The culture of sexual abuse in the RCMP and Canada's military - Michael's Essay

Why do we always seem to be shocked, then outraged, when we read about the sexual harassment of women in our armed forces and national police service? The evidence, anecdotal and actual, would fill a dozen filing cabinets in a fair-sized room. We know it goes on. And we know it has gone on  for decades. A familiar pattern has developed over the years. Public outrage is followed by promises by the military and the RCMP to do better. Public outrage then cools.

To the military leadership of the armed forces and the officer corps of the RCMP, sexual abuse, including sexual assault, seems to constitute a public relations problem to be managed rather than a culture and practice to be expunged. If the years of allegations had been taken seriously, senior serving officers would have been degraded in rank or discharged from the armed forces altogether. Responsible Mounties who engineered cover-ups, and attacked the character of complainants would have been kicked off the force. In the armed forces, denial has become standard operating procedure. As late as last May, the now retiring Chief of the Defence staff said he did not accept the "notion" that sexual violence was part of the military culture. 

Former Supreme Court Justice Marie Deschamps put paid to that idea in her sweeping report. There is indeed a sexualized culture in the military, she wrote, which intimidates female victims and discourages them from reporting the harassment. It's the same in the RCMP. Female members are fearful of speaking out because of reprisals against  their career advancement. Seeking protection in numbers, some 350 female RCMP members are waiting to see if a judge will certify their class action against the forces. To repeat: that's more than 350 women. Canada's military leadership is twitchy about one of Madame Deschamps' recommendations; an independent body, outside the chain of command, to examine complaints of sexual harassment. 

Thanks to some smart enterprise reporting by CBC correspondent James Cudmore, we know that the CDS wasn't in favour of such a thing; after the report was released and the Cudmore disclosures, he quickly changed his mind. Other armed forces, including the United States, have such an independent body. 

   

The culture of the armed forces and quasi-military forces like the Mounties promotes hyper-macho behaviour in its young men in the name of unit loyalty and absolute conformity to the chain of command structures. In a grimly ironic side issue, a young woman hired by the prestigious Royal Military College in Kingston to run a workshop on  sexual assault and consent said she was greeted by greater hostility by the cadets than she had ever experienced. One officer cadet joked that nobody reports sexual harassment, "Because it happens all the time."

..