Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence
Issue No. 25 - Evidence - Meeting of April 30, 2018
OTTAWA, Monday, April 30, 2018
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 3 p.m. to examine and report on Canada’s national security and defence policies, practices, circumstances and capabilities.
Senator Gwen Boniface (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, welcome to the National Security and Defence Committee. I will ask my colleagues to introduce themselves.
Senator McIntyre: Paul McIntyre, New Brunswick.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Oh: Victor Oh from Ontario.
Senator Richards: David Richards from New Brunswick.
Senator Jaffer: Mobina Jaffer, British opérationumbia.
The Chair: This afternoon, we will begin our study of sexual harassment and violence in defence and security institutions.
We are very pleased to welcome a panel of witnesses including Colonel Michel Drapeau, Senior Counsel Michel Drapeau Law Office; and Dr. Maya Eichler, Assistant Professor, Department of Political and Canadian Studies, Mount Saint Vincent University. On video, we have Dr. Nancy Taber, Associate Professor, Department of Undergraduate and Graduate Studies in Education, Brock University; and Dr. Stéfanie Von Hlatky, Associate Professor, Centre for International and Defence Policy, Queen’s University. Thank you all for joining us.
We will hear from each of you in turn, after which we will have some questions.
Colonel (Ret’d) Michel Drapeau, Senior Counsel, Michel Drapeau Law Office, as an individual: Thank you for your invitation. I’m honoured to be here. I intend to keep my opening comments very short because I have already provided the committee with my views in a 6,000-word paper. I regret that I have done that at the last moment. The paper is titled “Sexual Assault in the Canadian Military: Are We Making Head Way?”
As laid out in the paper, the short answer to this is, in my mind, quite clear. Although the military has made significant progress with Operation HONOUR, it is still missing the mark for three overwhelming reasons.
First, Operation HONOUR has extended the definition of sexual harassment to include, what I call in French, banal accrochages and verbal slips reported by onlookers. I can give you some specific examples, which I encounter in my practice on a fairly regular basis. This is causing serious justice issues, and it banalizes the gravity and the severity of cases dealing with sexual offences. As noted in my paper, progress to eradicate the sexual misconduct culture in the military is not a numbers game.
Second, Operation HONOUR continues to rely on the military police to investigate instances of harassment as well as sexual violence. It also relies on military disciplinary tribunals, that is a court martial, to deal with serious crimes against a person. Both of these organizations have major structural flaws and lack the kind of specialized expertise and independence from the chain of command to be truly effective. Both are also failing victims of sexual crimes by excluding them from the statutory protection provided to every other individual on Canadian soil under the Canadian bill of rights for victims of crime. I find that offensive.
Also, I am of the opinion that the military should not have jurisdiction over sexual assault, which they acquired in 1998. Experience over the past 30 years has shown the military not to be up to par and not able to address this issue with all of the seriousness and the efficiency that it requires.
Third and last, the military has failed to implement the cardinal recommendation of retired Justice Marie Deschamps, in her report in 2015, that an independent sexual reporting centre be established. They have not done so. They haven’t done so because they wanted to maintain control over all elements — the accused, the victims and the justice system responding to the crimes. As a result, many of the victims do not trust the system. They did not trust the system when Madame Deschamps did her report, they did not trust the system when Statistics Canada did a study 2016, and we are still saddled with the same internal organization that advocates itself to be an independent reporting centre.
In closing, I wish to bring to your attention that last year I presented a paper before the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law in San Francisco, called “Calling the House to Order.” In many instances, it was almost as if I could foresee this activity here today. In this paper, I’m talking to parliamentarians about the important role, the role that nobody else can play but them, in making the required changes to the legislation so that victims of crimes in the military can have their crimes properly investigated and properly prosecuted so that they can serve with the certainty that they are able to serve with dignity and with safety, which at the moment does not occur.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you. Before we proceed with the next presentation, I would like to introduce two senators who have joined us, Senator McPhedran and Senator Dagenais.
Maya Eichler, Assistant Professor, Department of Political and Canadian Studies, Mount Saint Vincent University, as an individual: Thank you, members of the committee, for inviting me. I also want to thank you for undertaking this study. I was very pleased to hear about it.
I’m an assistant professor of political and Canadian studies as well as women’s studies at Mount Saint Vincent University, and I also hold the Canada research chair in social innovation and community engagement. At my university, I run a research centre called the Centre for Social Innovation and Community Engagement in Military Affairs. In this capacity, I conduct research in two main areas: The first being gender integration and sexual violence in the Canadian Armed Forces, and the second area of research I focus on is the new generation of Canadian veterans and their transition from military to civilian life. I’m particularly interested in highlighting the experiences of female veterans, including the impact of military sexual trauma on their long-term health and well-being.
From 2015 to 2017, I also co-chaired a working group with the army in Atlantic Canada which was called the 5th Canadian Division and Mount Saint Vincent University Operation HONOUR working group. It was a unique military-civilian collaboration.
I also collaborate with Marie-Claude Gagnon, the founder of the group It’s Just 700, which is one of the main groups of military sexual trauma survivors to organize in Canada in the wake of the Deschamps report. I would urge the committee to look into the work of It’s Just 700 and to include the voices of survivors of military sexual trauma, both male and female, in the study.
The following comments are based on these various research and collaborative experiences. I would like to preface my comments by acknowledging the many positive changes that have taken place over the last three years and to acknowledge the hard work which I know a lot of individuals within DND and CAF have been undertaking in order to move Operation HONOUR along.
I was also pleased to see the recent efforts to reinvigorate Operation HONOUR that have been noted in the recent frag order of March 5 by the CDS. As part of these recent efforts to reinvigorate Operation HONOUR, and to move it along, I want to offer two points for consideration.
The first point is about what it is we need to understand about sexual harassment and violence in military contexts. I think it is important to consider and to remind ourselves that militaries are not gender-neutral institutions. They are deeply gendered and highly masculinized institutions. The Canadian Armed Forces, as other militaries, has a long history of marginalizing and only selectively incorporating women, of explicitly and implicitly discriminating against women and of resisting women’s full integration.
This is a long legacy that needs to be overcome. While all legal barriers to women’s full inclusion and participation in the Armed Forces were lifted in 1989, social and cultural barriers remain in place. These include the deep-seated belief that “real soldiers” embody characteristics typically associated with masculinity. These are defined in hierarchical opposition to those associated with femininity. Researchers, both within and outside the DND, have repeatedly shown that the ideal of soldiering remains rooted in the masculinized combat warrior.
There are also broader structural features of militaries that create an environment conducive to sexual harassment and violence. These include an emphasis on uniformity, hierarchy, obedience, as well as loyalty to the group and mission before self. It is both the gendered construction of soldiering and the structural features of military institutions that make them so prone to systematic sexual harassment and violence. I believe it is both of these aspects that need to be addressed in order to change the institution. Focusing on behavioural change or the recruitment of more women will not be sufficient.
