An Interesting Development

That didn’t take long.

Canada has a brand new Minister of National Defence, The Honourable Anita Anand from Oakville, Ontario.

In one of her first moves as the Minister of National Defence she instructed the Canadian Forces to hand over all matters of sexual misconduct investigations to the civilian authorities.

There is no word yet if this also encompasses sexual misconduct matters involving civilian victims or civilian perpetrators.

Sadly, this is about 10 years too late for my complaint against P.S. which would eventually encompass Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae.

Anita has a background in law. Yes her expertise is in the field of corporate law, however lawyers must have a grasp of legal principles common to all fields of law. As a lawyer, Anita would have enough understanding of the Criminal Code of Canada and the various acts of Parliament to understand that while the National Defence Act has holes large enough to fly a C-17 Globemaster through, the Canadian Forces military police and the CFNIS actually do have limitations on their ability to investigate and prosecute Criminal Code matters in the military justice system.

As a lawyer, Anita would have to take into account previous rulings of the Supreme Court of Canada such as Regina vs. Nolan which set very definite limitations on the powers of Military Police and the CFSIU / CFNIS.

Anita has only been in power for one week and she has already made a change that would never have been possible under Minister Sajjan.

Sajjan unfortunately turned out to be one of the “old boys”. And one of the problems with the “old boys” is that they won’t do anything that will put their cherished organization at risk of being tarnished.

I had so much faith in Sajjan when he was first elected in 2015, but that all went down the toilet when I met with Minister Sajjan in February of 2016 and he accused me of having an angle and that I was playing games.

We’ll have to see how Anita works out as the Minister of National Defence and how long she’s able to fly free before the “old boys club” starts squawking and demands that the Prime Minister clips her wings. I’ve already written a letter to Anita asking for her to request that the Canadian Forces Ombudsman conduct an inquiry to look at historical child sexual abuse in the Canadian Forces from 1950 until 1998. I’ve also asked Anita to ask Parliament to pass the required legislation that would nullify the effects of the 3-year-time-bar and pre-1998 decisions of the summary-investigation-flaw in matters that could be considered to be child sexual abuse.