The latest news, that the second chief of personnel to lose their job due to accusations of sexual misconduct, LTG Stephen Whelan, has his case withdrawn, may cause some folks to argue that there was never really a crisis, that this was all hysteria (yes, that word), and the culture change efforts are unnecessary.
I don't know Whelan, and I am not a legal expert. I do know that there have been multiple reports that indicate that military justice is somewhat broken, and handing stuff over to civilian courts is no panacea.
What I do know is that there was and is a crisis, not just of sexual misconduct, but abuse of power and, yes, civilian control of the military. How do I know that?
- The former Chief of the Defence Staff, Jon Vance, pled guilty to obstruction of justice. What justice was he obstructing? An investigation into his multi-decade affair with a subordinate than ran completely counter to the campaign he was "leading" to deal with such stuff in the military.
- The same person appointed as Chief of Personnel (the one before Whelan) someone who had a nickname as Mulligan man for evading prosecution for rape ... until now. I have had folks claim that Vance didn't know about this. Um, sure. So, either Vance did know and didn't care, or he didn't know because he didn't do a sufficient job of vetting those he chose for the key slot of .... implementing policies concerning such stuff as sexual misconduct.
- Vance's successor, Art McDonald, was accused of sexual assault and was not prosecuted because the suspect military investigators argued that everyone was too drunk to testify against him AND then McDonald violated the norms of civil-military relations by insisting he was coming back via a letter he sent to all of the generals and admirals. Talk about entitlement.
- There was a settled class action suit involving over 20,000 former or current military folks, including a significant percentage of men.
- There has been the exodus of women officers with bright careers who were disgusted by their senior officers.
- There are multiple reports on this: DesChamps, Arbour, Fish, ....
I have had plenty of conversations with folks in the military who think that there was a problem, that there is a lot of work being done to address the problem, that the problem is hard, that there is progress, but it is far from solved.
So, yes, Fortin got off, Whelan got off. Others may also not be prosecuted or the prosecutions may not work out. If this were a murder case, we wouldn't say that the victim is not dead. Again, sexual misconduct and abuse of power are existing problems, they do deter recruitment and they hurt retention. The culture of the Canadian military must continue to change to reflect a more diverse military unless we want only straight, white, Christian men.
To deny that is to be bad at math, history, and social science. And finally, no one is entitled to a three star/leaf position. Whelan may want his job back, but to have such an elite office, one has to be beyond reproach. That the government failed to make its case does not mean that Whelan should serve as Chief of Personnel.
4 comments:
I'm not sure what was meant by "the suspect military investigators" in #3 "..Art McDonald...was not prosecuted because the suspect military investigators argued that everyone was too drunk to testify against him".
Cheers,
I was suggesting that the often criticized military investigation processes/personnel folks are, well, suspect. That their not finding enough evidence to prosecute someone really does not tell us that much about someone's likely guilty/innocence.
Makes sense now. I'm more accustomed to "suspect" as either a verb or noun. Probably watch too many crime shows.
Re Vance’s affair: consenting adults, even in the military and even of different rank are never prohibited from having sex. Op Honour did not restrict who could sleep with each other - and no regulation could. As long as the relationship is not adverse, in the vernacular, meaning it does not involve an immediate subordinate and their boss and when it does, the couple are only then separated to ensure the adverse conditions are removed. The ‘investigation’ found no evidence of sexual harm or, by definition, misconduct, but the phone calls, recorded, did point to an attempt at obstruction. Vance was not convicted.
You have become a fanatic, sir, where even the courts of the land are not to be trusted.
There was/is a crisis, but Fortin, Whelan and Vance are not the reason, not the cause and definitely not even remotely the best examples of it. Their ‘accusers’ are vey likely not victims at all.
You need to ponder married service couples, divorced service couples and LGBTQ+ relationships before you impugn people in the military having sexual relations.
Can you not see the salaciousness of media using high ranking people and making them out to be what they are not?
Maybe ask yourself why the cases went to court in the first place…I suspect undue influence from your fellow fanatics pandering to the issue in an unprofessional and highly biased fashion.
Anything in your closet??
Oh yeah, maybe cite your references for all those conversations. Truth be told, the handling of this by Thomas, Eyre, et al is doing far more harm than the original crisis.
And how dare you point to white Christian males as somehow a demographic that condones sexual misconduct. Shame on you!
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