Re: Letters / Opinions

by **Vizzer** Sun 24 May 2020, 4:33 pm

Opinion: Feds failing veterans with outrageous benefits delays

Burnaby NOW / Burnaby Now
MAY 24, 2020

Letters / Opinions - Page 7 Remembrance-day-4

Two years ago, the number of Canadian veterans applying for disability benefits stood at roughly 30,000. Last year, that number climbed to 40,000, and this year it stood at 44,000.

The federal Veteran’s Affairs department which handles the program has a policy that 80% of all applications are to be processed within 16 weeks.

Clearly that target is not being met.

In April, Robert Nordlund, an RCMP officer for 36 years, died of cancer. He had been waiting two years to learn if he qualified for benefits. But Veteran’s Affairs dismisses requests if the applicant has meanwhile died and there is no surviving spouse or dependent children.

This disgraceful state of affairs began in 2006, when the federal government replaced lifelong pensions with a lump sum payment.

During the 2015 election, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to reinstate the pension. But instead, his government bundled all of the existing benefits into an entitlement that veteran’s groups say is worth roughly half what the previous pension would have offered.

There are several additional factors in play. Trudeau’s administration has introduced a computerized program for disability payments that has some of the same bugs as his government’s Phoenix payroll system.

Paperwork is also a nightmare. Master Cpl. Paul Franklin served with the Canadian military as a medic for 11 years. Two weeks before he retired, he lost both his legs to a suicide bomber in Afghanistan. Every year since he has been required to prove he has no legs.

Then in 2018, the veteran’s ombudsman’s office discovered that more than 270,000 retired soldiers had been shortchanged by Veteran’s Affairs. The amounts involved, totalling some $165 million, were huge.

The department has admitted the “accounting” error, and promised restitution this year. But in the meantime about 175,000 of these veterans have died.

But by far the most immediate problem is the lengthy wait veterans must endure to learn if their application will be approved. Some 70 members of the armed forces have committed suicide since their service in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some could have been saved if the government had lived up to its promises of faster and improved service. And here an ugly thought enters the scene. If veterans without direct dependents die two years before an application is processed, the government will make no payment to the estate.

To be fair, this policy is set in legislation (though given the department’s well-established reputation for tardiness, one might wonder why). Nevertheless, there is no financial incentive to move at better than a snail’s pace.

We’re not suggesting deliberate foot-dragging. We are suggesting that if the department cannot live up to its wait-times policy, the two-year deadline should be extended.

We ask young men and women to step forward and serve their country, with the promise that when the time comes, they will receive a fair pension, and get it in a timely manner. As things stand, those promises are not being honoured.

Not even close.

https://www.burnabynow.com/opinion/opinion-feds-failing-veterans-with-outrageous-benefits-delays-1.24140372

by **Spider** Mon 25 May 2020, 8:57 am

Canada must divide its military resources along foreign and domestic lines

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT
May 25.2020

Christian Leuprecht is Class of 1965 professor in leadership at the Royal Military College, director of the Institute of Intergovernmental Relations at Queen’s University, and a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. His latest book is Public Security in Federal Polities.

The deployment of 1,700 regular force and reserve military members for duty in long-term care homes in Ontario and Quebec has been widely applauded by Canadians. At the same time, we seem ambivalent about the decision to scale back or suspend several of the Canadian Armed Forces’ (CAF) international commitments. As far as the public is concerned, the military’s away game is discretionary – a distraction used to keep busy when forces are not needed at home.

The problem is that the country’s stability, prosperity and harmony have long hinged on an expeditionary military force. The CAF asserts the country’s geostrategic interests by bolstering allies and promoting stability abroad. With the globalization of transnational threats, many of Canada’s allies have adopted a similarly expeditionary posture, and our allies have just as much difficulty selling the necessity of these actions to their domestic constituencies as Canada does.

But other countries’ civil-military relations differ from Canada in an important respect: under their social contract, there is a broad consensus to keep the military out of domestic operations. The sentiment they hold is that just because the military can do a job at home does not mean that it should.

These countries want their military to defend their interests; so, in response to a non-security-related emergency, their civil society largely has to cope on its own. That functional logic has informed Canada’s allies and partners in creating organizations that jointly address civil defense and disaster preparedness. Examples include the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the United States, State Emergency Service (SES) in Australia, the Technisches Hilfswerk (THW) in Germany, the Sécurité Civile in France and the Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) in Sweden. These organizations provide surge capacity across a broad spectrum of expertise, as well as trained volunteers and equipment to assist with disaster response.

Canada has no equivalent. Provincial emergency measures organizations have no deployable operational capacity. So, the CAF ends up backstopping emergency response. That is the consequence of a peculiarly Canadian anachronism.

Under subsection 91(7) of the Constitution, the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over matters concerning the “militia, military and naval service, and defence.” While provinces and municipalities are precluded from forming their own militaries, American states maintain their own national guards. Those state militias provided a catalyst that hastened the U.S. civil war. In negotiating Confederation during the 1860s, a deeply divided and politically deadlocked Canada was intent on not replicating the Americans’ mistake.

