Defence

Friday March 11, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday March 11, 2022

Military neglect catches up with Canada

November 17, 2015

It was reassuring to hear Justin Trudeau pledge Canada’s unwavering support for its European allies this week. It would have been even better if the prime minister had a strong Canadian military to back him up. But he doesn’t and brave words won’t be enough to make 150,000 Russian soldiers retreat from Ukraine. Just when it’s needed more than at any time since the Second World War, Canada’s military muscle has gone soft because a generation of federal governments consistently went cheap on military spending. And Canadians let them do it.

Our soldiers, sailors and aircrew are without doubt well-trained and respected internationally. But they are too few in number and too poorly equipped to do the job Canada expects them to do. Despite more than a decade of trying, we have yet to replace our ancient fleet of CF-18 fighter jets, our outdated frigates or our retired naval destroyers. Our Armed Forces need 10,000 more people to reach full strength — but such growth is nowhere in sight. In fact, to meet our NATO commitments, we would have to boost our annual $24-billion military budget by about $9 billion. At this point, there is no indication the federal government is prepared to do that.

Wednesday January 12, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday January 12, 2022

Canada offers to support U.S. measures to deter Russia in confrontation with Ukraine

June 13, 2017

Canada has told the U.S. that it’s willing to help with possible deterrence measures against Russia — which could include sanctions — to head off a crisis in Ukraine, CBC News has learned.

Canada made the offer during a meeting between Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Dec. 31, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.

The source said the message was received well by Blinken. 

Bilateral talks between Russia and the U.S. over the nearly eight-year-long war in Ukraine took place in Geneva Monday. Nearly 100,000 Russian troops are stationed near Ukraine’s eastern border, prompting concerns from other countries that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin intends to invade Ukraine.

Wednesday May 26, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday May 26, 2021

Ottawa failed to properly implement sexual misconduct report, top Defence civil servant says

Canada’s deputy minister of National Defence says the military’s operation to end sexual misconduct in its ranks “lost its way” because the government failed to properly implement recommendations from a landmark report into the issue six years ago.

May 1, 2021

Jody Thomas said she wasn’t working for the Department of National Defence in 2015, when a scathing report into sexual misconduct by former Supreme Court justice Marie Deschamps was released.

But Thomas said her “observation” is that the Deschamps report was treated like a checklist. She said the government did not “truly” implement it — something the military has been loath to say.

“It was not given the oversight it needed by the civilian part of the department, so my side of the department in terms of monitoring,” Thomas said in an interview on CBC’s The Current with Matt Galloway. 

“I think that as little was done as possible to make it look like the report had been responded to without any real change. No structural change, no legislative change, no outside the department, outside the Canadian Armed Forces reporting — those kinds of things that Madame Deschamps emphasized.”

Thomas’s comment is in stark contrast to what the military told Parliament last month.

Brig.-Gen. Andrew Atherton, director general of professional military conduct, told MPs probing sexual misconduct in the Armed Forces that all of the recommendations in the Deschamps report were fulfilled.

May 2, 2017

“From our perspective, we believe we have achieved all of those 10 recommendations,” Atherton said on April 15. “However, that is our opinion.”

Thomas told Galloway it’s time to be frank.

“My observation would be that it was treated almost as a checklist, and I think it’s time that we were just honest about that,” Thomas said.

The statement is a clear admission of failure when it comes to the Defence Department’s handling of sexual misconduct.

That said, Thomas did say she wouldn’t characterize Operation Honour — the military’s now-defunct campaign to stamp out sexual misconduct — “completely as a failure,” citing the creation of the Sexual Misconduct Response Centre and increased reporting. 

Eyre replaced Admiral Art McDonald, who stepped aside from the top job in February during an investigation into a sexual misconduct claim. McDonald had replaced Gen. Jonathan Vance, who is also under a military police probe over claims of inappropriate behaviour — allegations that he told Global News he denies. Several other senior leaders have also been swept up into the reckoning.

Eyre repeated his message that the military has “failed as an institution to properly address” sexual misconduct over the decades. He called it an “existential issue” that threatens to make the military “irrelevant” in society and not able to defend the country if it’s not fixed. (CBC) 

 

Saturday May 1, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday May 1, 2021

‘My recommendations will be implemented’: Louise Arbour prepares to review misconduct in Canada’s military

When faced with the idea of conducting an external review on sexual misconduct in the military — six years after a similar review was completed — retired Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour said her initial impression was: “Seriously? It’s been done.” 