The second point I would like to make is about how military institutions change. In Canada, over the past decades, change has come about primarily as a result of external pressure from the media, from the legal system and from civil society. With Operation HONOUR, the military, while responding to an external report, has in essence tried to reform itself. It has implemented many of the recommendations of the Deschamps report, but it has failed to fully implement one of the key recommendations, and that is the creation of a truly independent accountability centre. What we now have in place is the Sexual Misconduct Response Centre, which, yes, is outside of the chain of command, but it is still part of DND. It offers important services, but its primary focus is on creating better supports for victims and survivors of military sexual violence, but not on holding the institution accountable.
In my opinion, there needs to be external oversight and evaluation of the efforts that have been developed to address sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces. To my knowledge, there has been no independent evidence-based research conducted on the various initiatives that have taken place as part of Operation HONOUR to assess their efficacy. Furthermore, there has been no progress report on Operation HONOUR since the release of the third report in April of 2017, though I expect two reports will come out over the next couple of weeks, as they were asked for in the new frag order of March 5.
In addition to better external oversight and assessment of progress, what is needed, in my opinion, is also to provide more resources and personnel across the Canadian Armed Forces for the implementation of Operation HONOUR. In my work with the military, I noticed that dealing with Operation HONOUR-related activities was often added to people’s regular workloads, there was a lack of expertise on gender and sexual violence issues, and other more pressing operational issues tended to take priority.
In conclusion, I want to say that there have been many useful initiatives developed as part of Operation HONOUR, but that without sufficient resources, expertise and personnel, that is, with the necessary support to actually implement Operation HONOUR, and without sufficient oversight from external forces, I don’t think it is possible to ensure deeper change.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you.
Nancy Taber, Associate Professor, Department of Undergraduate and Graduate Studies in Education, Brock University, as an individual: Thank you for the opportunity to discuss sexual harassment and violence in the Canadian Armed Forces. I think it’s an important issue, as does everyone in this room, and I welcome the opportunity to speak about it. I had hoped to make it to Ottawa, but circumstances have kept me in St. Catharines, so I’m pleased to attend via video conference today.
I am certain everyone is well aware of the Deschamps report and also the Statistics Canada report. I don’t want to reiterate those results.
I want to briefly mention, as did Dr. Eichler, the large body of academic research that has related findings in that there is an embedded ideology of a warrior narrative in policies and practices. This ideology prevails in the militarized hypermasculine culture, which values violence, toughness and heteronormativity, with a dichotomy of protector versus protected, masculine men versus feminized women and friend versus foe. Those who are perceived to fit into the former categories are typically privileged, while those in the latter are often denigrated.
Some might argue that the military needs violent and tough men in order to achieve its aims, but research demonstrates that military members can be resilient and capable without glorifying violence or engaging in discriminating and harassing behaviour. I’m not arguing that all men are predators and all women victims — far from it — but that there are certain forms of masculinity that are organizationally privileged and that the sexualized culture of the CAF is one that is beneficial neither to mission success nor to the well-being of CAF members.
In my remarks, I focus on CAF policies and ways to create a gender-equitable organization with the aim of supporting cultural change. Due to time limits, I will highlight only key points in key documents. As the problems have been well documented, my comments centre on recommendations for change as opposed to reviewing the research itself, but I can point anyone to research if they would like to see it. In particular, I published two recent 2018 documents in Critical Military Studies and the Journal of Military Veteran and Family Health on the experiences of men and women in the Canadian Forces with respect to policies, sexual harassment and sexual assault.
Although Deschamps made recommendations to revise the CAF policies, several were not taken into account. I would like to highlight those because I think they are crucial in order to make change.
For instance, in the 2017 revision of DAOD 5012-0, Harassment Prevention and Resolution and the associated set of instructions, the definition of harassment was not changed to eliminate the wording “directed at” and “offensive to.”
The Chair: Dr. Taber, could I ask you just to slow down? They are trying to translate as you go.
Ms. Taber: Absolutely. That was slow for me. Just to let you know, I was trying. I will slow down further.
Therefore, any behaviour not directed at a particular person, such as a sexual joke, would not be considered harassment. If behaviour were specifically targeted at someone, such as using a pejorative term, but they did not take offence, then it would not be harassment under the definition, even if someone within hearing distance was offended. There is a requirement that the person conducting the behaviour knew or ought to have reasonably known it would cause offence or harm. This is problematic in an organization with a sexualized environment where behaviour may be deemed to be acceptable, even if it is inappropriate.
An additional category was added to the definition in 2017 in that harassment must be a series of incidents or one severe incident that had lasting impact on that individual, indicating that one non-severe incident would not constitute harassment even if it were inappropriate.
These limits on the definition of harassment should be removed.
There is no definition of sexual harassment or sexual assault in the policy, no recognition of the role of consent, and no description in the definition of adverse personal relationships that recognizes the effect of the CAF’s hierarchical structure outside direct reporting relationships, despite these recommendations being made by Deschamps. This lack of clarity ignores the importance of gender and power, and, as Dr. Eichler explained, gender is the crucial aspect that we need to keep at the forefront.
There is also no unified policy dealing with sexual harassment and sexual assault, which would help provide clarity in definitions and procedures as well as demonstrate the ways in which these behaviours are connected.
If the problem is a sexualized culture, which is recognized in Operation HONOUR, then it is incomprehensible why the policies ignore the importance of gender. Operation HONOUR defines inappropriate sexual behaviour, as does some related training. This should be reflected in a unified policy that recognizes the importance of gender and outlines the connections between gender discrimination, sexual harassment and sexual assault.
Additionally, instead of decreasing the use of alternate dispute resolution, or ADR, as recommended by Deschamps, it has been increased in the policies. Self-help and ADR are privileged, with no recognition of the difficulties of doing so in a male-dominated hierarchical organization with a sexualized culture, wherein certain ranks have formal power over others, but also informal power in that those who challenge this culture may experience ostracism and a negative impact on their careers. Additionally, it places the onus to address sexual harassment on individuals in discrete cases instead of on the need for the organization to take action and engage in cultural change. These limits of ADR should be recognized and addressed in the policies.
Policies on sexual harassment and sexual assault are connected to policies that may appear to be gender neutral in that, on paper, women are purportedly equal to men, with the same opportunities and responsibilities. However, what is required is gender equity in that women’s issues, which I would argue are everyone’s issues but disproportionately affect women due to their greater propensity to engage in caring labour, are taken into consideration.
Structural changes are required to make the CAF more family-friendly and to push back against the belief in culture, policies and practices that members must be dedicated to the military above all else 24-7 for the entirety of their careers.
For instance, the soldier-first principle that members must always be mentally, physically, professionally and personally able to deploy at short notice should be reconsidered. Women and men with young children, particularly dual-career couples, should be able to opt out of this policy if they so wish for limited time periods with no negative career implications. The use of terms such as “unfit” and “sick leave” for women who are pregnant and healthy should be reconsidered. These women are not unfit but simply need medical care and time off from the soldier-first principle. Men should be encouraged, in policy and in practice, to take parental leave.
