Sexual misconduct rampant in Canadian military: Report

In May, Gen. Tom Lawson, chief of defence staff, made public the results of an external review led by former Supreme Court justice Marie Deschamps.

She interviewed reserve and regular members from the navy, air force and army, including all levels of rank and file, as well as health care, police, workplace advisors and social experts for the report.

In it, Deschamps lambasted the military for what she determined to be an underlying sexualized culture that is hostile to women and gay members, and conducive to more serious incidents of sexual harassment and assault.

"Consultations revealed a sexualized environment in the CAF, characterized by the frequent use of swear words and highly degrading expressions that reference women’s bodies, sexual jokes, innuendos, discriminatory comments with respect to the abilities of women, and unwelcome sexual touching," Deschamps wrote.

Sexual harassment was also reported in some instances, she said.

"Some participants further reported instances of sexual assault, including instances of dubious relationships between lower rank women and higher rank men, and date rape," she explained.

"At the most serious extreme, these reports of sexual violence highlighted the use of sex to enforce power relationships and to punish and ostracize a member of a unit."

The report also indicated the CAF’s infrastructure for handling complaints is architecturally flawed. For example, a complainant might have to pursue three separate dispute resolution processes before an issue is resolved — alternate dispute resolution (in which the alleged victim is encouraged to confront the alleged harasser informally), administrative investigation and a grievance.

Deschamps called the procedures "overly long and burdensome," adding that they discredit the operation.

"Victims will generally not be comfortable taking a confrontational position with their harasser, particularly when the harasser was of a higher rank," she noted.

"Many interviewees who did bring their complaint forward to a supervisor reported that the complaint was not taken seriously."

The report is "disturbing," said Lawson.

"The idea that any military member should, in addition to meeting the vast array of operational challenges, have to defend themselves against the words or actions of another Canadian Armed Forces member is completely unacceptable," he said in a statement.

The external review churned out a number of recommendations to reverse the history of sexual misconduct.

First, a culture change is needed to close the gap between the high professional standards established by the CAF’s policies and what happens in reality. This discrepancy has caused members to become inured to a sexualized culture.

"There is a broadly held perception in the lower ranks that those in the chain of command either condone inappropriate sexual conduct or are willing to turn a blind eye to such incidents," Deschamps explained in the report.

Changing culture starts with leadership, she added.

"It is not enough to simply revise policies or to repeat the mantra of ‘zero tolerance.’"

Clarifying definitions of what constitutes sexual harassment as well as streamlining the process for identifying, reporting, investigating and resolving incidents would contribute to a culture change. The report also cited better training programs and the establishment of an independent body to keep the institution accountable.

In response, Lawson accepted all recommendations in principle and announced a strategic response team to implement them and keep the organization accountable.

Tradition dictates military bodies are the province of men. So, perhaps not surprisingly, when women become integrated into such work environments, there will be blowback, according to Jennifer Berdahl, an organizational behaviour professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver who specializes in gender and diversity.

"They’re traditionally all-male organizations, they started that way. They’re violent organizations, they deal with violence and they sometimes, as part of the job definition, commit violence," Berdahl said.

"So it’s a very machismo-type culture that has developed over the years in these organizations."

Bringing in a third-party body is often resisted by many like environments, she said.

"The independent centre for accountability is something that most organizations resist. They would prefer to have the foxes guarding the chicken coop so to speak," she said.

"These independent centres need to come with some kind of authority to intervene and make decisions on the organization’s behalf about these complaints."

At the press conference, Lawson stressed the importance of a supportive culture.

"We are not the only organization dealing with this problem, but for an institution such as ours, one built on camaraderie and trust, this underlying sexualized behaviour is corrosive," he said at a press conference before addressing his troops.

"For those in uniform, let me make it clear to you that the problem lies not only with those who behave poorly or maliciously. The responsibility also rests with those who idly stand by and permit inappropriate behaviour to persist.

"From jokes to harassment to assaults, an organization’s culture drives the behaviours of its members."