acknowledged this absurd overstaffing of NDHQ, he offered no specific direction forward other than to acknowledge changes had to be made. “I am of the personal view that we have too many military and civilian Level 1s,” he told the officers during the meeting in April. “So lots of work in that space."
That is hardly a decisive way forward to deal with such a significant problem.