At the time, only the federal government possessed the necessary police forces to ensure peace and order. Under the “aid to civil power” provision in the Militia Act of 1868, a local official (e.g., a mayor, warden or magistrate) could requisition the militia and a local military commander would have to oblige. Back then, it guaranteed that there would always be sufficient resources available to ensure the administration of justice in Canada’s provinces. Today, it is a moral hazard: knowing that they can call in the CAF, provinces underinvest in critical infrastructure.

Over time, the mechanism for aid to civil authority has evolved without much political oversight, debate or public awareness. Canada’s 2017 defence white paper “Strong, Secure, Engaged” (SSE) explicitly provides for the reserves to take on new roles and capabilities. Civil response is precisely the mandate the reserves should have. Yet many of the members deployed under Operation LENTUS – the CAF’s standing mission for domestic operations – belong to the regular force.

The reserves should focus on the home game, so the regular force does not get distracted from the away game.

Such a division of labour would entail a fundamental restructuring of the CAF. The army reserve is based on an obsolete model of mobilizing militia for war: a shadow infantry and artillery waiting to be filled out in case we deploy our forces for battle.

Canada can learn from its allies: home and away need not be zero-sum games, especially when a country spends as little on its armed forces as Canada does. Pandemics aside, as climate change brings more frequent and greater floods, snowstorms, and forest fires, the CAF would do well to consider alternative models to deliver on its civil-response mandate. Its current approach is manifestly inefficient and unsustainable.

Canadians will not pay for a bigger military. So Canada will need a better-organized military that is actually structured to optimize taxpayers’ return on investment.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-canada-must-divide-its-military-resources-along-foreign-and-domestic/

by **Forcell** Fri 19 Jun 2020, 9:31 am

As commanders move to protect an already stretched force from the spread of the virus, some operations have had to be curtailed or paused.

Stéfanie von Hlatky, Stephen Saideman
June 19, 2020

The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) has been stretched by natural disaster relief efforts and is in even higher demand now with Operation Laser, the CAF response to COVID-19. The virus itself has spread into the CAF, with service members testing positive after being deployed into long-term care facilities. These events have reduced the CAF’s readiness and stalled recruitment efforts, raising the question of what the military is doing outside of Canada at a time when domestic operations are on the rise.

The CAF has tough choices to make about what risks are worth taking and which efforts must be curtailed. Canada’s largest deployments have been to Latvia, Ukraine, and Iraq with additional forces in Kosovo. (Canada has the fewest soldiers deployed in UN missions in decades.)

While Canadians have looked to the armed forces to help us deal with the pandemic, we have to take seriously the threat COVID-19 poses to the Canadian Armed Forces. The saga of the American aircraft carrier stuck in Guam for two months after a COVID-19 outbreak aboard makes it clear not only can the members of armed forces catch this virus, but that it can spread quickly and widely in military units.

Ships may be the most vulnerable, but no military service is designed to allow for social distancing. For example, the bunks in average military barracks are close together, designed to cram as many troops in a space as possible. To maintain the ability to fight if called up —readiness — the CAF must now focus on a different notion of force protection. Rather than being concerned with improvised explosive devices and suicide bombers in Afghanistan, now the commanders have to worry about protecting the force from a virus.

This concern shapes the decisions about what the troops can and should be doing. To this end, one of the first orders of the chief of the defence staff in launching Op Laser was to announce an operational pause and for service members to stay at home to be healthy if called upon to support civilian authorities, a request that came in late March. But with 2,000 CAF members deployed abroad across 20 operations, the military has also had to adjust its operational tempo internationally. While some of the deployed forces have been put on an operational pause, other operations have simply adapted to public health restrictions or adapted their mission tasks to take COVID-19 into account.

Letters / Opinions - Page 7 23237661-1024x627

The deployment to Latvia is and has been the largest and most visible CAF effort over the past several years. Canada is the Framework Nation in Latvia, providing leadership for eight NATO countries as part of the Enhanced Forward Presence mission designed to deter Russian aggression in the Baltics. The pandemic has not stopped the CAF from training and demonstrating its readiness in Latvia. Exercises continue but with less direct interaction with the public to avoid spreading the disease. “Training keeps on going, as you would suspect, with the full battle group of nine nations,” Col. Eric Laforest, the commander of Task Force Latvia told CTV News. There is a concern among NATO allies that the Russians, if given an opportunity, would take advantage of a Canadian/NATO withdrawal.

In Kosovo, also, operations are ongoing, and the NATO mission there, KFOR, has integrated COVID-19 response as part of its activities. KFOR troops can continue to perform their core tasks of providing a safe and secure environment and freedom of mobility so long as they follow public health guidelines. KFOR personnel have been able to deliver medical equipment to communities in Kosovo, from Pristina to Mitrovica. COVID-19 has even opened up new civil-military cooperation opportunities for KFOR, staying present and visible within the communities in which it operates.

