The military leader heading up culture reform in the Canadian Armed Forces amid ongoing sexual misconduct investigations says her team is working on a five-year timeline to achieve concrete results.
Lt.-Gen. Jennie Carignan said on Thursday that she’s more hopeful than ever before that the right leaders are around the table to make change happen.
“The horizon that I’m working with right now is five years to have instituted and effective, irreversible positive changes, but we have to understand that keeping vigilance over our culture never ends,” she said.
“In my 35 years of service I have never seen such engagement and commitment to the issue of culture change as it is right now.”
Carignan was speaking during a military technical briefing and providing an “overview of the department’s approach to conduct and culture change.”
Some of the new initiatives include expanding the reach of the Sexual Misconduct Response Centre’s resources by creating regional sites across the country, a mobile app to serve as a centralized online platform for support services, and a program to provide independent legal advice to victims of sexual misconduct.
Carignan said her team – now a group of more than 200 – is currently analyzing how to measure success.
“Success will look like defence team members who feel psychologically safe showing u to work every day…this is the vision that we are setting forward. Now we will design a framework for measurement of this progress, it’s going to be a mixture of qualitative and quantitative data,” she said.
The Liberal government appointed Carignan as chief of professional conduct and culture in April as it launched yet another review into sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces aimed at providing recommendations about what an external reporting system should look like.
National Defence Minister Anita Anand, deputy defence minister Jody Thomas and chief of the defence staff Gen. Wayne Eyre issued a formal apology to victims of military sexual misconduct on Monday.
"I apologize to the thousands of Canadians who were harmed because your government did not protect you, nor did we ensure that the right systems were in place to ensure justice and accountability," Anand said.
"For far too long, your government failed to dedicate enough time, money, personnel and effort to deal with sexual harassment, sexual assault and discrimination based on sex, gender identity and sexual orientation in the military and the department."
The apology is connected to a 2019 class-action lawsuit settlement agreement compensating CAF members and Department of National Defence employees who experienced sexual misconduct while on the job.
Separate from the agreement, the plaintiffs in the case requested at the time an apology from the chief of the defence staff as well as the deputy defence minister as soon as is reasonable, taking into consideration the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nearly 19,000 claims have been submitted.
Carignan said she was “touched” by the apology and hadn’t predicted how much it would impact her.
“I had participated in the preparations, in the rehearsal. I heard the words before, but Monday when I sat down and took the time to hear the apology I was extremely touched by what was said,” she said, adding that in the broader context, she sees the apology as a small step towards progress.
Asked what makes her so confident that change is now possible, Carignan said there’s a shift in understanding.
“What was not obvious to us collectively around the table is now being discussed….which is a great difference. Five years ago if I was to ask around the table what are we doing about culture, I would get silence, and now it’s not the case at all,” she said.
From January to the fall of 2022, Carignan’s team is focusing on “restorative engagements” which will guide culture change strategies. Their work will end with a final report that the senior officer says will compliment the recommendations presented by retired Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour.
