Courts martial deny soldiers the very rights they defend (part five of the Canadian Military Justice series)
Canada’s military courts martial are unfair, unjust and un-Canadian. They deny Canadian soldiers the basic rights that other Canadians are guaranteed and that military personnel are called upon to defend:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/046-Courts-Martial-deny-rights.pdf
Canada’s Broken Military Justice (part four of the Canadian Military Justice series)
Canadian military law has a patchwork history. Nova Scotia passed its first Militia Act in 1758; New Brunswick followed in 1787; Lower Canada in 1803; Upper Canada in 1808 and, eventually, Canada enacted its first federal Militia Act in 1868. During the Boer War and both World Wars Canadian military personnel were subject to British military justice, the same system that executed 25 Canadians during the First World War. Canada’s National Defence Act (NDA) came into force in 1950:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/045-Broken-Military-Justice.pdf
Military Justice in Need of Reform (part three of the Canadian Military Justice series)
Dawn Thomson was the subject of a cover story, Rape in the Military, in the May 25, 1998, issue of Maclean’s magazine, in which she recounted being sexually assaulted while assigned to the Royal Canadian Navy’s West Coast installation. The article also told of 13 other women who were sexually assaulted, suggesting a pattern of sexual abuse of servicewomen:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/044-Military-Justice-Reform-1.pdf
Charter Rights Ignored in the Military Justice System (part two of the Canadian Military Justice series)
THE CHARTER makes no exceptions for Canada’s armed forces and our military personnel do not lose their rights as they take the Oath of Allegiance. But military personnel tried by summary trials are subjected to a modern version of medieval justice. They are denied the most basic and important rights the Charter guarantees to all Canadians. Summary trials assess Canadian Armed Forces members accused of minor wrongdoing more informally and expeditiously than the alternative, the court martial, which deals with more serious infractions. The summary trial is the principal method through which Canadian military personnel are tried:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/043-Human-RIghts-Ignored-by-Military-Justice.pdf
Order in the Court Martial (part one of the Canadian Military Justice series)
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canadian law and Canadian values are not a tide that lifts all boats equally. On their enrolment, personnel of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) forfeit many of their Charter rights and freedoms. Penalties for “infractions” are much more severe in the military context:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/042-Order-in-the-Court-Martial.pdf
I think I made a mistake
In my last column published Sept. 30, I wrote that “I could be forgiven for concluding that Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are ambivalent about Canada’s military.” With Harjit Sajjan’s appointment as minister of National Defence, I might have to eat my own words:
Trudeau flies by night on F-35 replacement
I could be forgiven for concluding that Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are ambivalent about Canada’s military and simply hate the Royal Canadian Air Force:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/040-Liberal-military-policy.pdf
Selecting MacKay as NATO head would reward Canada’s heavy lifting
It’s time for a change in Canada’s role in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Recognition for our contributions and participation over the past 66 years is overdue. We have been punching above our weight pretty much since the beginning, when Prime Minister Louis St-Laurent first proposed a “single mutual defence system”:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/039-NATO-SecGen.pdf
Canada’s been traffic cop in the Indian Ocean
For more than four months, the Royal Canadian Navy’s Commodore Brian Santarpia was the chief traffic cop of the Indian Ocean. He assumed command of the multinational counter-terrorism task force, Combined Task Force 150, from Commodore Sajid Mahmood of the Pakistan navy at Bahrain on Dec. 4, 2014:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/038-Santarpia.pdf
Suicide probe further proof military police not up to task
The dust is settling too quickly on the battle between Canadian Forces Provost Marshal Rob Delaney and Military Police Complaints Commissioner Glenn Stannard. The Military Police Complaints Commission issued its report on the investigations into the suicide of Cpl. Stuart Langridge on March 10:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/037-Military-Police-a.pdf
Tackling youth unemployment should be Job 1
The plot to launch a Valentine’s Day homicidal attack on patrons of the Halifax Shopping Centre had me retrieve your article, “Lives of Nova Scotia’s youth much worse than decade ago” from last October’s Chronicle Herald:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/036-Youth-Unemployment.pdf
HMCS Toronto a foreign-policy workhorse
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea on March 18 and the subsequent turmoil in eastern Ukraine impelled the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to implement military measures to reinforce the Alliance’s collective defence on April 16:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/035-HMCS-Toronto.pdf
The cyber economy’s soft underbelly
The Internet is critical to Canadian commerce and to federal, provincial, territorial and municipal governments. The federal government alone offers more than 130 commonly used services online, including tax returns, Employment Insurance applications and student loan applications:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/033-Cyber-Security.pdf
Out at sea, navy crews can’t dial 911
Following the Feb. 27 fire on HMCS Protecteur, one of the crew told a television reporter, “When you’re at sea, there’s no 911 to call.” The ship, with a crew of 279 sailors, was 600 kilometres from Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, when the engine room erupted in flames:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/032-Damage-Control-Div.pdf
Here’s what you’d miss if Forces were neutered
“The government is misspending,” Canadian Voice of Women for Peace spokeswoman told Chronicle Herald reporter Emma Davie at the group’s April 14 demonstration. “They spend twice as much on military as they do on education and health care combined.”
