The federal government is ordering a review of Canada’s military colleges that could lead to sweeping changes at both schools, according to a new report.
The report – tabled in Parliament on Tuesday by Defense Minister Anita Anand – is the government’s response to former Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbor’s report calling for sweeping changes to the Canadian military in response to a series of sexual misconduct scandals in recent years.
The government accepted Arbor’s 48 recommendations and ordered the military to move forward with their implementation, the government report said. One of these recommendations called for a review of the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec.
In his report, released in May, Arbor called for widespread cultural change in colleges. The “continued prevalence of sexual misconduct in military colleges is well documented,” she said at a news conference after the report was released.
While she didn’t call for colleges to be scrapped altogether, Arbor suggested that schools be evaluated to determine whether they should continue in their current form.
“Military colleges appear like institutions from another era, with an outdated and problematic model of leadership,” Arbor wrote in his report.
The report released by Anand says that in ordering a review of colleges, the federal government is “strongly asserting that the culture at these institutions needs to change significantly.”
A review board led by an education specialist will be created to assess colleges in 2024, the report says. It does not mention a timetable for the completion of the work.
Tuesday’s report also says the government will continue to ensure that the civilian justice system investigates and prosecutes all cases of sexual offenses in the Canadian Armed Forces.
The military gained jurisdiction over its own sexual assault cases in 1988. Acting on Arbour’s interim report, Anand began transferring those cases to the civilian system last year.
Tuesday’s report said Anand asked the armed forces to present him with options to permanently transfer jurisdiction over such cases to the civilian criminal justice system.
The military struggled transfer sexual misconduct investigations to civilian police forces over the past year.
The Canadian Armed Forces have transferred 57 investigations to civilian police services since last December, Col. Vanessa Hanrahan, deputy commander of Canada’s military police, said Monday.
But another 40 cases were denied by civilian police for a variety of reasons, including jurisdictional and resource issues, she said.
The military police are trying to address those concerns by working with civilian police investigators and giving them access to military police records, Hanrahan said.
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