Daycare centres that are more conducive to military hours and to deployment and requirements such as shift work, working unexpectedly past normal hours or being called in at short notice should be established on or near bases. Flexible working arrangements could be considered, such as occasional telecommuting for occupations able to do so and possible job sharing. Posting should be reconsidered to determine whether frequent moves are occupationally required. Some of these recommendations may be perceived as anathema to military service, but in the 21st century, the CAF should be able to reconsider how it operates and how it structures its members’ service.
In conclusion, revising policies as I outlined is a crucial yet insufficient step. The leadership must ensure that policies are reflected in organizational practices and values. Educational initiatives must address the importance of engaging with gender in a critical transformative way that is intended to change organizational culture. Most importantly, whether we’re talking about sexual discrimination, harassment or assault, gender discrimination, sexual harassment and sexual assault are interconnected. You can’t look at one without looking at all three if we hope to make change. An organization that is gender equitable is one that will have decreased incidents of sexual harassment and sexual assault. By revising policies and practices as I have outlined, the CAF can better work toward eliminating its sexualized, militarized hyper-masculine culture.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Stéfanie von Hlatky, Associate Professor, Centre for International and Defence Policy, Queen’s University, as an individual: I’m calling in from Queen’s University in Kingston. I am Associate Professor of Political Studies and Director of the Centre for International and Defence Policy, where we have a gender lab and conduct research on issues such as the one that you have decided to study, sexual violence in the Canadian Armed Forces, along with a broader study in sexual violence in other security organizations in Canada.
There have been a lot of changes in the past few years. With the few minutes that I have with you today, I want to highlight some areas where I think there has been some improvement, even if marginal, and identify some gaps and some areas for further improvement, relating that to both the data that has been provided publicly and my own research.
One of the main points I want to make is that the evidence base for Marie Deschamps’ findings and the 10 recommendations is quite solid. Not only do we have the 700 interviews that were conducted in the context of this report and investigation, but the Statistics Canada report that was alluded to earlier, which was released in 2016, corroborates a lot of the findings that were tabled by Deschamps.
Some of the highlights from the survey that parallel the findings of Marie Deschamps is that we find confirmation that women are more likely than men to report being sexually assaulted. It’s also important to recognize that, in absolute terms, more men experience sexual violence than women. It’s a good idea to perform a gender-based analysis on how survivor services are designed and delivered and not to make any assumptions in that process.
The Stats Canada survey also shows that fewer than one quarter report sexual assault and that most have opted to resolve incidents on their own. That’s 43 per cent of women and 41 per cent of men. The reason people are not reporting is that they fear negative consequences if they file formal complaints. Although that was mentioned by the previous participants, I think it’s worth thinking about the reality that a lot of people choose to resolve these incidents informally and to ask questions about what services are available to individuals that choose to go that route and why they choose to go that route.
Perhaps the most shocking statistic is that 79 per cent of members experienced or witnessed inappropriate sexualized behaviour in the 12 months preceding the survey. That really supports the argument for broad cultural change initially made in the Deschamps report.
Since 2015, there have been a lot of improvements that deserve to be acknowledged. The first one that I wanted to acknowledge is the accessibility of information. In the Deschamps report, if you read even the executive summary, you will see that one of the findings was that there was widespread confusion about how to access resources and tools for survivors. I do see genuine improvement in this respect — not only in terms of how the information is presented on the website of the Canadian Armed Forces but also with innovative tools like the mobile app Respect in the CAF, which was launched last year and was meant to provide research, information and tools in an accessible format.
Another area of improvement is in terms of tools and training designed for leaders and bystanders. I see that as a positive step. It is important for survivors to understand that there is a supportive environment for them and around them and that their peers and superiors are really sensitive to issues of sexual misconduct and understand how to recognize it and address it. Eliminating sexual misconduct has to be everyone’s responsibility, and victim-blaming has to be completely eliminated.
Another major area of improvement is to see that the elimination of sexual violence is a priority within the defence policy Strong, Secure and Engaged. The recommendations and the main initiatives that follow the Deschamps report can be found in this document. That’s very important for sustainability. I sometimes worry about what will happen in terms of the pace of progress that has been made since the publication of the Deschamps report, when really engaged leaders like Rear-Admiral Bennett leave or when we have a new CDS after CDS Vance departs. For there to be sustainability, it’s important to have that strong mandate. That was included in SSE, Strong, Secure and Engaged. I think that’s important. The more these changes can be institutionalized in policy and programs, the better.
In terms of progress to be made, at the heart of the many initiatives discussed today, by me and others, is an ambitious overarching goal of cultural change. One of the enabling factors recognized by both the literature and the data collected by the Deschamps investigation and the Canadian Armed Forces is that the tolerance of misogyny and of a sexist military environment leads to harmful behaviour for both individual members of the organization and the organization as a whole. It was important for CAF leaders to recognize and acknowledge that there is indeed a problem. That was probably why that was one of the first recommendations made. We have seen similar movements in other countries, like in the United States, where some veterans took to Twitter to acknowledge their own complicity in perpetrating a misogynistic culture using the hashtag #Iwaswrong.
It was a positive step when the Chief of the Defence Staff not only acknowledged the problem but launched Operation HONOUR, which stresses the importance of breeding a culture of respect while pointing out that a failure to do so undermines operational effectiveness. This link between the CAF and operational effectiveness seems to be the dominant hook not only in terms of Operation HONOUR but in terms of promoting the integration of women more broadly. You see this as a rationale for recruitment efforts, retention efforts and the integration of women in the CAF.
I can get into the reasons why I think we must be cautious about this rationale, but I’m also really aware that there is a pragmatic need to use arguments that are going to resonate with the target audience of these initiatives. I recognize the tension there.
Relatedly, another area where further improvement will be needed is in terms of women’s representation and integration. There has been only a modest increase in the number of women in the CAF, if we look at the last decade. As the Deschamps reports notes, it’s important to better integrate women into the military and to get more women into positions of leadership to effect change. This is a long-term goal, so I think it’s normal that we’re not seeing really dramatic short-term results. Still, I think we should be very cautious about focusing on women’s integration as one of the remedies for a problematic working environment.
My remarks are also informed by research I have conducted in the context of a NATO science for peace and security grant, where I was able to study how military organizations approach the issue of sexual violence. One of the main findings from this study was that we rightfully place a lot of scrutiny on military organizations, but civilian defence institutions, where a culture of misogyny may also be present, are very often absent from those discussions. As we talk about leadership, training and survivor support services in the CAF, I would hope we might also take a look at DND as a whole. Very often, scandal is the impetus for change and scrutiny, but it need not be the case. It could be done just out of sheer due diligence.