In contrast, the training mission in Ukraine, Operation UNIFIER, has been frozen since early April and is just restarting now. Canada is one of several countries that has been engaged in bilateral training efforts coordinated via the Multinational Joint Commission, which includes Lithuania, Poland, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. In the aftermath of Russia’s seizure of Crimea and its involvement in the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, Canada, along with these other countries, has sought to train the Ukrainians so that they can better resist Russia-backed forces. Instead of 200 CAF troops engaged in training, there have been about 60 staffing the mission, with no training going on so as to minimize the spread of the disease. Another 90 soldiers will soon join them.

Still at a halt is the NATO Mission in Iraq (NMI), which is tasked with providing advice and training assistance. In late May, the government of Iraq requested assistance from NATO in the form of medical equipment and other supplies, saying that COVID-19 had outstripped the ability of the Iraqi Ministry of Defence to support efforts by the country’s Ministry of Health to control the spread of COVID-19 and deal with those personnel with symptoms of the virus. Why, then, has NATO not adapted its operations to support the Government of Iraq, keeping its forces in theatre?

In mid-May, at a NATO meeting of the Chiefs of Defence this spring, Air Chief Marshal Peach said, “when the conditions permit, and working with the government of Iraq, we will resume our training efforts as well as increase our activities on the ground as we take responsibility for some of the training activities of the Global Coalition.” Worsening security conditions, especially with the targeted killing of top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in January, combined with the additional operational stressor of COVID-19, has put Iraq on the backburner. While NATO has pointed to deteriorating security conditions as the main reason for this operational pause, the CAF has indicated that Op Impact activities are paused because of COVID-19 and the risks associated with spreading the virus. Personnel that were in Lebanon and Jordan stayed in place in the spring, awaiting the end of their tour, while personnel in Iraq operating under the banner of NMI returned home.

When we compare different theatres of operations, we can see how the CAF has adapted its activities abroad in response to COVID-19. Carrying out training activities, whether it is in Ukraine or Iraq, requires meeting series after series of new troops, greatly increasing the risk of exposure to COVID-19. Pausing training has consequences, but such stoppages do not present a threat to the security of the host country. This sets a clear distinction between training missions and, for instance, the deterrence mission in Latvia, where the goal is to deter Russian aggression.

Thus far, the CAF and its leadership have made responsible decisions for the missions based on the prevalence of COVID-19 in the host countries, the risks to Canadian troops and the nature of the threats. This has been the best course of action, but operational pauses are meant to be temporary, and more difficult decisions lay ahead for Canadian commitments abroad.

https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/june-2020/how-covid-19-has-impacted-canadian-forces-missions-abroad/

by **Forcell** Fri 10 Jul 2020, 8:48 am

LETTER: Local veteran forced to fight government for benefits

By: Letter to the Editor July 09. 2020

'Veterans Affairs are dishonouring the sacrifice of our fallen by continuously denying soldiers access to earned benefits,' says local Afghan War veteran

Letters / Opinions - Page 7 Jr-smith-veteran

Local resident JR Smith, an Afghan war veteran, is fighting for benefits.

It's unfortunate that Canadian veterans have to fight their own government for benefits.

Canadian veterans have long held a distinguished role as defenders of democracy in World War II and Korea, as well as a global peacekeeper in conflicts around the world including Cypres, Croatia, Rwanda, Haiti, Sudan, East Timor and most recently in Mali.

In fact, the first UN Peacekeeping mission was Lester Pearson's initiative brought forward to help bring an end to the Suez Crisis in 1956.

Canadian veterans, such as Simcoe County resident and Afghan veteran JR Smith, have paid a steep price for their efforts in dangerous and stressful combat zones.

Many disabled Canadian veterans are facing numerous delays in seeking disability supports. Over the past decade, regional offices have closed across the country and funding for Veterans Affairs has been reduced.

"There's an enormous backlog of disability benefit applications at Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) which has persisted and worsened in recent years." says Rachel Blaney, Veterans' Affairs Critic. “Lawrence MacAulay, Minister of Veterans Affairs should take this opportunity to eliminate the existing backlog, and ensure all of Canada’s veterans get the support they need in a timely fashion.”

Afghan veteran JR Smith, "I am fighting Veterans Affairs because of unfair processes that veterans have to go up against to obtain benefits and placement on programs. Veterans affairs are dishonouring the sacrifice of our fallen by continuously denying soldiers access to earned benefits that are ultimately funded by taxpayer dollars.”

"In light of the government’s response to COVID-19, it is now obvious that automatic approvals followed by audits are an incredibly efficient way of getting support to people in need. A number of veterans advocacy organizations are calling for this to apply to Canada’s veterans," says MP Rachel Blaney.

Automatic approvals would also support employees at VAC where there is significant turnover due to stress, significant overtime, and burnout, resulting in, "Stress leave from work, the backlog of files gets worse, and thus we fall into a cycle with no relief in sight for veterans or VAC employees."

As proud Canadians, we must insist that our federal government take this opportunity to do better for disabled veterans seeking financial support.

Pekka Reinio
Barrie

*************************

https://www.barrietoday.com/letters-to-the-editor/letter-local-veteran-forced-to-fight-government-for-benefits-2546708

by **Forcell** Tue 28 Jul 2020, 9:17 am

COMMENTARY: Could Canada’s next chief of defence staff be a woman?

