Michael Higgins: Decades after Somalia affair, Canadian Forces still shirking accountability

The Canadian military is often a law unto itself, which is unfortunate when it comes to the principle of justice.

The watchdog that oversees the military police recently issued a scathing report into the bungled investigation of Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin that ruined his career.

The Military Police Complaints Commission (MPCC) inquiry followed on the heels of its annual report, released earlier this year, which revealed that a military police investigation in Edmonton was so badly handled that an attempted murderer almost went free.

The annual report also detailed how the military was putting “roadblocks” in the way of the investigations conducted by the civilian oversight body, to prevent it from doing its job.

And just for good measure, earlier this year, an Ontario judge stayed assault and sex-assault charges against a Canadian Forces member after finding that military police had tampered with evidence.

These are not isolated incidents but examples of deeply disturbing systemic flaws.

The detailed report by the MPCC into the case of Fortin, who has now retired from the military, pulls no punches.

In May 2021, Fortin was very publicly removed as head of Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine roll-out, while he was under investigation for an alleged sexual assault at a military college in 1988. He was charged with one count of sexual assault but acquitted at trial in December 2022.

The watchdog said the investigation by the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service was “compromised by tunnel vision, a lack of supervisory oversight and a failure to adhere to fundamental investigative principles. These are not minor administrative errors; they are failures that risk undermining the integrity of the military justice system and eroding public confidence.”

MPCC chairperson Tammy Tremblay noted how unhelpful military authorities were from the start of her probe.

The MPCC first asked for a copy of the investigation report into Fortin in January 2023. In March, it received the alleged report, “a document of a few pages containing only a summary of the investigation.” There followed a battle to get the full file and to have it unredacted.

“Between March 2023 and July 2025, further disclosure was requested by the MPCC and, in most cases, was received,” writes Tremblay. Yet it shouldn’t take up to two years for military authorities to hand the necessary documents to the civil oversight watchdog.

Tremblay said there were fundamental errors in the Fortin investigation, such as failing to record all witness statements, leading to the first of her 16 recommendations: “all investigative interviews, whether in person, by telephone, or by videoconference, are to be recorded.”

But the response to this seemingly obvious and necessary recommendation was anodyne and lacklustre — the equivalent of a shrug.

“Action to be taken. MP policy/procedures to be reviewed and updated as applicable based on Canadian best policing practices,” the Canadian Forces provost marshal wrote in response to the recommendation.

The same wording was used five more times on different recommendations. Five more shrugs.

The comprehensive recommendations from the watchdog covered everything from demanding the military take action to prevent tunnel vision and investigative bias, to insisting that military police keep important emails in its investigation files.

“The recommendations outlined in the final report are not just intended to correct the specific lapses of the investigators involved in this case, but rather to address the systematic weaknesses that allowed these failures to occur in the first place,” Tremblay said in a statement.

Six months earlier, in releasing her annual report, Tremblay lambasted the military for its repeated failure to disclose documents. She had done the same thing the previous year, yet now, matters had worsened. “The situation escalated from resistance to outright refusal to respect the oversight regime mandated by Parliament,” she wrote.

The report also revealed that the watchdog was in federal court fighting to get documents released in relation to another bungled investigation by the military.

Military police decided not to lay charges after a suspicious fire at a house on a Canadian Forces base in Edmonton in 2015. Only after the case was investigated by the MPCC and an RCMP officer were charges laid and a woman subsequently convicted in March 2023 of arson and attempted murder.

While it may be possible to chalk some of this up to incompetence, we also have evidence that the military is being dishonest.

In January, Ontario Superior Court Judge Cynthia Petersen slammed military police for tampering with evidence, destroying evidence and showing bias in a sexual-assault case. The judge found that the misconduct “in this case is so egregious and systemic that it shocks the community’s conscience.”

The MPCC was created, in part, because of the disgraceful conduct of Canadian soldiers in Somalia in the 1990s that eventually led to the death of a Somali teenager. The government inquiry and subsequent report into that shameful deployment noted that a military inquiry into what went wrong was shut down by the government due to a lack of public accountability.

The Somalia report eviscerated military leaders for their “evasion and deception.” Despite that shocking report, titled “Dishonoured Legacy,” Canada’s military is still battling against being held accountable.

“It is abundantly clear that the military justice system is replete with systemic deficiencies.… Without substantial change to this system, it will continue to demonstrate shortcomings in promoting discipline, efficiency and justice,” read the report from almost 30 years ago.

It seems little has changed in three decades.

National Post