Sexual Misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces, 2022

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/06/03

“To the best of my knowledge, Officer X and all members of the chain of command (involved) are still serving in the Royal Canadian Navy,” White told MPs. “And not one has faced any disciplinary consequences for their actions.”

Those naval reservists who tried to come forward with evidence against Officer X faced repercussions from naval reserve leaders who warned them they could face charges of mutiny and treason, White said. “These threats of high-order criminal charges were made in order to silence and intimidate them.”

David Pugliese, “Royal Canadian Navy leadership covered up for serial sexual offender, Commons committee hears” (2024)

Effective prevention and control of social and public health problems starts with a clear picture of the scope of the problem, the characteristics of those affected by it, the circumstances under which it occurs and its impact on the affected population. This study shows that military-related sexual assault has been reported by a sizeable fraction of Canadian military women, is associated with mental disorders and may be especially likely to occur on deployment.

Kimberley Watkins et al, “Military-related sexual assault in Canada: a cross-sectional survey” (2017)

Retired general Jonathan Vance has acknowledged he was in a sexual relationship with a subordinate while he was the chief of defence staff, after having denied the allegations in the past.

Ashley Burke, CBC News, “Former top commander Vance acknowledges sexual relationship with subordinate in court document” (2022)

But in bringing about effective cultural change, it’s a process, not an event… And it’s not simply a matter of passing a regulation or a law or issuing an order, it’s about building all of the systems and supports that are necessary to demonstrate, first of all, that there is respect for every member of the (Canadian) Armed Forces, and it’s a strong culture that says certain behaviours are completely unacceptable.

Defence Minister Bill Blair (2023)

The Canadian Armed Forces is committed to eliminating all forms of misconduct, including sexual misconduct. Today’s results from the Survey on Sexual Misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces shows that, while we have made progress in some areas, we still have work to do. We will continue to listen to our members and their lived experiences, and to ensure they have access to the necessary supports and services if or when they need them.

Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre (2023)

Unfortunately, sexual misconduct remains a prominent news item in Canada about the Canadian Armed Forces. I would rather this not be the case, as with, I assume, members of the Canadian public and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members in good standing who have committed no crimes. However, it’s important to report on the data available to us, so the repetition of these events is less likely and the severe cases are minimized based on a culture of public knowledge. 

The core idea is supporting CAF members and the Canadian public to punish criminals who happen to be CAF members, assist military members who are victims, inform the public about some issues – good and bad – in the military, and prevent innocent CAF members being blanketed with the broad-brush following from the crimes of the minority of ill-begotten CAF members.

It’s part of consciousness-raising, which was the point of bringing this to a public fora with an introductory short piece, “The Canadian Armed Forces: Perils and Promises,” followed by a report on a known fact of the targeting of militaries by white supremacists, or one styling of ethnic supremacism, and white nationalists, “The Canadian Armed Forces: White Nationalism, Supremacists?.” 

Some housekeeping before covering the core of the article dealing with Statistics Canada’s report on sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces in 2022. Low-information people can dismiss these articles on the CAF as if written by ChatGPT; however, that remains a) false and b) a red herring. Where, even if true on a), as in written by a Large Language Model, what is the relevance to veracity of the claims and the moral imperative to deal with crimes and ethnic supremacist groups in a federal institution, the CAF? 

It’s a distraction from critical analysis of a federal institution, so b); in my opinion, it seems to be done deliberately to mislead their constituent readers who unquestioningly trust them – and, based on the evidence, should not because they’re deliberately misleading, and then their constituents are deflected to a non-response rather than the relevant content and summative reportage based on information from prominent news organizations in Canada. In my opinion, it’s a disservice to their constituents’ intelligence.

Regardless, to individuals who can be taken more seriously, as was noted in the second minor article reporting on a slivered theme about the CAF, the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency reported on white nationalism and white supremacy in the CAF. Many, apparently, are widely not knowledgeable that the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA) is “Canada’s independent expert review body for national security and intelligence activities.” (I wasn’t.) Indeed, “NSIRA Members are eminent Canadians who have been appointed by the Governor-in-Council on the recommendation of the Prime Minister.” 