While I commend the group for its idealism, its spokespersons should take greater pains to ensure the accuracy of the information upon which they base their idealism:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/031-Voice-of-Women-for-Peace.pdf
A rescue mission for troubled vets
Their demons were born in the various Canadian missions in far-away places like Bosnia Herzegovina, Rwanda, Somalia and Afghanistan. Military and RCMP members return from these deployments haunted by the events they witnessed in places where our nation has sent them:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/030-VETSCAN.pdf
Security forum provides perspective and retrospective
Three hundred of the world’s foremost thinkers, influencers and decision-makers converge on Halifax this weekend to discuss global security issues, including America’s global involvement, Syria, the rise of China and Canada’s Arctic:
First in service, last in honours
November 7, 2013 On a per capita basis, more members of the Canadian Forces come from Nova Scotia than from any other province. An estimated 12 per cent of the military is made up of Bluenosers:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/028-Nova-Scotian-Fallen.pdf
Military trials passé
My Sept. 18 column, “Courts martial far less fair than jury trial” seems to have struck a nerve with selected members of the legal profession:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/027-Military-Trials-Passe.pdf
Courts martial far less fair than jury trials
“Canada has one of the best military justice systems in the world,” Col. Michael Gibson, the Canadian Armed Forces’ Deputy Judge Advocate of Military Justice, wrote in the Spring 2012 edition of the Canadian Military Journal:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/026-Courts-Martial.pdf
Soldiers can now march to the ballot box
Overseas military personnel now free to march to ballot box. Members of Canada’s military have always recognized that there were some inequities between the members of the military community and the rest of the Canadian population. These were frequently met with the quip, “We are here to defend democracy, not practise it”:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/025-Soldiers-march-to-ballot-box.pdf
HMCS Toronto’s mission misunderstood
There are some columnists, correspondents and commentators I call RAVEs — reporters against virtually everything — who believe that Canada’s engagement in international operations is a waste of tax dollars. Operations such as the RCN’s participation in the 28-nation Combined Maritime Forces (CMF), they say, are unnecessary and expensive:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/024-HMCS-Toronto.pdf
SAR centre’s reach spans vast territory
With more than 2,700 search and rescue missions last year, the Halifax-based Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) is Canada’s busiest. Some incidents were minor, resolved with a minimum of effort while others involved significant risks for the victims of maritime mishaps, accidents and catastrophes:
Canadian military’s ‘eye in the sky’
The 10,000-tonne meteor that exploded over the Russian city of Chelabinsk on Feb. 15 released 500 kilotonnes of energy, shattering windows and injuring more than 1,000 people. But it was not the first projectile from space that has caused havoc:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/022-Sapphire.pdf
Tinker, Tailor, Sailor, Spy
Military spy Jeffrey Delisle’s arrest, conviction and sentencing opened the door for politicos and pundits to predict that this caper would seriously damage Canada’s relationship with our closest allies. But if our allies are pointing the proverbial accusing finger at Canada, then three are pointing back at themselves. Each has had its turn through the espionage turnstile:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/021-Tinker-Tailor-Sailor-Spy.pdf
Small but resilient: Canadian Forces meet international challenges
When the Iron Curtain between Eastern and Western Europe drew back, Canadians hopefully believed we were entering a time when “peace is breaking out all over.” But these are unrealized hopes, and Canada has been engaged in military operations virtually non-stop since the 1990-1991 Gulf War. Today, of Canada’s 22 operations, three in particular stand out:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/020-International-Missions.pdf
International security forum establishes Halifax as world-class city
Some say that the recent annual Halifax International Security Forum (HISF) is a waste of funds, a waste of time and a waste of a weekend. They are wrong:
Respect for Corvette: Nation’s naval memorial needs permanent home
The German submarine U-30 torpedoed the British ship SS Athenia the previous day as she carried more than 1,000 passengers and several hundred crew from Glasgow to Montreal. Sinking stern first into the waters of the North Atlantic, her demise began the Battle of the Atlantic, the longest battle of the Second World War:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/017-Sackville.pdf
Joining forces good for N.S. health care
The Canadian Forces Surgeon General has embedded medical specialists and nurses in the provincial health-care system. The Halifax Infirmary and Dartmouth General have military physicians who
specialize in orthopedics, anesthesia and internal medicine, and Amherst has a military anesthesiologist, all at no cost to the Nova Scotia taxpayer:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/016-Embedded-medics.pdf
Military model might help cure what ails N.S. health-care system
A Canadian medical technician radioed for advice to physician assistant Chief Petty Officer Peter Jardine at his forward operating base in Afghanistan. A military policeman had lost both legs and an arm to an IED and was bleeding out. He wanted to make sure he was doing everything right until the helicopter arrived:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/015-Physician-Assistants.pdf
HRM joins Forces to prepare for crises
Halifax is no stranger to emergency and crisis in recent years: hurricane Juan in September 2003, the blizzard of February 2004; and even the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon caused airliners to be rerouted to Canadian airports, including Halifax International:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/014-HEREX-12.pdf
Peacekeeping passé
Why isn’t Canada a peacekeeper any longer?