By Matthew Fisher Special to Global News
Posted July 28, 2020

Letters / Opinions - Page 7 Cpt70172268-1

https://globalnews.ca/news/7215639/canada-chief-defence-staff/

by **Warrior** Fri 18 Sep 2020, 4:30 pm

Opinion: A salute to Canada's military families – the backbone of our Armed Forces

National Post & Suzie Fortin
Publishing date:Sep 18, 2020

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/opinion-lets-celebrate-the-backbone-of-the-canadian-armed-forces-their-families

by Lucifer Sat 27 Feb 2021, 2:56 pm

Editorial: Public inquiry needed to fix dishonourable conduct in Canada's military

The mounting evidence that allegations of sexual impropriety reach through all ranks is profoundly dismaying.

Editorial Board
Publishing date: Feb 27, 2021

It was designed as a good-news press conference for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a chance to tout the just-approved AstraZeneca vaccine. And Friday’s media event was indeed going well – until Global News reporter Mercedes Stephenson turned the questioning away from COVID-19 and toward the “inbox full of emails” she has from “women who have experienced sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces under your government.”

That apparent flood of emails follow news this week that Canada’s new Chief of Defence Staff, Adm. Art McDonald, has stepped aside amid allegations of sexual impropriety. That act, in turn, follows allegations of misconduct with two female subordinates against former chief of defence staff Gen. Jonathan Vance, which he denies. Both men are being investigated by the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service.

For all who honour our military, the accusations sting deeply. After all, it was Vance, appointed in 2015, who launched “Operation Honour” to stamp out sexual misconduct in the Armed Forces. And McDonald, in his first address as CDS last month, pledged to help create “a respectful environment.”

Both men are entitled to proper investigation and due process – as are the people who allege mistreatment – but the mounting evidence that these are not simply one-off accusations against particular people is profoundly dismaying. Six years ago, former Supreme Court justice Marie Deschamps published a damning report calling sexual misconduct in the military “endemic.” Has nothing changed? Apparently not. This week, a statement from the Conference of Defence Associations and the CDA Institute said, “It is more important than ever that victims have the confidence to come forward and have their complaints addressed with respect, fairness and the greatest of transparency.”

Ah yes, transparency. What did the prime minister say on Friday when asked to address the many women who believe they have been sexually victimized while serving their nation?

“Every single person in this country deserves a safe place to work in, free from harassment or intimidation,” he solemnly recited. “We will be there to listen (to victims), to hear them, to work with them and to move forward with processes that will get to the right answers.”

What those processes are, we don’t know, but women are sick of such platitudes. Intentions are not actions and this crisis is about more than two accused commanders. A full-scale public inquiry into sexual misconduct in the military is urgently needed. Canadians deserve as much transparency on this problem as they do on the rollout of new vaccines.

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/editorial-public-inquiry-needed-to-fix-dishonourable-conduct-in-canadas-military

by **Replica** Thu 06 May 2021, 9:17 pm

The will to solve the Canadian military’s sexual misconduct crisis must come from within - and I should know

LEAH WEST
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
PUBLISHED MAY 6, 2021

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-if-canadas-military-really-intends-to-solve-its-sexual-misconduct/

by **Spider** Wed 12 May 2021, 10:25 am

Why Canada’s special forces ‘shadow army’ is still fighting ISIS

Adnan R. Khan: With little public notice, our ultra-secretive special forces are increasingly relied upon in overseas conflicts

By Adnan R. Khan
May 11, 2021

In early March, Canadian special forces soldiers were involved in an operation against ISIS positions in the Makhmour region of northern Iraq. The operation was code-named Ready Lion and lasted two weeks. By the time this made news back home a month later, another operation in Iraq had already begun, this time in the Hamrin Mountains, 70 km south of Makhmour.

It’s unclear what role, if any, the Canadian special forces played in that operation, and the special forces command is not clarifying, telling me in an email that “for operational security reasons, we cannot disclose any details.” According to an Iraqi military source in Iraq who spoke to Maclean’s on condition of anonymity, the Hamrin offensive was led by the Iraqi army, alongside Shia militia forces. The international coalition, Inherent Resolve, of which the Canadian special forces are a part, may have been involved in intelligence gathering and planning, the source says, but it did not engage directly, as it had in Makhmour.

“Forces like the Canadians are much better at gathering intelligence and planning than Iraqi security forces or the Shia militias,” he says. “They have a role in most operations, but I can’t tell you what exactly they do. It’s very secret.”

If the Canadians were involved in Hamrin, it would be, to put it mildly, an eclectic mix of forces working together to defeat a resurgent ISIS. Many of Iraq’s Shia militias harbour almost as much hatred for Western forces in their country as they do for the Sunni extremists they’ve vowed to eradicate, and some of them are more loyal to the regime in Iran than they are to the central government in Iraq. Indeed, back in the spring of 2019, when I embedded with Canadian military trainers leading the NATO training mission, soldiers confessed that they worried as much about Shia militias as ISIS militants.

But this is the strange world of 21st-century asymmetric warfare: alliances are built on temporary interests and the distinction between friend and foe can be fluid. Canada has found itself supporting warlords accused of war crimes in Afghanistan; the U.S. is working with a Marxist-Leninist militia in Syria with ties to a designated terrorist organization in Turkey.