Another finding from this project is tied to the connection between internal and external dynamics within the CAF. “Internal” refers to the CAF as an organization, and “external” refers to the activities our forces perform abroad. Canada is actively promoting diversity, the eradication of sexual violence and the increased participation of women in the military in international fora through its missions and operations in other countries, so we have to make sure our own house is in order when promoting those types of objectives abroad. We tend to separate the internal and external dimensions, but I think they are quite linked. The CAF’s credibility on the world stage depends on its ability to get this right: to eradicate sexual misconduct within its ranks and to further the integration of women and other under-represented groups. But this cannot be fully achieved without the broad cultural change that the Deschamps report called for.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We’ll now move to questions, beginning with a deputy chair.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: I would like to thank our guests, particularly Colonel Drapeau, whose very relevant press statements I have followed for quite some time.
It is obvious that the current police and military court system must be put aside to make the fight against sexual assault in the Armed Forces more decisive than it has been for the past 20 years. Colonel Drapeau, how do we explain why the military has been so reluctant to use normal channels in the Canadian justice system to lay charges?
Col. Drapeau: I do not know the answer to that question. I have noted like you that there is great reluctance to avoid losing control. The Armed Forces took charge of the sexual assault file in 1998, when newspapers at the time were reporting cases of sexual assault which called into question the decision to entrust the military with this file. The Armed Forces took on this responsibility because they were able to convince your predecessors that they were capable of providing better justice, delivered more promptly and with more situational awareness for members of the Armed Forces. Thirty years later, we have realized that things certainly didn’t go better. We now have proof that indicates that sexual misconduct in the Armed Forces is still prevalent and deeply ingrained.
Our current system wasn’t designed for dealing with crimes against society and against individuals. The military courts used for dealing with cases of sexual assault are disciplinary courts. Military police is present to ensure good discipline and good conduct for members of the Armed Forces. It is not familiar with the investigation methods that all police forces use to prosecute and consider crimes and it has no experience with them. As a result, we are still facing difficulties. I do not believe that the solution is to keep the current system. The Armed Forces are known for wanting to retain control over all the aspects that help to uncover and prosecute crimes, and they are jealously guarding this area of jurisdiction.
Senator Dagenais: Would it be possible to create a different mechanism that will provide swifter justice for victims and bring about change?
Col. Drapeau: We have a system for civil justice that works. We have courts and police services that have experienced special brigades. Some people have spent their entire careers prosecuting and investigating sexual crimes. Why is it that in small municipalities, whether at Gagetown, Petawawa or Edmonton, military garrisons seek police forces that have disciplinary training, and their members do not reside permanently on site and are constantly transferred? It is difficult to train and retain such expertise on site. The number of sexual assault cases in the Armed Forces is not so high. Cases are few and far between so military police forces do not have experience. And if they have had experience, they lose it as soon as members are transferred and then they have to start again from scratch. The four military judges do not have this experience. They may hear a sexual assault case once every two or three years. They do not have the training that civil judges have either.
All of this is combined with an Armed Forces sentencing system that is not adapted to this type of crime since a reprimand would not be the type of penalty a civil court would impose. They could impose a fine, but we have seen courts martial that are called on to hear sexual crimes and that transform these crimes into a disciplinary offence, namely individuals are convicted of “conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline.” So the person is downgraded or reprimanded or something to that effect, which has absolutely nothing to do with the type of sentence that a civil court would pronounce if that person were accused and found guilty of such a crime. As a result, victims do not believe that the military and military justice system take their cases seriously, and the accused comes out on top in the sentencing.
Senator Dagenais: My next question is for Ms. Taber. Ms. Taber, do you believe, after all the initiatives that have been taken over the past 20 years, and based on the findings of your research, that it is still possible to create a new internal plan to seriously frame and lead the files against sexual harassment? Is this not just delaying once again the search for a real solution? Should we not establish a system that would be credible and provide support to victims?
[English]
Ms. Taber: Thank you. That’s a great question. I would say yes. Perhaps I’m an eternal optimist, but even looking at the changes that have happened since 2015, although they largely have been in many ways externally forced, as discussed earlier, the key is looking at how everything interacts. Although I focused on the micro of the policy, because I think it’s really important to discuss the importance of gender and keep that at the forefront, we also need to look at how all the systems work together.
Although we can create a new internal mechanism to deal with sexual harassment, it cannot be successful unless we’re also engaging in making the CAF a more gender-equitable place and engaging in cultural change. Some of these we’ve been talking about I see as being large, macro issues, and we can engage with those macro issues by beginning at a micro level and taking the steps that have been recommended by people like Deschamps.
Did I answer your question?
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: Yes. Thank you very much, madam.
[English]
Senator Jaffer: Thank you very much to all four of you for your presentations. They certainly have helped me in understanding the issue better. I have a number of questions. I’ll start with the colonel and go to the professor on a second round.
Colonel Drapeau, you have been talking about these issues for a long time. Last October, in the CBC, you compiled a report that states that a little under one quarter of sexual assault trials in the Canadian military system have resulted in a guilty verdict. In most of these cases, the offenders were instead found guilty of disgraceful conduct. Basically it was because they were conducted within the unit, if I understand correctly, where everybody was there, so it’s hard to get the witnesses and the people to come and stand up for the person who has been hurt.
You have said there should be an independent process. It seems like there is a little bit of dragging in the sense that that’s not in place. Until that’s in place, can you suggest what needs to happen? One of my suggestions was to have another unit look at it, but I’d like to hear your suggestion.
Col. Drapeau: My solution is simple. Turn the clock back to 1998 when section 70 of the National Defence Act said that the following four offences cannot be tried by a military tribunal if the offence takes place in Canada, and the fourth one was sexual assault. Then all of us are on the same basis, then, whether you’re victimized by members of the military at a local Canadian Tire parking lot or, as it happened in Quebec City — I’m referring to footnote 11 of my paper — at the gala evening of about 1,000 people where an inebriated officer came and grabbed two of his female subordinates. He was charged with assault, as he should have been, criminal assault, but also charged simultaneously as an alternate with conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline. He does what anybody else would in the circumstances, with the advice of counsel. He pled guilty to the second offence. I believe he was convicted and the sentence was a severe reprimand and a fine of $2,000.
A basic question: What does a severe reprimand mean? What is the impact of it? Does it create a criminal record? The answer is no. The officer was posted away from Quebec City to Ottawa, and that is it.
Now, if you put yourself in the shoes of those two victims, two subordinate officers, and those friends and colleagues, do you truly believe that those individuals will now report the crime if they were to be subject of a crime and let the military justice system handle these offences as they were? That’s the basis of it.
For as long as the military has it, and the Code of Service Discipline incorporates all of the Criminal Code offences and the disciplinary offences and they’re coming to a single heading called “Service Offences,” they’re interchangeable. That’s why you have disciplinary offences where somebody else was charged with disgraceful conduct, but it’s a disciplinary offence.
Any other profession in Canada — be it lawyer, police officer or accountant — can face the criminal repercussion for the crime they commit — be it fraud or sexual assault — and they can also face a disciplinary mandate of their profession. That includes the judiciary.
