The weekend edition of The Line looks at the outrageous failure of Canada’s military high command and the government officials charged with oversight of the Canadian Armed Forces:
Canadian Defence Minister (at least for the moment) Harjit Sajjan.
This week saw a mealy mouthed political non-apology for the record books from Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan, who wants any women in the military who feel like they were let down to know that the government is very, very sorry. Gee, thanks, Minister. What a profile in courage that is. How reassuring to the women — and some men! — in the military either living with the reality or memory of sexual misconduct in the ranks.
And then there was the double-double approach to Supreme Court justices. Marie Deschamps wrote a detailed report on sexual misconduct in the military in 2015 (this report was discussed in depth here at The Line previously). Some of the action items in that report have been enacted, and things are therefore slightly better. But there is a lot more that could be done, that was already spelled out by Deschamps, and the report is just sitting there, neglected by all comers like those weird bagels with raisins in them. Now that the Minister has gotten the non-apology monkey off his back, maybe he’d like to grab the goddamn report he already has and, like, you know, do something with it?!
No. No, dear readers, he does not. What he’d like to do is appoint another former Supreme Court justice to write another report.
LOL! Just kidding. What he wants to do is buy time. The minister is hoping — and he will probably be proven right! — that Canadians won’t care about some lady soldiers getting harassed or outright raped in the military, not if his government can stick the vaccine landing, as seems increasingly likely. Sajjan has had literally years to take on the well-known issues inside the Canadian Forces, and he’s nibbled around the edges a bit, and no more. Only now that his ass is hanging out in the wind, along with a bunch of PMO staffer asses, and perhaps the prime minister’s, has the party rediscovered the urgency of the issue.
Pointing out the many ways that Trudeau and his government fail to live up to their own branding is almost a joke these days. Like, gosh, what more can we say? But if you have any capacity for shock and outrage left, and yeah, we know that’s a big if, this should set you off. The facts are plain. There’s no longer any dispute. The PMO was told that Canada’s top soldier was accused of sexual misconduct, and they ignored it. It just didn’t move their give-a-shit needle. That needle didn’t quiver for three years, until some great reporters at Global News dug this up and put the PM in danger of yet again being revealed to be a hypocritical fraud on women’s issues.
And we can’t have that! So let’s call in a retired Supreme to get to the bottom of all this. A few years from now.
Sorry, ladies of the armed forces. Better is always possible for you. But under Trudeau and Sajjan, it’s possible only in theory, and only when they get nervous about their own fates.
Thanks for your service, though.