October 18, 2016

Upon reflection, Arbour said she saw an environment in which she could make a lasting contribution, having been given a broader mandate from the federal government than the one handed to retired Supreme Court justice Marie Deschamps when she conducted a similar review. 

“I have been given assurances that my recommendations will be implemented,” a point Arbour returned to several times in an interview with the Star on Friday, while acknowledging that “you might think it’s a bit naïve” considering the military’s response so far to the Deschamps review. 

“Six years after the Deschamps report, I think there’s better hope this time that something will come of this…If I was profoundly skeptical and cynical, I wouldn’t be doing this. I really have to believe that there is a window of opportunity.”

Arbour’s external review, announced Thursday by Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, was immediately blasted by critics as a deflection tactic by a government and military that have failed to fully implement Deschamps’s recommendations. 

The Conservatives said it was meant to take attention away from ongoing questions about the government’s handling of an allegation against ex-chief of the defence staff Gen. Jonathan Vance in 2018.

June 13, 2017

Deschamps — who concluded in 2015 that sexual misconduct is “endemic” in the military — told the Star she welcomed Arbour’s appointment, noting her broader mandate and that her review “would not be a mere repetition of what I did.” 

A former justice on the country’s top court, UN high commissioner for human rights, and chief prosecutor at the international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, Arbour brings a deep knowledge of human rights issues to her new task.

“Maybe the most important part of (Deschamps’s) work was the diagnosis,” Arbour said. “It was really earth shattering, the assessment of the prevalence of this predatory, sexualized culture.” 

Arbour said she understands the frustration of survivors of military sexual violence, both those who have come forward, as well as those who never have due to lack of trust in the system.

“I understand their frustration and possibly their skepticism, about just another review by another justice. I get that,” she said. “I really want to say: Just bear with me. I think moving forward, this might be the right time for the right thing to get done.” 

Unlike Deschamps’s mandate, Arbour has been instructed to come up with recommendations on what external oversight of the armed forces should look like. She will also be studying the military justice system’s “systemic performance” in dealing with sexual misconduct allegations, as well as recruitment and promotion to senior leadership. (Toronto Star) 

 

Friday April 5, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday April 5, 2019

The world still needs NATO after 70 years

The 70th birthday of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization this week deserved far more attention and celebration than it received.

November 23, 2002

There were no parades, no fireworks, no self-congratulatory gatherings of presidents and prime ministers clinking champagne flutes to recognize an alliance that has done so much for global peace and security.

Instead, and in marked contrast to the three-day extravaganza that saluted NATO’s accomplishments on its 50th anniversary in 1999, there was only a low-key ministerial meeting Thursday for the organization’s members in Washington, D.C.

This was likely because an ambitious, A-list gathering of NATO-nation leaders would have had to include the volatile, NATO-bashing American President Donald Trump. Having no party was preferable to having one he’d ruin.

Yet NATO was worthy of better. Whatever challenges it faces today — and some coming from disaffected members like Turkey are urgent — NATO must be judged a rousing success.

According to the Brookings Institution research group, NATO is one of the most enduring military alliances in the past 500 years. It rose from the wreckage of the Second World War, when European nations so recently freed from the scourge of Nazi Germany were confronted by an aggressively expansionist Soviet Union.

May 29, 2002

Some critics insisted NATO had passed its best-before date. Russian President Vladimir Putin showed how wrong they were. Today, and with support from Canada’s Armed Forces, the 29-member alliance has deployed troops in the Baltic States, Ukraine and Poland to halt Putin’s territorial ambitions. When the Russians annexed Crimea and destabilized eastern Ukraine, an impotent United Nations watched. NATO acted.

Despite Trump’s rants and threats, Congress and the American people are largely supportive of NATO. They know the alliance helped them in Afghanistan and how much the friendship of so many nations counts in a changing, uncertain world just awakening to the rise of a headstrong, authoritarian China.

Today’s world is very different from what it was in 1949. But for seven decades NATO has helped guide it through seas both calm and rough. Change it must and will. But NATO is still needed and we hope it lasts at least seven decades more. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)