Lester Pearson’s model for the first peacekeeping mission, sparked by the 1956 Suez Crisis, resulted in three decades of deployments for Canadian troops under United Nations auspices. Peacekeeping was, we believed, in our national DNA, and commentators, journalists and politicians boasted that this was the Canadian Forces’ default setting:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/013-Peacekeeping-Passé.pdf
The Oceans: Our New “Wild West — 02 June 2012:
Vice-Admiral Dean McFadden, retired commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, once described the world’s oceans as anything but peaceful and placid — more like “the wild west.” He spoke of maritime piracy, human trafficking and the global drug trade, and how these threats to Canadian security are carried out on the world’s oceans:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/012-Maritime-Security.pdf
Our other Remembrance Day: Battle of Atlantic Sunday — 05 May 2012:
She turned 70 years old on Dec. 30 last year, and she is the last remaining of her family of 123 sister ships. HMCS Sackville is the last Canadian-built corvette, Canada’s oldest warship and our official Naval Memorial since 1985:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/011-Battle-of-Atlantic-Sunday.pdf
The costing challenge of flying Forces’ executive Challenger jets — 31 March 2012
DND’s financial analysts are affectionately called “bean counters” in recognition of their unique abilities to determine the exact cost of just about anything that is done within the Defence Department and the Canadian Forces:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/010-Challenger-aircraft.pdf
Journalists sub-par on sub debate — 03 March 2012
When New York Times writer Paul Krugman observed, “the people who talk the most understand the least,” he could easily have been thinking about some Canadian television reporters and commentators as they breathlessly told of the damage to the submarine HMCS Corner Brook:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/009a-Media-and-submarines.pdf
Is lasting peace possible in post‐2014 Afghanistan? — 04 February 2012
NATO’s training mission in Afghanistan ends in two years, amid questions about the country’s ability to manage its own security when the alliance, Canada included, departs:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/008-Afghanistans-questionable-future.pdf
Canadian Forces preparing defence for uncertain future — 07 January 2012
There are Canadians who delight in accusing our military leaders of only being able to fight the last war. Our generals and admirals, they tell us, have no foresight and vision and cannot look ahead at the challenges that Canada faces in our uncertain future:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/007-Future-Security-Environment.pdf
Military on Guard during Christmas — 21 December 2011
The song I’ll Be Home For Christmas has become hugely significant for anyone away from home during the holiday season, but there are many who won’t be joining their families for gift‐opening around the tree and the family Christmas dinner:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/006-On-Guard-during-Christmas.pdf
Guardians of the world’s gateways — 03 December 2011
Eight of Canada’s provinces and all our Northern territories have oceanic shorelines. The 1,287‐kilometre St. Lawrence Seaway and the navigable passages through the Great Lakes extend from the Atlantic to Thunder Bay on the Canadian side and Duluth, Minn., on the U.S. side — about 3,800 km — almost halfway through the country. While no surprise to Nova Scotians, many Canadians do not understand that we are a maritime nation, and that this can bring ship‐borne threats:
Let’s remember all our fallen — November 5, 2011
Since Canada began military operations in Afghanistan in 2002, Remembrance Day has become far more than the “November holiday” and has gained more poignancy among Canadians, boosting attendance at war memorials and cenotaphs throughout the nation:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/004-Lets-Remember-All-Our-Fallen.pdf
Lt.‐Gen Leslie’s Military Transformation: out of step with military’s needs — 01 October 2011
Lieutenant‐General (Lt.‐Gen.) Andrew Leslie, DND’s outgoing Chief of Transformation, submitted his “Report on Transformation 2011” at an interesting nexus: there are recurring fiscal crises in the U.S. since the failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; several European nations are embroiled in their own financial maelstroms arising from sovereign debt crises; Canada’s wisdom in averting previous financial problems may not save us from looming difficulties brought on by the troubled nations on both sides of the Atlantic; and the Canadian Forces have finished their combat mission in Kandahar to undertake a training assignment in Kabul:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/003-Military-Transformation.pdf
F‐35: a case for the defence — 03 September 2011
Replacing Canada’s aging CF-188 Hornet with Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning joint strike fighter (JSF) has sparked accusations that there was no competitive process, the F-35 is too expensive, and Canada does not need a fifth-generation combat aircraft:
HMCS Charlottetown and the Battle of Misrata — 06 August 2011
Canada’s Navy may be small in comparison with other nations’ maritime forces, but the work of HMCS Charlottetown off the coast of Libya is an indication of how much our allies respect our maritime forces and how valuable our Navy is to Canada and to international stabilization operations:
https://duncom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/001-HMCS-Charlottetown-Libya.pdf