But in the military, it’s one and the same. You have a disciplinary police force, a disciplinary tribunal, a disciplinary sentencing system that tries and handles sexual assault, I think to the detriment of itself as a body, as the Canadian Armed Forces, and to the victims themselves. They do the best they can with the system they have.
The fact is you don’t need to be a military person to investigate, charge and prosecute a sexual assault. That’s why we have civilian tribunals and police forces in Canada with that experience, that expertise, and, more significantly independence from the chain of command. Whether you’re a colonel or a private soldier, if you did the crime, it will be investigated and you will be prosecuted.
In the forces there is a fear that this may not happen and an additional fear that if you are the victim and you report the crime, which, absurdly, the person who you should be reporting the crime to is the military police, but 90 per cent of the cases it’s reported to the chain of command. Your chain of command officer is maybe the very fellow who is responsible for the alleged assault. Many of those victims call me or they go to bed and they have solace in not reporting it because they know if they do, their career may take a severe impact.
I represent some of those who have not reported the crime for 10 years, and they’re booted out of the military because their psychological and social performance and conduct have taken a hit. People forgot that they were victimized by it and they are being let go for misconduct and disciplinary reasons. The system doesn’t work.
Senator Jaffer: Professor Eichler, I listened to everyone very carefully, but for the first time it really struck me how the culture of authority within the Canadian Armed Forces really leads against reporting, especially to someone who is higher in command. It’s obvious that this needs to be an independent process, but the culture of authority is so ingrained in the Canadian Armed Forces. Even if they had an independent body to report to, I still feel that there will be reluctance because of the kind of culture that exists in the Canadian Armed Forces, and I’m hoping you will tell me I’m wrong.
Ms. Eichler: Thank you for the question.
We need both. We need to think about ways to circumvent the chain of command and even create more independence and accountability in terms of reporting, but more broadly we need to think about ways to ameliorate the hierarchy, to think about ways in which to empower those at the lower ranks and to hold accountable those higher up on the chain of command. That’s a bigger question, but we need to consider both types of measures.
[Translation]
Senator McIntyre: Colonel Drapeau, after the Deschamps report was tabled, Operation HONOUR was created, followed by the launch of the Sexual Misconduct Response Centre, the SMRC, in September 2015. What progress and obstacles has the centre seen over the past three years?
Col. Drapeau: Senator, I’m not an expert in terms of this centre. What I remember is that initially, the centre did experience some difficulties, particularly in finding a permanent management team. I think it took three or four tries before someone was made responsible for the centre.
Then, it took some time before a modus operandi was established. In the beginning, the centre was open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday. If sexual misconduct occurred over the weekend, the centre was closed.
After that, they had to figure out where the centre would fit in the hierarchy of the Department of Defence. There was some debate, which was never really resolved, that eventually the centre would report to the Department of Defence rather than to the Armed Forces, which would give the illusion that the centre was independent from the chain of command. However, I do not believe this is really the case, nor do most victims. These were initial issues that were troubling nevertheless, because it was a milestone when Ms. Deschamps tabled her report in April 2015. That was her first recommendation. It was a starting point that was supposed to give some certainty and some confidence to victims so that they could seek help, a sympathetic ear, and obtain independent outside assistance, whatever their rank, colonel or sergeant or any rank.
Senator McIntyre: I understand that victims of sexual assault have to go through several departments and processes within the military organization. As a result, a military force member could decide to withdraw from the process if they had a bad experience at one of the stages. Am I correct?
Col. Drapeau: If a victim decides not to lay charges or to request assistance, which happens often, the military force member may decide to call on medical services to seek psychological or pharmacological assistance. It is important to note that medical authorities are allowed to provide information about the medical condition of members to authorities that are responsible for their careers, and they do so regularly. Therefore, military members do not fully trust the medical services they use, as their medical background and anything they tell their doctor or other therapist could possibly be disclosed to career development services, who then decide whether they will pursue their service in the Armed Forces or not.
[English]
Senator McIntyre: Professors, you have all specialized on the issue of gender equality in the Canadian Armed Forces. My question is addressed to all of you. In your view, is the Canadian Armed Forces taking the issue of sexual harassment seriously, and do you believe that the leadership is committed to genuine cultural changes?
Ms. Taber: I have been heartened since General Vance has taken over and begun Operation HONOUR. People have asked me this question before, and I do believe he and the chief warrant officer are taking the issue seriously. I think they’re committed to making cultural change. However, they’ve got a long hill to go. They’re taking over in 2018 after decades of discrimination and marginalization against women. I also think we have to be working from the bottom up, the top down and from the middle — leadership at all levels — in order to make cultural change.
One of the things I’ve talked about before is that when Operation HONOUR came out, there was a group of military members, and it was reported in one of the Kingston newspapers that people were calling it Operation “hop on her” instead of Operation HONOUR, to the point that when you went to google Operation HONOUR, when you got to “H-O-”, it would autofill “hop on her” as opposed to HONOUR. So there is commitment at the leadership level, but there is a long way to go with making a cultural change.
The Chair: Dr. von Hlatky, do you have anything you would like to add?
Ms. von Hlatky: Certainly. Thank you for the question.
As I expressed in my remarks, I am concerned about the issue of sustainability. We’ve seen a high intensity of new initiatives and changes implemented since the release of the Deschamps report, and we’ve had very committed leaders. Since there’s going to be some turnover in the next year, we have to look at making sure the institutional mechanisms are in place so that whoever comes into these leadership positions can pick up where their predecessors left off.
I also agree with Dr. Taber that it’s not just about leadership; it needs to be all the way down. I still think that in informal settings, Operation HONOUR is being disparaged or joked about. As long as that still happened, it’s concerning. It’s about making sure that at all levels, in formal or informal setting, that there’s no tolerance for these kinds of inappropriate comments on either sexual violence or the initiatives that have been implemented to eradicate it. There’s still progress to be made for sure.
Relating back to Dr. Eichler’s comments, it’s not only about training that narrowly focuses on sexual violence, but it’s about gender literacy more broadly and grappling with some of the deeper questions related to the organizational culture of the Canadian Armed Forces. It’s grappling with what we mean by masculinity and femininity, how both can be reconciled within an existing professional culture and how that culture can evolve with everyone’s identities being respected and taken into account as that evolution takes place.
Ms. Eichler: There’s commitment, but I don’t think enough is being done. This is a crucial time right now with the new frag order that came out March 5 that talks about institutionalizing Operation HONOUR. There is a real recognition that this is going to have to be an ongoing effort.
The big question goes back to what I was saying previously about how Operation HONOUR-related activities just get added to people’s workloads, so to go do the bystander training, for example, becomes another box to check. How can we really create the kind of support that is needed from the bottom up — the resources, the expertise, the personnel — to succeed in cultural change? That’s the big question you want to ask the minister.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: Colonel Drapeau, it’s a pleasure to see you again. You have been active in the Armed Forces for almost 20 years. I think you’re probably an elder in this respect in Canada. I congratulate you for remaining involved.