On the other side, the enemy, whether it is ISIS or the Taliban, does not operate like a conventional foe. It does not play by the rules; it can appear and disappear in an instant; it lays traps and cares little who falls in them; and its goal isn’t battleground victories but inflicting a thousand wounds to bleed its adversary into submission.

For conventional armies, fighting such an enemy has proven costly. When there are no uniforms and no frontlines, when the enemy is everywhere and nowhere, the usual military tactics and strategies make little sense. Instead, what has been successful is a force that uses similar tactics as the enemy’s, special forces that are small and agile and discreet, who rely on stealth and who can partner with local irregular forces to carry out precision strikes.

Countries like Canada and the U.S. are increasingly turning to these special operations forces, the commando units that occupy the so-called “grey zone” of war. According to the Liberal party’s 2017 defence policy review, the reliance on these secretive units is set to increase for the foreseeable future, with $1.5 billion in projected new spending over the next 20 years and up to 605 additional personnel.

Defence experts generally agree that the increase is necessary, but the long-term consequences of creating more of these lethal fighters and using them more often should raise some red flags. In the U.S., for instance, special operations forces are facing a reckoning after they were accused of a series of war crimes in Iraq and elsewhere. A January 2020 comprehensive review found that “a [United States Special Operations Command] culture overly focused on force employment and mission accomplishment creates the contexts or situations allowing for misconduct and unethical behaviour to develop within the [special operations] enterprise.”

As Canadian special forces missions become more frequent and longer—the deployment to Iraq, for instance, is into its seventh year—we also have to ask what kind of toll they will take on individual soldiers. Despite the invincible mystique that surrounds them, these are, after all, human beings.

Using special forces is a slippery process that becomes harder to reverse the more they are used, and it is made worse by the fact that Canada’s special operations command is cloaked in secrecy, even more so than its American counterpart. The April announcement of Canadian involvement in Makhmour was the first news of what Canada’s elite fighters have been up to in Iraq in more than a year. At the same time, it came just over a week after the Canadian government announced it would be extending the mission for another year. There may already be more of these missions that Canadians know nothing about.

As important as they might be in an increasingly disordered world, the doctrine of necessity alone cannot justify their use. All too often, that doctrine is used to rationalize atrocities after the fact. And then we must ask: what is the point in winning the wars of the future if in the process we end up losing ourselves?

https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/why-canadas-special-forces-shadow-army-is-still-fighting-isis/

by Covert Thu 13 May 2021, 8:31 am

Letter: Homes for Heroes – Learning more about Kingston’s first tiny homes project

May 12, 2021

Homes for Heroes

by **Kizzer** Thu 24 Jun 2021, 2:21 pm

Military ombudsman’s tough advice must be heeded

By Niagara Dailies Editorial
Thu., June 24, 2021

Canada’s military ombudsman on Tuesday tore a strip off the senior command of the armed forces, the leadership of the Defence Department, and the politicians who have the ultimate oversight over the country’s military.

Gregory Lick demanded that the ombudsman’s office be made truly independent so it can act effectively against misconduct of all kinds, including the allegations of sexual wrongdoing that have rocked the Canadian Forces.

Lick is clearly fed up. He talked about the “erratic behaviour” of leadership at all levels, a failure that is turning the sexual misconduct crisis into a “tragedy” for the military. “The cycle of scandals followed by studies, recommendations for independent oversight, half-solutions, and resistance by the department or the Canadian Armed Forces will only be broken when action is taken,” he said.

But even though Lick’s language was harsh, he wasn’t saying anything new. As he himself pointed out, reviews going back decades have concluded that the ombudsman’s office should be independent, reporting to Parliament rather than the defence minister. Even the Trudeau government agrees, though in April it launched yet another review, led by former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour, to figure out exactly how to do that.

More striking was Lick’s contention that this goes far beyond sexual misconduct, as important as that is. The failure of military and civilian leaders to come to grips with that has led to a deeper crisis of confidence in the Canadian military as an institution.

All this year we’ve seen top military leaders and former leaders toppled or forced aside, starting with the ex-chief of the defence staff, Jonathan Vance, in early February. The latest came when the vice-chief of the defence staff, the military’s second in command, and the head of the navy admitted entertaining Vance on an Ottawa golf course. They thought it was just a “private activity” to boost Vance’s morale; most everyone else, including the government, thought it was a grievous lapse in judgment.

By now, Lick said on Tuesday, so many top commanders have been ousted that the situation “risks threatening national security.” Our allies are watching, he noted, as are “those who are out to do us harm.” And what can they be concluding about the state of Canada’s military? Nothing good, certainly.

The government’s contention is that even while the top ranks are roiled by scandal, the work of the Canadian Forces goes on as tens of thousands of regular and reserve troops toil loyally every day.

No doubt there’s truth in that, but it’s impossible to believe that the leadership of any organization can be so riven by controversy without it affecting all levels.

We know the pandemic has had a very negative effect on recruiting, and surely ongoing scandals will make it even harder to enlist replacements.

