Nearly 40 per cent of Canadians are not confident the Canadian Armed Forces will “appropriately” deal with allegations of sexual misconduct, according to internal National Defence polling reviewed by Global News.
And while the Canadian public continues to hold favourable views of their armed forces, the March 2022 report shows those positive feelings are declining amid ongoing misconduct scandals and concerns about racism within the ranks.
“I think there really is a crisis in trust in the Canadian public with the military, and that’s very unusual. The Canadian Forces have been the most trusted public institution for a very long time,” said Megan MacKenzie, the Simons Chair in International Law and Human Security at Simon Fraser University.
“But I think with the years of allegations and scandals, when it comes to sexual misconduct (and) also the recent report on racism within the forces and the presence of white supremacism within the forces, I think Canadians…feel at odds … with the culture (that) has developed, and also unsure that the current leadership is able to steer the institution in the right direction.”
While the Earnscliffe polling found that overall impressions of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) were mostly positive or neutral, “tracking data (over years) demonstrates that the degree of positivity towards the CAF is lower.”
In 2020, 43 per cent of respondents said their impression of those who serve in the CAF was strongly positive. The following year, just 35 per cent agreed.
The Canadian Armed Forces have been dealing with a sexual misconduct crisis since February 2021, when Global News first reported that Gen. Jonathan Vance, former chief of the defence staff, faced allegations of inappropriate behaviour from female subordinates after leaving the top military position.
That same month Vance’s replacement, Adm. Art McDonald, stepped aside after allegations against him surfaced in the media.
The crisis precipitated a flood of allegations against senior officers, questions about how the Liberal government handled the allegations they knew about, and sweeping recommendations to change how the military deals with cases of alleged sexual misconduct.
And the crisis is ongoing.
On Wednesday, military police charged Lt.-Gen. Steven Whalen with two counts of “conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline” related to an alleged relationship with a subordinate. Whalen has been on leave since October 2021, just months after replacing Vice-Adm. Haydn Edmundson, who was himself on leave after a military probe into allegations he sexually assaulted a subordinate officer.
The Earnscliffe poll suggested that 81 per cent of Canadians have paid attention to the news coverage of the crisis, and 15 per cent have paid “a lot” of attention.
“The impact of these allegations on impressions of the CAF was mixed,” read the report’s summary of focus group findings.
“Some, and men in particular, were more likely to say that while the incidents they had heard about were horrible, the perpetrators behaviour was not reflective of the entire CAF … A few participants (mostly women) argued that what they perceived to be the CAF’s efforts to ‘cover up’ the allegations cast a negative light (on) the entire military.”
The focus groups found that women aged 18-34 — the CAF’s target recruitment demographic –— “were less convinced that the CAF’s culture will change in the future.” While younger women were especially likely to express that concern, there was “skepticism” in the CAF’s response among all demographic groups interviewed by Earnscliffe.
“Those who were confident that the CAF would address the allegations argued that pressure from the media may force the military to change and that failure to do so could hamper future recruitment efforts,” the report read.
According to preliminary figures provided to Global News by the Department of National Defence, the proportion of women set be admitted this year to the military’s Regular Officer Training Program sits at roughly 18 per cent — far short of the five-year high of 27 per cent set last year.
The program aims to select young men and women to serve as officers in the military in a variety of occupations, with successful applicants attending the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ont., or the Royal Military College Saint-Jean in Quebec.
The department cautioned that it continues to process active offers for the program, with 93 per cent of its intake completed so far.
According to internal figures compiled by the Department of National Defence, the Forces remain well short of their overall targets for recruiting women, visible minorities and Indigenous peoples.
As of 2020-21, just 16.3 per cent of the CAF identified as women — short of their target of 25 per cent, but still trending up from 15.2 per cent in 2016-17. Visible minorities accounted for 9.5 per cent of the CAF, while 2.8 per cent identified as Indigenous — both short of the CAF’s targets.
More than half of the survey’s respondents (56 per cent) also said they are concerned about systemic racism in Canada’s military.
There have been growing concerns about the threat posed by those within the ranks who espouse white nationalism and other racist views.
An advisory panel report presented earlier this year to Defence Minister Anita Anand found that systemic racism is rampant throughout the Canadian Forces, discouraging would-be recruits from joining the military and endangering the country’s national security.
Read more: White supremacists in Canada’s military pose ‘active counter-intelligence threat’: watchdog
In December, Canada’s national security review body called white supremacy in the CAF an “active counter-intelligence threat” and warned that military officials are “limited” in their ability to address it.
Earnscliffe’s report suggest those concerns are shared by Canadians, with number of respondents who agree that the military does not tolerate racist or hateful behaviour slipping from 61 per cent in 2020 to just 46 per cent.
Similarly, Earnscliffe found that “just 32 per cent say the CAF is doing a good job addressing hateful, racist or sexist conduct while 46 per cent disagree.”
According to internal figures compiled by the Department of National Defence, the Forces remain well short of their targets for recruiting women, visible minorities and Indigenous peoples.
As of 2020-21, just 16.3 per cent of the CAF identified as women — short of their target of 25 per cent, but still trending up from 15.2 per cent in 2016-17. Visible minorities accounted for 9.5 per cent of the CAF, while 2.8 per cent identified as Indigenous — both short of the CAF’s targets of 11.8 per cent and 3.5 per cent, respectively.
According to DND and CAF’s departmental results report for 2020-21, the CAF’s regular force was at 93 per cent of its target of 71,500 personnel. Reserve forces had just 79.8 per cent of their 30,000 target. But just over half of occupations within the military had “critical shortfalls” in personnel, a significantly higher percentage than the Force’s target of less than five per cent.
As part of the study, Earnscliffe surveyed 1,501 Canadians aged 18 and older last summer, either online or by phone.
The research group also conducted a total of 10 online focus groups, interviewing individuals living within 100 kilometres of the following five cities: Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal and Moncton.
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