The Canadian Armed Forces: Perils and Promises
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/05/07
The Canadian Armed Forces are in a bit of an imbroglio over the last while and getting worse.
The Canadian Armed Forces has been a pillar of the protection of the Canadian State and peoples since the early 20th century. A woven tapestry into Canadian life and culture in its cosmopolitan sense, and, in other ways, not so much.
There have been a number of troubling aspects of the Canadian Armed Forces coming out in the last few years. Some reportage troubling to the Canadian public about the Canadian Armed Forces; other aspects of journalism about the public’s seemingly conflicting expectations of themselves and the duty of service expected of Canadian Armed Forces members.
Still yet, we have failures of provision for the individuals with Unlimited Liability who serve the country in addition to failures to reach minimum standards in NATO commitments in as simple an item as finances.
Then, even further, the failures of many men, women, and non-binary people, in service to one another with the sexual assault and harassment crisis and/or scandal arising to public consciousness in the last decade or so. So, where can reportage start on these issues within the Canadian Armed Forces?
They can begin wherever they may, but, insofar as I can tell as an independent journalist, they begin internal with Canadian Armed Forces members impact on each other. By which I mean, the most morally consequential item for the Canadian Armed Forces by members to other members, whether in downplaying the severity of the problem, being collaborators, not reporting crimes, not supporting probable victims, not protecting the accused until a fair trial, not giving a fair and speedy trial for accusers, and a failure as an institution to make policy and culture change far earlier than now.
There are changes ongoing in the Canadian Armed Forces. While, there are crimes committed and reported in many other countries’ militaries; we can ask a fundamental meta-ethical question, not metaethical query. “Is abuse inherent to a military system?” We do not know. In some ways, we can frame the alterations to the patterns, processes, and structures, of the Canadian Armed Forces as a cutting-edge change.
Although, they happen only as these crimes come to light and class-action lawsuits are made, in some ways, too. This is sensitive to many Canadian who take pride in their military. Is the truth more important here, though? In some ways, honesty about the issues, conservative and liberal concerns alike, about the Canadian Armed Forces can be seen as a fulfillment and extension of the self-proclaimed values, professional expectations, and so on, of the Canadian Armed Forces – how ever uncomfortable.
As with the damage to Hollywood fame, religious institutions, political party affiliations, and social organizations, and to journalistic enterprises, we will see the fallout from these crimes and deficits in the Canadian Armed Forces for our lifetimes.
Cultural memory may be short, but institutional cultural memory is longer. What you will in a set of future articles is a continuance of research into another aspect of public culture, Western in this case, a glimpse into virtues and vices through facts and figures, and narratives, about the Canadian Armed Forces.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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