Retaining talent won’t be any easier, either, as some just opt to bail out early. One high-profile example was the resignation in March of Lt.-Col. Eleanor Taylor, an Afghanistan combat veteran and one of the most prominent women in the military. “I am sickened by ongoing investigations of sexual misconduct among our key leaders,” she wrote. How many others are just as discouraged?

A healthy organization also needs to be planning for the future, not just bracing for the latest shock. What Canada’s military is going through now is its worst crisis since its “decade of darkness” following revelations of abuse by its elite airborne regiment in Somalia back in the early 1990s.

This will go down as one of the Trudeau government’s biggest failures. It should listen to Lick’s advice, however hard it is to take, and follow it.

https://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/opinion/editorials/2021/06/24/military-ombudsmans-tough-advice-must-be-heeded.html

by **Forcell** Fri 25 Jun 2021, 11:53 am

Want more women in the military? First clean it up

Elizabeth Renzetti June 25. 2021

The Canadian Armed Forces offers excellent career prospects for women, according to the Canadian Armed Forces. Its recruiting page promises women a life of adventure, accomplishment, competitive pay and benefits, and a commitment to work-life balance.

Even better, it’s a human resources utopia: “Forces members have the right to be treated fairly, respectfully and with dignity in a workplace free of harassment,” one of the recruitment videos promises. “When you put on the uniform of the Canadian Armed Forces, you will be treated with equal respect.”

Is it just me, or does something smell fishy here? So fishy you can actually smell it through your computer? That’s quite a feat.

It was just this week that Gregory Lick, the Canadian Forces ombudsman, said, “the ongoing sexual misconduct scandal within the Canadian Armed Forces and Department of National Defence is moving from crisis to tragedy.”

Mr. Lick gave a press conference during which he blasted both the CAF and the Department of National Defence for inaction on the misconduct scandals, for messing with his office’s mission, and for their tendencies to commission new reports instead of actually, you know, implementing the recommendations of the last several reports. I’m not an expert on civil servants’ body language, but I think Mr. Lick’s gasket was in danger of blowing.

And who could blame him? The sexual misconduct scandals in the Canadian Armed Forces manage to be shocking, confusing and endless, all at the same time. It’s like a horror movie franchise with countless sequels, each with its own particular gruesome twist.

The Globe and Mail even printed a handy synopsis, sort of a “previously on Melrose Place…”. Except this isn’t a soap opera, it’s a real-life tragedy for countless men and women who’ve suffered harassment or assault. “Two parliamentary committees have been studying the issue of sexual misconduct in the military,” The Globe noted in April. “In addition, three military police investigations are under way into the conduct of former chief of the defence staff Jonathan Vance, Admiral Art McDonald and Vice-Admiral Haydn Edmundson.”

Over the spring, the Status of Women committee heard distressing testimony from current and former members of the forces who had suffered what is known as military sexual trauma. Women talked about being twice victimized, once by the assault itself, and then by the investigation that followed. They talked about feeling like they were going crazy when their complaints were ignored.

“I joined the Canadian Armed Forces in July of 2018. Since then, I feel like I’ve experienced a lifetime’s worth of sexual assault and misconduct,” aviation technician Emily Tulloch reported. She outlined crimes she’d been subjected to, including rape and sexual assault. Lieutenant Heather Macdonald talked about the specific difficulties of reporting assault in the Navy. “Most times, the victims pay a greater price than the perpetrators when they come forward, and that is why most victims are reluctant to come forward.”

They all talked about how the culture of the Canadian military – overwhelmingly white, male and heterosexual – has failed to change and embrace recruits who do not look like them. Senior leadership has failed to set an example from the top, unless it’s an example of what not to do.

There is a sense, reading these women’s testimonies, of exhaustion that nothing is changing even six years after the landmark Deschamps report identified and offered solutions to toxic military culture. There is also an eerie sense that they’re a bit like Cassandra, speaking truth that no one wants to hear.

Lt. Macdonald warned about the perils of the “old boys’ club,” and less than two months later, the second-in-command of the Forces, Lieutenant-General Mike Rouleau, resigned after he was spotted playing golf with Mr. Vance, who as we’ve noted is under investigation by the military. An old boys’ club is bad enough, but an old boys’ army is a whole other level of unsettling.

And at this point it is a boys’ club. Only 16 per cent of CAF members are women, and it looks like the military is going to fail at achieving its stated goal of bringing that number to 25 per cent by 2026. The number of women in the military has grown by only 1.3 per cent in five years.

I can’t say I blame women for not wanting to join this particular institution. Who’d want to be hired by a company when its headquarters were on fire? But if we accept for the moment that we need a military, then we need one that reflects the country it serves.

Of course, there have already been numerous reports, commissions and committees recommending how this might be accomplished. The Status of Women Committee’s report, released earlier this month, offers further guidance, from implementing the Deschamps recommendations to establishing an independent inspector-general’s office that can investigate complaints and report directly to Parliament.

Crucially, it also calls on the government to implement a strategy for recruiting and retaining women and others who are under-represented in the military. Perhaps this could start with a social-media campaign that simply says, “Can we start again, please?”