The NSIRA’s “National Security and Intelligence Review Agency Annual Report 2020” stated unequivocally and thoroughly without apparent hesitation:

The presence of white supremacy within the Canadian military has been well documented. White supremacist groups actively seek individuals with prior military training and experience, or conversely, encourage individuals to enlist in order to gain access to specialized training, tactics and equipment. Although NSIRA acknowledges that the responsibility for addressing this threat cannot fall uniquely on the shoulders of CFNCIU, the review’s multiple findings lead to concern that CFNCIU may not be fully utilized to proactively identify white supremacists across DND/CAF. After examination of case studies and interviews with CFNCIU investigators, the review found that white supremacy poses an active counter-intelligence threat to DND/CAF, and that the CFNCIU’s mandate to proactively identify this threat is limited. [Emphasis added, as was reported in “The Canadian Armed Forces: White Nationalism, Supremacists?.”]

Now, to the point of this particular article, Statistics Canada was founded in 1971 as a Government of Canada agency to understand Canada at large. It has a many-decade presence in reportage of statistics about all facets of Canadian society. Now, its Interim Chief Statistican of Canada is André Loranger. It’s a reliable, legitimate governmental institution – as with the Canadian Armed Forces, collecting, collating, analyzing, and presenting, data in reports and publications for publicly accessible consumption. 

The organization released “Sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces, 2022” on December 5th, 2023 – only a few months ago. Meaning, this report contains the most recent data about sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces in one slice, 2022. Other articles will cover different facets of CAF members who committed crimes against other members. The report opens with a statement that 3.5% of the Regular Force members, about 1,960, reported sexual assault “in the military workplace or outside of the workplace in an incident that involved Canadian Armed Forces (CAF or other military members in the 12 months preceding the Survey on Sexual Misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces (SSMCAF).”

That’s a lot of people. Recalling, that number does not include Reserve Force members of the CAF. The sexual assaults catalogued, as part of the definition within the data gathering, included “sexual attacks, unwanted sexual touching, and sexual activity where the victim was unable to consent,” which represented a “significant increase from rates reported in 2018 (1.6%) and 2016 (1.7%) when previous iterations of the survey were conducted.” Some hypothesize, though difficult to know for certain, increased procedures, mechanisms, and awareness correlate with the higher reportage. This may be so. 

Women experience, averaging over all Regular Force women members, sexual assault 3 times more than men, or 7.5% and 2.5%, respectively. The 3.5% reflects, as you may guess, the significantly larger number of men in the CAF. The numbers, in fact, may be depressed due to more men present in the CAF. Which leads to some open unknowns, if more women in the CAF in the future, will this decrease the overall proportion of sexual assaults? Or is the abuse more about power, hence something about authority and strong hierarchy-based institutions? We see this issue of sexual misconduct in the United States, Ireland, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, at least, too.

Individuals within the Regular Force who are younger, Indigenous, disabled, and non-heterosexual, reported higher sexual assault rates than those who are older, non-Indigenous, not disabled, and heterosexual. The most common sexual assault (3.3%) was unwanted sexual touching. It’s, probably, the reason for CAF members to ask, “May I touch you?”, or something equivalent when dealing with recruits and others. A simple change for a change in culture via, likely, policy leading to a more humane treatment standard of military members, one to another – seems like a good alteration. 

Inability to consent to sexual activity came at 0.6% and sexual attacks were 0.6%, much lower than unwanted sexual touching. Again, both men and women deal with these sexual assaults, and the numbers have been consistent with “previous cycles and trends that are observed among the population in general.” 

Statistics Canada said, “One in three (33%) Regular Force members who were sexually assaulted in 2022 stated that, in their opinion, their assault was related to the perpetrator’s alcohol or drug use; women (43%) were more likely than men (28%) to state this. Nearly half (49%) believed that it was not, while the remaining 18% did not know if alcohol or drug use by the perpetrator was a factor. This is similar to what was observed in 2016 and 2018.”