I’m going to start with a judgment, and then I will mention some possible solutions. Given your long experience, do you think that the management of sexual assault and bullying in the Armed Forces, and even possibly in federal political organizations, is archaic?
Col. Drapeau: Yes, absolutely.
Senator Boisvenu: To the extent that managers are protected more than the victims themselves?
Col. Drapeau: I’m not sure about that, senator. I believe it is archaic because trial by summary conviction, which is the way we dealt with some harassment accusations until recently, has been in place for more than a hundred years. The process has remained the same. Changes were made to the court martial process in 1998 and 1999. However, fundamentally, the form of the system remains more than a century old.
Senator Boisvenu: You say that victims are excluded, that they don’t trust the system and that very little support is provided to them.
Col. Drapeau: Senator, If I may, you are the one who excluded victims.
Senator Boisvenu: What I mean to say is that, based on these three elements, we’re dealing with a system that does not protect the victims very much.
Col. Drapeau: I agree with you.
Senator Boisvenu: Let’s try now to find a path forward. In 2015, the federal government adopted the Victims Bill of Rights, which recognizes the victims’ right to information, protection, involvement and compensation. However, this excludes the military.
Col. Drapeau: Yes, I am outraged. It’s not just the military that is excluded. I’m currently representing a victim of sexual assault. Because she is a civilian, she will have to attend a court martial next June as a witness and she has no rights. When I accepted my mandate, I communicated with military police, in this case as in others. The police did not want to answer my questions to find out what happened or where they were in the investigation. I assume that a civilian victim should be able to receive this information under the act.
Senator Boisvenu: Would a possible solution be to adopt a victims’ bill of rights for the military?
Col. Drapeau: To be fair, I believe that members of the Armed Forces tried to do so during the last Parliament, a few weeks before the end. They tabled a bill to recognize victims’ rights. However, this was almost three years ago, and the victims of attackers who are prosecuted before military tribunals are still excluded. They are the only people in Canada to be excluded in this way. This does not send a very comforting message to these individuals.
[English]
Senator McPhedran: Thank you to all four witnesses, both for what you shared with us today and for the extensive commitment, expertise and dedication that brought you here today with this focus.
I’m leading up with a question to all four of you to answer each in your own way, but I would like to first address the reference to going back to 1998. If I heard you correctly, Colonel Drapeau, you essentially describe what, to your experience, would be a panacea for our current issues. I’m having a hard time accepting that, if indeed that’s what you were trying to convey. I don’t think we have any evidence — 1998, 2018, or anything in between — that confirms for us that the experience of victims of sexual assault, exploitation and abuse have been well served in the civil system. So please clarify for me.
Col. Drapeau: Let me clarify it. I did not use and would not use the word “panacea.”
Senator McPhedran: No, I used that.
Col. Drapeau: So is the civilian system up to standard? Probably not — and like you, I follow through professional and media centres what is happening — but it is better than what current victims have in the military justice system on at least two factors. First, it’s independent from the chain of command. I think you will agree with that. Second, victims of crime processed before tribunals are at least covered by the Bill of Rights. Thirdly, the sentencing concepts in civilian tribunals are kept up to date regularly as a result of changes brought by both the Senate and the House of Commons. It sometimes takes a long time before these changes find themselves in the National Defence Act. Regarding the sentencing principles that were adopted in Bill C-15 in 2014, more than 50 per cent of the provisions that Parliament enacted at that time have yet to be put into force.
I forgot another one, which is perhaps most important. Most police forces that I’m aware of, including Ottawa, but certainly large municipal centres, have specialized teams and squads responsible for the investigation of sexual assault. Sometimes they spend a whole career in that particular thing. For the military police officer who comes to the quarters where the victim is located to take her testimony, that may be the first and only sexual assault crime that he will ever investigate.
So you’re comparing two systems. One is far from being perfect. The other one is too imperfect to continue the way it is.
Senator McPhedran: May I invite any other witness who wishes to comment further on that? If there is no one, then I have a question to all four of you.
Picking up on the third progress report from the Canadian Armed Forces on the implementation of the Deschamps recommendations, I note that in the introduction they indicate that six of the ten recommendations “have been met” and the remaining four are “well on the way to being completely implemented.” That seems to me to be a hugely optimistic interpretation of what we have heard here today from every witness.
My question to each of you, acknowledging that this is complex; acknowledging that change in such a patriarchal and hierarchical organization is a demanding process that will take a considerable amount of time — I don’t want that as an answer — what for each of you would be the top choice of the most transformational “next step?” I’m asking a short-term question, but I’m asking that question with a view to what, in your opinion as experts, would take us closest to being more on the path to sustaining a transformed working environment and the implementation of much of these policy changes.
Ms. Eichler: My answer is external oversight. Justice Deschamps has come out publicly in a CBC interview, since the release of the third progress report, and stated clearly that what she envisaged as an independent accountability centre is not what has been created. As DND is talking about institutionalizing Operation HONOUR, this is the time to put more pressure on them to think about how to add some sort of external oversight here.
The Sexual Misconduct Response Centre is in the process of setting up an external advisory council which, again, is only giving advice to the centre and the centre gives advice to DND and CAF. We have these two levels of advice, but we have no accountability.
Ms. Taber: First, I think it’s important to refute the progress report’s own assessment that it has met so many of those recommendations. I have done an analysis of that. I won’t go into depth, but some of it I did talk about in my report. I have it in front of me. Recommendation 2, talking about part two of the recommendations and the strategy.
Recommendation 3, Dr. Eichler has already mentioned.
Recommendation 4 talks about allowing members to report incidents to the centre for accountability or to request support services without the obligation to trigger a formal complaint process. It says this has been met, but there is contradictory wording in the orders that require that members report to the chain of command in DAOD 5019 and also the Respect in the CAF App and the bystander intervention training package.
Recommendation 5 has not been done. I spoke about this in my introductory remarks. There is no simple, broad definition of “sexual harassment.” There is no definition of “adverse personal relationship” that addresses relationships between members of different ranks. Here I’m quoting the recommendation from Deschamps. “Sexual assault” has not been defined as Deschamps had said.
There is also a recommendation that there is a single policy using plain language. We haven’t seen that yet.
There is also a recommendation that alternative dispute resolution be decreased. That has not been decreased. My analysis of the document shows it has actually been increased in the wording in some of the documents. There has also been added a new notice of dissatisfaction before submitting a formal complaint.
I actually contest the beginning of that statement that although the progress report says they have met these, when you analyze what they have done with what the recommendations are, several of those recommendations have not been met. I think it’s important to clarify that.
With respect to the second part about priority, I think the external body is crucial, which has already been mentioned, but I think the recommendations that Deschamps has put forward have to be met in reality, along with education that focuses on a feminist pedagogy for giving, as was mentioned before, a gender literacy. I think we also have to look at gender equity, that is, how are women treated organizationally — not just with respect to sexual harassment and sexual assault, but also gender discrimination, as I mentioned in my opening remarks.