Seriously, any recruitment strategy would seem to require an acknowledgement of the terrible mistakes along the way, and the actual, verifiable steps that are being taken to improve the culture for everyone. Pretty pictures just aren’t going to cut it. Not when the truth is out there, and so many people are speaking it.

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https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-want-more-women-in-the-military-first-clean-it-up/

by **Replica** Fri 25 Jun 2021, 2:24 pm

How will Justin Trudeau clean up his military mess?

By Mike Smyth Global News
Posted June 25, 2021

https://globalnews.ca/news/7969469/prime-minister-justin-trudeau-military-sexual-misconduct/

by Momenter Fri 16 Jul 2021, 6:32 am

Canada treats its veterans disgracefully

How is it possible that tens of thousands of them are being treated so badly by the country they faithfully served?

Published on July 15, 2021 By Linda Slobodian

Arms and legs blown off…disfigured and scarred from burns…hearing impaired…visually impaired…struggling to function while suffering a myriad of debilitating emotional PTSD wounds…a higher chance of committing suicide than the rest of the population….

These are just some of the afflictions disabled Canadian veterans struggle with.

How is it possible that tens of thousands of them are being treated so badly by the country they faithfully served?

Oh, they’ve been awarded medals for their blood, sweat, and immense sacrifice. But medals don’t put food on the table or shoes on their children’s feet.

The federal government continues to callously, inexcusably betray our wounded warriors by making them wait indefinitely for their disability pensions.

More than 41,000 disabled veterans are on a shamefully long waiting list for these pensions that they earned.

It will take at least a year to clean up a backlog of claims that continues to grow, Western Standard reporter Mike D’Amour revealed Wednesday.

A year is an eternity for someone who is ill, on the verge of emotional collapse, and broke with bills to pay. And how many years have they already been waiting?

It takes cold, black hearts to let this happen to our disabled veterans.

For this pension travesty alone, Lawrence MacAuley, like a string of previous veterans affairs ministers, doesn’t merit the ‘honourable’ that’s automatically attached to the title.

There’s no honour in allowing this to continue.

It’s not like MacAuley was caught by surprise and hasn’t had time to fix this. He’s been in this portfolio for almost two and-a-half years.

Yes, the problem began before his time, but the backlog has been ominously building under his watch.

And last September the Parliamentary Budget Office warned it would take, not one, but at least three years just to stop the backlog from growing, but not to clear it.

The Department of Veterans Affairs said it would work faster, explore innovative measures to efficiently process applications, and be positioned by 2022 with new tools, in a report entitled Disability Wait Times and Benefit Action Plan.

So typical of government, time to write a useless report, but not enough time to process critical claims.

As of May 1, the backlog of veterans’ claims stood at 41,541 with wait times for the initial review of a first-time application averaging more than 300 days last year, followed by 140 days for petitions on reassessment and another 340 days for departmental reviews.

Last November, during testimony before a Commons veterans committee, MacAuley whined about the onerous paperwork involved.

“You know this difficulty. You know about filling out forms. I mightn’t be great at it myself,” he flippantly said.

Then he blamed disabled veterans.

“But the thing is you need people (who) know how to fill out the forms. The problem you have with forms is there’s something missing, something vitally important that could be missing, and you have to make sure that it is all there,” said MacAuley.

Has it occurred to anyone that the problem lies in the procedures, red tape and ridiculously complicated forms disabled veterans must fill out despite evidence clearly presented in medical reports and obvious injuries?

Canada has an excellent system in place for non-military citizens making disability claims. Why can their claims be processed with deposits made to their bank accounts within 120 days or less?

A skeptic might think maybe veterans affairs isn’t a priority for this Liberal government. Look at the ministerial appointments to the portfolio.

Certainly, MacAuley has his strengths. But is someone who formerly oversaw corn and fish really the best choice for veterans?

Or before him, TV personality-turned-politician Seamus O’Regan, who shamed himself by comparing the “shock” of his painful departure from media to that of veterans transitioning from uniform to civilian life.

MacAuley, who has been roaming the halls of Parliament since 1988, won’t have to think about waiting for or fighting to receive the hefty pension he’s accrued, which will be substantially more than what disabled veterans are afforded.

Perhaps the next time he’s enjoying a fine meal at the Parliamentary restaurant, he could pause between bites to think about the disabled veterans distraught over how they’re going to feed their children.

Maybe he could ponder what they accomplished, what they endured, and the price they paid serving their country on back-to-back missions in hellholes they were sent to.

They didn’t whine about anything at all when they charged into battlegrounds in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Haiti, etc.

Mr. Minister, if you are going to accept the portfolio, the title, the prestige and pay that accompanies it – then do the damn job! Do it fast. Look after them.

And where, oh where, is the acting chief of defence staff?

Why isn’t Lieutenant-General Wayne Eyre roaring about this disgraceful treatment of disabled veterans?

Well, he’s busy concentrating doing the bidding of the Liberal government as he works on improving the “culture” of the military to make it a “truly inclusive institution.”

How about focusing on improving the culture in the lives of disabled veterans and truly including their needs in your efforts?

