OTTAWA - Defence Minister David McGuinty said no changes have been made to military training procedures as of now, following a deadly fire at CFB Wainwright that killed four soldiers and sent 39 others to hospital during a training exercise on Saturday. Ahead of a cabinet meeting on Parliament Hill on Tuesday, McGuinty was asked whether he had directed any changes to existing protocols. He told reporters that it was too soon to make adjustments before the facts are known. “It’s very difficult to provide advice on the merits of how the protocols, which are in place, ought to be amended until we get the facts,” McGuinty said. Pressed on why no interim measures have been introduced before formal inquiries are completed, McGuinty said decisions about training adjustments rest with Canadian Armed Forces officials. “Listen, I’m going to leave it right now to the chief of defence, the commander of the army and the professionals who conduct these processes, to take the time they need to evaluate,” McGuinty said. “This happened 48 hours ago.” Sgt. Morgan Wong and Privates Shaun Farrell, Aidan Goulding and Hayden Lykkemark were killed during the training exercise. The soldiers, who served with Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, were preparing to deploy to Latvia next year. Military lawyer and former soldier Col. Michel Drapeau told CTV News Monday, the military should not investigate itself given the scale of the tragedy. Drapeau called for a public coroner’s inquest instead. “Let there be an open audience. People can attend. People can listen and people can testify,” said Drapeau. “The purpose of this is to prevent recurrence, to prevent (future) fatalities. We need to get to the bottom of it, not assign blame.” McGuinty said the investigations that are underway will be independent and transparent. “Look, we’re going to let the processes that have been engaged move forward. These are independent. We are independent from these. There are three (independent investigations). There is the RCMP working with the military police on a formal investigation. There is the fire marshal that will also examine the situation independently and of course, there is the board of inquiry,” McGuinty said. Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan told CTV’s Power Play that she intends to make the military’s board of inquiry into the tragedy public. “The board of inquiry is the mechanism that we have to have a broader range of visibility on what happened and the findings will be released publicly. That is my intention,” Carignan said.