Ms. von Hlatky: I wish to acknowledge, again, that this is not a check list exercise but needs to be an ongoing effort. There is no silver bullet to make change happen overnight.
I do think that a substantial increase in the amount of resources so that there is solid internal expertise and a mechanism to engage in a more sustainable manner with external sources of expertise would be very beneficial and potentially game-changing. That would be one of my main recommendations, because it’s true that these types of tasks can’t just be add-ons to existing roles and responsibilities.
I would definitely encourage a feminist overhaul of the military education and training system, consistent with what some of my colleagues have alluded to. I know there is a curriculum review under process, so a lot of changes are being made. Those changes are being spearheaded by military personnel generation right here in Kingston, but that needs to be a huge focus of these efforts so that, from basic training to the upper echelons of leadership, everyone has access to the cutting edge in terms of evidence-based research in this particular field.
Senator Oh: When you have five senators before you, most of the questions have been asked. I am going to take the question further away. Are you aware of any other countries in the world, including those in NATO, that are letting civilian courts handle their sexual assault and harassment cases?
Col. Drapeau: Yes, senator. There are several countries. It is a global trend at the moment that military tribunals are being dispensed with in peacetime. France is one, Belgium is another, Germany is another and the Netherlands is another. It’s the trend. Disciplinary tribunals are portable in the sense that it’s done when a force is being deployed abroad in order to ensure discipline and to give commanders the ability to use disciplinary tools to ensure a discipline effective force. In peacetime, in France, if you do the crime, as a citizen, then you’ll be tried by civilian tribunals. That includes sexual assault or any sexual misconduct offences.
Senator Oh: How long ago did they start this process?
Col. Drapeau: They started that quite a number of years ago. I just returned from a conference at Yale University that looked at civilian tribunals and what the laws should be looking like from a United Nations perspective. This is the trend. It may not happen overnight, but more and more, this is what scholars, members of military law, jurists and academia are proposing, certainly with sexual assault.
There is a problem similar to ours in the United States, but we ought to put that aside, being a super power and so on. However, most other nations are looking eventually at doing away with it.
In the U.K., you have courts martial, but courts martial are all presided over by civilian jurists, and the chief jurist of the U.K. court martial is a judge of the high court. He is as experienced as federally appointed judges. He received training and is experienced in doing so. All of the judges he appoints to preside over courts martial are all civilians.
Ms. von Hlatky: I would like to raise an issue that hasn’t been raised but that is linked to your question, and that’s the issue of what to do about sexual violence when service members are on operations. If we think the process is cumbersome and doesn’t serve survivors well back home, we also need to think about what that is like on operations. If you’re deployed for nine months and suffer an incident, whether from your own forces or allied forces while you’re on deployment, working around the clock and possibly under external threat — this is also something that happens and that needs to be addressed. We can’t just think of what happens back home. There is a whole other set of very complex issues when it comes to disclosing and reporting while on operations that should be a part of these discussions.
Senator Richards: Senator Oh’s question is quite similar to mine. Thank you, everyone, for being here. Colonel, if a female recruit or private has been sexually assaulted, for instance, in Gagetown, New Brunswick, where I am from, and decides to go off-base and report it to a female RCMP officer, what would happen? Would she be tried in civilian court? Would the case become public and go civilian?
Col. Drapeau: It often happens. The RCMP no doubt will treat her with compassion but will advise her that they don’t have the authority or jurisdiction. They will refer her to the military police.
Senator Richards: Okay. Do the RCMP get involved, for instance, in a case of murder on a base?
Col. Drapeau: In Canada, under section 70, murder is excluded from the jurisdiction of the military, if the offence is committed in Canada. If it’s committed abroad, the military has jurisdiction. The kidnapping of children is also excluded from the military jurisdiction in Canada.
Senator Richards: Thank you.
The Chair: We’ll go to our second round. I would ask you to be brief so that everyone can get a question in before we finish.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: I would like to come back to Operation HONOUR. I think Ms. Taber said that some members of the Armed Forces mocked Operation HONOUR. What are the consequences for the individuals who mock this operation? Were there consequences or was it impunity once again? My question is for all of our witnesses.
Col. Drapeau: It was at the military college. Shortly after the incident, I was told that young cadets had ridiculed the program by using the expression “Hop On Her.” The incident was reported in the media at about the same time. I don’t know if collective or individual disciplinary measures were taken to end this type of behaviour. Our expectations from these future leaders are high. I do not know what measures were taken, or if any measures were taken.
Senator Dagenais: Thank you, Colonel Drapeau.
[English]
The Chair: Dr. Taber, did you have any further information on that?
Ms. Taber: No, I don’t have any further information on any repercussions or lack thereof.
Senator Jaffer: I have two questions. One comes from hearing all of you professors on the issue of mediation and ADR. I understood from what you were saying that the challenge with that is that it’s a power relationship. With the command or authority structure, it’s not really, as we say in the civilian structure within family law, if violence is involved, it’s not really open to mediation. Can you expand on that?
I’ll also ask you my second question, which is the definition of “harassment.” As you know, there isn’t a definition of “harassment.” From what I understand, the reason there isn’t a definition is because we want to keep it open and not narrow the challenges. Can you comment on both those things?
Ms. Eichler: The main thing is that the victim or survivor should have a choice whether to engage with mediation or ADR. I have spoken quite a lot to social workers within the military who sometimes say that, “Yes, that is something the victim chooses.” But it needs to be a true choice. In an institution with such power differentials, it’s hard to ensure that.
I don’t think we should get rid of it, but I agree with the assessment by my colleague Dr. Taber that it has been emphasized more. It’s on the front page of the military’s Sexual Misconduct Response Centre, so it’s heavily encouraged. It should not be gotten rid of, but there should be no pressure on survivors or victims.
Senator Jaffer: Professor Taber, can you comment on that and also the definition of “harassment”?
Ms. Taber: I agree with what has been said about the problems with ADR. Also, if you look in some of the other documents — for instance, the harassment investigator manual talks about one of the disadvantages of supervisor intervention. It says it includes a potential loss of morale and may sour future relationships affecting unit effectiveness and cohesion, which, in essence, sends the message to members that if anything other than self-help is attempted, it’s the complainant’s fault that there may be negative implications for the unit.
With the power imbalance, it is also crucially important to look at, yes, there should be a choice of ADR, but the evidence demonstrates that ADR and self-help are less likely to engage in cultural change because people are dealing with these issues on an individual basis. They are not involving the chain of command, and they are not looking to make sure that anything changes in their day-to-day life, other than addressing one discrete instance. There is a lot more on that, but I think that covers the bases.
The definition of “harassment” right now is in DAOD 5012-0:
Improper conduct by an individual, that is directed at and offensive to another individual in the workplace, including at any event or any location related to work, and that the individual knew or ought reasonably to have known would cause offence or harm. It comprises objectionable act(s), comment(s) or display(s) that demean, belittle, or cause personal humiliation or embarrassment, and any act of intimidation or threat.