This is a national disgrace.

Slobodian is the Senior Manitoba Columnist for the Western Standard

lslobodian@westernstandardonline.com

https://westernstandardonline.com/2021/07/slobodian-canada-treat-its-veterans-disgracefully/

by Whiskey Fri 02 Dec 2022, 4:11 pm

The Canadian Armed Forces are heading for a Titanic collapse

KEN HANSEN
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
PUBLISHED Dec 02. 2022

Ken Hansen is an independent defence and security analyst who retired from the Royal Canadian Navy in 2009 in the rank of commander.

The Titanic, says General Wayne Eyre, the Chief of the Defence Staff for the Canadian Armed Forces, is sinking.

The CAF is estimated to be short-staffed by about 10,000 members, Gen. Eyre said in October, and he wants to add 5,000 more to their ranks. To achieve this, he called for a “whole-of-society effort” for the military while it attempts to solve its recruitment and staffing problems. “We need to rebuild the Armed Forces, we need to get the numbers back up,” he said, “and we’ve got to do it with a sense of urgency and priority because it is affecting our ability to respond around the world.”

These problems are indeed serious. During my time in the personnel branch, between 1990 and 1993, we worked on the assumption that annual attrition of 3 per cent was “normal,” and that our recruitment and training systems had the capacity to take in enough new people to meet the demand created by this normal attrition. But we faced a 5-per-cent shortage at that time, which meant some jobs would have to go vacant for at least a year or longer. So today’s numbers – nearly 15 per cent short of the CAF’s authorized strength of 68,000 – seem downright catastrophic.

But if the Canadian Armed Forces are headed for a Titanic collapse, then Gen. Eyre’s call for support sounds like a first-class passenger asking the third-class passengers already in the water to help bail out their lifeboat, so they can avoid getting their feet wet.

Support for our troops is certainly necessary, but it doesn’t deal with the fundamental problem: The Canadian Armed Forces no longer reflect the principles and values of the Canadian populace, or of a modern Canadian work force. If this is not addressed, any reform will only amount to a shuffling of the deck chairs.

Military leaders like to say that “people are our most valuable resource,” and yet this most precious commodity has been steadily leaving for years. This is a reflection of CAF members’ sense that they are not valued; indeed, while leaders talk about the value of their people, they just as often talk about “the primacy of operations”: the idea that the missions assigned by the Canadian government come first – and thus, people come second. This is the contradiction at the heart of another popular military phrase, “mission first, people always.” This was felt in the ranks after Corporal Lionel Desmond’s 2017 murder-suicide after dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder; the ensuing inquiry left CAF members feeling that they might be callously discarded if they became seen as unfit for duty, and dumped onto the health care system.

Successful modern businesses understand that employees want to feel valued. They also understand that, if they want to access a higher quantity and quality of talent, they need to become an employer that people actually want to work for. This thinking should drive military reform.

To start, the CAF should substantially increase members’ pay. No profession is as uniquely demanding, in physical and psychological terms, as military service; wages should reflect that. There should also be continuous service-time-based increments in pay in every rank and in every level of technical competence; right now, these pay raises are currently only given within the first few years in a new rank. The lack of recognition through incentive levels is a major source of dissatisfaction in the ranks.

The military promotion process has a similar problem. Advancement evaluations are largely based on individual performance and qualifications, and at the mid-rank level, success is judged by how one commands an operation. But these approaches don’t incentivize people-focused and team-oriented leadership. Promotions and other rewards should be given to members who are effective at motivating and directing an efficient team that can overcome challenges.

And just as work-life balance is an important consideration in a modern workplace, military leaders should recognize that deployment time is not the equivalent of working from a different office: It is a high-demand period that requires meaningful rest afterward. Post-deployment time off should be equal to the time of deployment, as is the policy in the Danish navy (and elsewhere in offshore industries). This has helped keep Danish enlistment high, and attrition low.

Real reform in how we think about military work could even allow for unionization, which could create some institutional pushback against leadership’s insatiable demand for deployment. While that may seem unusual, the Netherlands Armed Forces has allowed members to form and join unions since the 1960s, and about 80 per cent of its personnel is a member of a trade union. This has brought a degree of stability to personnel demands.

The military recruitment crisis also has trickle-down consequences. The CAF has had to draw skilled and experienced people from the staffs of headquarters, military schools, units further down in the readiness pipeline, and the reserve forces, weakening those organizations. Our reserves, in particular, have had to step up in recent operations: Reservists comprised 20 per cent to 30 per cent of the overall forces Canada deployed in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014, but made up more than half of the Army’s overall strength by the end of it all.

Marching in lines, stamping feet on parade grounds and keeping with traditional uniforms – these should also be done away with. These rituals are simply not relevant to the citizens who must make up the force of the future; they reflect the reality that Canada’s military is stuck in the past.

Nobody wants to work in an old, tired organization that draws its culture and values from a museum; people want to be part of an agile organization that rewards modern values. The Canadian Armed Forces needs to abandon its sternward perspective on legacy force structure and missions – or it won’t be able to bail out the sinking ship.

GLOBE AND MAIL

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