Interestingly, with regards to the point about authority, of those who were victims of sexual assault, 64% did not report to anyone in authority and 16% were unaware if an authority figure was aware. 21% of those members who were sexually assaulted said the assault was reported in 2022. Reasons have shifted for Regular Force members as to why members do not report. The main reason circa 2022 is the reporting would not make a difference. Who knows better than those who live the military lifestyle and are employed full-time as Regular Force members – “cited by 41% of Regular Force members who had been sexually assaulted… followed by fear of negative consequences (36%) and resolving the incident informally on their own (34%)?” While, 16% of men cited the formal complaint process as a reason for not reporting, 26% of women said so.

“Among those who did report sexual assault to someone in authority, nearly two-thirds (66%) faced some sort of negative consequence as a result. The most common negative impacts cited were exclusion, bullying, or teasing from peers or other CAF members, being blamed or feeling further victimized, or negative impacts on their career, such as retaliation or reprisal,” the report stated. One can see the same style of dynamics in sexual misconduct cases in the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. 

How did Statistics Canada categorize sexualized behaviours? They made 15 distinctions in 5 categories: “inappropriate verbal and non-verbal communication, distribution of sexually explicit materials, unwanted physical contact or suggested sexual relations, discrimination on the basis of sex or gender, and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.” 19% of Regular Force members, as a whole, report sexualized behaviours in the military workplace or involving other military members. These are behaviours, not sexual assaults, to make the distinction: 19% versus 3.5% (as above). More were experienced in 2022 than 2018. Again, it could be more recognition and mechanisms in place; it could be a third unknown variable, or it could be simply an increase in bad behaviour. 

“Just over one in three (34%) women in the Regular Force personally experienced at least one sexualized or discriminatory behaviour in the 12 months preceding the survey, more than twice the proportion of men (16%),” Statistics Canada explained, “Overall, two-thirds (67%) of Regular Force members stated that they witnessed (saw or heard) or personally experienced sexualized or discriminatory behaviour in the 12 months prior to the survey. This was lower than in 2018 (70%) and 2016 (80%).”

Another interesting part of the report is the witnesses to sexualized behaviour and bystander intervention. Over half of Regular Force members intervened, that’s a wonderful testament to the CAF Regular Force members on-the-job. Their culture change has had a difference in some behaviours to the tune of 10% higher intervention rates on most of the metrics, approximately, of intervention by witnesses of sexualized behaviour. These are the members of the CAF who deserve recognition, support, and media time. We need to reinforce this type of culture change in the CAF for the same of its members and the disastrous public image sent out to the world with previous cases of sexual misconduct.

By far the most common reason for not reporting: The “perception that the behaviour was not serious enough,” which, as noted by Statistics Canada, a perception in the non-serious nature of the behaviour. How can we make a demarcation or shift the goal posts? The not intervening was far more often for inappropriate sexual community than sexual behaviours and discriminatory behaviours, 69% versus 47% and 47%, respectively. The majority of Regular Force members have a positive image of their unit’s responsiveness to misconduct. Only modestly less for the CAF as an organization.

“For instance, almost all (96%) Regular Force members agreed that it is understood by their unit that sexual misconduct has no place in the CAF. The promotion and sharing of information about how to report sexual misconduct had the lowest positive perception but was still generally viewed as positive by 80% of Regular Force members,” Statistics Canada stated, “Around two-thirds (66%) of Regular Force members felt that the CAF holds perpetrators of sexual misconduct accountable for their actions. Those who had been sexually assaulted or personally experienced sexualized or discriminatory behaviours were less likely to agree with this statement.”

61% of the Regular Force, and so 75% of women and 59% of men believed so, with 59% of women and 76% of men believing culture around sexual misconduct improving. Things have been improving. I am so grateful for those members who make those efforts to improve the conditions for those around them. However, I leave, as with the minor article on white nationalist and white supremacists in the Canadian Armed Forces on a critical, though underlying hopeful and positive question: Is this the same not good enough as before? (What else can be done for more robust, long-lasting, and comprehensive reforms of culture to set a standard for the world?)

Further Internal Resources (Chronological, yyyy/mm/dd):

Articles

The Canadian Armed Forces: Perils and Promises (2024/05/07)

The Canadian Armed Forces: White Nationalism, Supremacists? (2024/05/09)

Sexual Misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces, 2022

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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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