It also references the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Based on my discussion in my opening remarks, if this definition were changed, there are two aspects: One is about harassment, and one is about sexual harassment. To address the comment about harassment first, if it were rephrased by deleting those objectionable phrases that Deschamps has mentioned, and turn it into something like “improper conduct by an individual, including at any event or any location related to work, that is an objectionable act, comment or display, demeans, belittles, causes personal humiliation or embarrassment,” that would improve that definition.
If you look at the definition of “harmful” and “inappropriate sexual behaviour” that is in Operation HONOUR, this, I think, is a very important definition because it makes gender central to the issue of sexual harassment, which again, not all the documents or related training but the main policy in instructions is silent on. I think this is important to look at for this committee’s look at the experiences of women. I should also mention, and I think it has been mentioned before, it’s not just women who experience sexual harassment; it’s also men and members who don’t fit into that binary and members of the LGBTQ community.
Sexual harassment is “. . . behaviour that includes but is not limited to actions that perpetuate stereotypes and modes of thinking that devalue members on the basis of their sex, sexuality or sexual orientation.” It goes on, but I think that’s the crucial aspect that needs to be at the forefront.
Senator Jaffer: Thank you.
Senator McIntyre: Obviously, the Canadian Armed Forces face challenges in terms of sexual misconduct. How are those challenges similar to or different from those confronting the Armed Forces of other countries?
Ms. Eichler: I haven’t done in-depth research into other militaries, but definitely I can share that all armed forces that are integrating women more are more explicitly dealing with these problems. I think with the Canadian Armed Forces, in many ways, we have a big problem, but we are leading in terms of addressing the problem.
Col. Drapeau: I would think probably not very much different than most other nations. I have worked with and testified in the U.S. The U.S. has a bigger problem that than we do, more significantly caused in the main by total control by the military over the entire issue of sexual violence. But whether in the U.K. or France or other NATO territories, I would only assume about the same as what we have in Canada.
Ms. Taber: What the Australian Defence Force in their reviews on the treatment of women in 2012 and 2014 highlighted as crucially important was moving towards gender equity in some of the ways I mentioned. Actually, some of that came from their report.
While we in Canada may be perceived as being progressive with respect to some of our policies in Operation HONOUR, Deschamps and the Statistics Canada report, and certainly, this is very similar to what is happening in the States and the U.K. There is also some work about Finland, that same sort of masculinized warrior culture detrimental to women and men who don’t fit into that mould. Also, I think we can look to countries such as Australia for the ways they are leading forward with respect to better addressing the issues with respect to sexual harassment and violence in their own ranks.
Ms. von Hlatky: One of the first things that happened once the report by Deschamps was tabled is that military leaders started to travel abroad to collect best practices from allies and partners, so indeed, this is not just a Canadian issue.
Just to look at the Australian case, what I find interesting from those best practices, and their experience with Pathways to Change, was the fact that it was a pair including the chief of the defence force and the sex discrimination commissioner, so high-ranking civilian, high-ranking military official, and I think that was a very healthy pairing to conduct a thorough review of practices in the Australian Defence Force. Now, as to why we didn’t pick up on that best practice in Canada, I don’t know the reasons behind that, but maybe it’s something to consider moving forward as we continue to think about solutions and sustainability over the long term.
The other thing I would add is, again, that multinational environment, so yes, other nations are dealing with issues of sexual misconduct, sexual violence too in their Armed Forces, but what happens when you have a multinational operational environment and everyone has their distinct process? I think this is something that we haven’t even begun to grapple with, but it’s very important, especially for the Canadian Armed Forces, which rarely undertake operations alone.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: I would like to thank our guests for their presence.
Colonel Drapeau, in Canada in the provinces where legal support is offered to victims, especially in sexual assault cases, the rates of reporting are higher and the rates of withdrawal during proceedings is lower. That is the conclusion the Senate committee reached in 2012, during its study on reporting. In the Armed Forces, is legal support offered to victims to help them feel less isolated?
Col. Drapeau: Not at all. Not currently.
Senator Boisvenu: That shows that the hierarchical structure of the Armed Forces is very rigid. Do victims have to confront this opaque system in order to have access to a bit of information?
Col. Drapeau: Currently, as they are left out of the legislation, they are left to their own devices. In some cases, they contact people like me to represent them, but the Department of Defence does not recognize that these victims have the right to be represented and to assert what the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms grants to all other Canadians. These victims are left behind.
Senator Boisvenu: Is it possible to have access to data on the number of victims who abandon proceedings after having pressed charges because they do not have access to this kind of support?
Col. Drapeau: That is a legitimate question which you should ask the department. I am sure that the Director of Military Prosecutions will be able to give you that information.
Senator Boisvenu: It would be interesting to know the rate of abandonment at proceedings. It is directly linked to trust in the system and the support offered.
Col. Drapeau: There is still a huge gap here. Ms. Deschamps referred to it. The vast majority of sexual assault victims do not report the crime. Is the percentage 50 per cent, 60 per cent or 75 per cent? We can talk about these kinds of figures without exaggerating. The rate is very high. Has it changed significantly since then? Ms. Deschamps’ report is from 2015. Operation HONOUR was created in 2015, and the Statistics Canada report was published in 2016. Between 2015 and 2016, Statistics Canada reported that there had been about 1,000 sexual assaults in the Armed Forces, even more than what Ms. Deschamps considered likely. Is this number representative? Probably, because 43,000 people participated in the survey, and its quality was very high. Out of the 1,000 individuals who reported that they had been the victim of an assault, how many brought the matter before the police? It would be relatively easy to ask for an answer to that question.
[English]
Senator McPhedran: Again, this is a question to any of our expert witnesses. While I strongly believe in the positive ripple effect of focusing on gender and defining it as sex-specific, i.e., female for most of our discussion today, and noting that in the Deschamps report, the commissioner stayed away from referencing gender identity, so acknowledging that, I want to ask whether any one of you would be concerned in the negative if there were to be a recommendation on a go-forward basis that the implementation of the recommendations should acknowledge gender and gender identity and, if so, if you can help us understand the nature of the concern.
Ms. Eichler: No concerns.
Ms. Taber: I just want to make sure I understood the question. I definitely would have no concerns with including gender identity as something that needs to be looked at with respect to harmful and inappropriate sexual behaviour.
Ms. von Hlatky: Same here.
Col. Drapeau: No concern.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you.
To the chair, please: Could we please ask the training facility if we know where that comment, that hashtag, came from? Even if we don’t, could we ask each and every training centre, and CAF, to respond to any action, any follow-up and what has happened in response to the messaging that came out in response to Operation HONOUR?
The Chair: Duly noted.
If there are no further questions, let me take this opportunity to thank our witnesses very much for making yourselves available and providing your expertise to this table as we proceed with this study. We’re duly grateful to all of you as we move forward.
We will move in camera very briefly.
(The committee continued in camera.)