This article was to point out that the directing minds of the military do not account publicly, fully and fairly. The same is now true of the RCMP.

David Pugliese’s article “Victoria widow betrayed, says ex-ombudsman” (TC May 16) was an astonishing current report on the military’s treatment of the families of Canadian Forces members — apparently unchanged since the 1990s. Pugliese is an expert journalist on the military.

In writing the chapters on the public accountabilities of various authorities for my 2002 book, A Citizen’s Guide to Public Accountability, I felt compelled to include a chapter on the accountability of military top command. It was triggered by the grotesque court-martial in the mid-1990s of LCdr Dean Marsaw, Canada’s most able submarine commander. Needless to say, the appeal overturned the guilty verdict. But it still left Marsaw smashed on the beach. (Ironically, it precluded Marsaw from a role he should have had: supervising quality control of the acceptance and delivery of the purchased UK submarines.)

In doing a citizen audit of Marsaw’s destruction I noted other 1990s military horror stories, quite apart from the Somalia inquiry. To name a few instances: tampering with Croatia-produced health warnings in soldiers’ medical files rather than supporting the military doctor who put them there; sending a bad-conduct junior officer to command a platoon in Somalia that killed an unarmed civilian; a general’s illegal large expense claims and a needless $250,000 farewell parade for an Atlantic Land Forces general; an aborted military mission to Zaire; intimidating letters to civilians on base by the office of the Judge Advocate General; inadequate casualty information to families; sexual assault and harassment; withholding of information on a 70% missile failure rate; and the fact that career progression of the Judge Advocate General, whose job is to serve justice, was in the hands of his boss, the Chief of the Defence Staff.

Included in the horror stories were the barriers the military placed in the way of the widow of Master Corporal Rick Wheeler, the subject of David Pugliese’s article. Mrs. Wheeler’s case was briefly stated in the Citizen’s Guide as follows:

“When Master Corporal Rick Wheeler was run over and killed by an armoured personnel carrier in a 1992 training exercise, a military investigation at the time attributed it to “negligence of a minor character.” His widow, convinced of a cover-up, pursued the case for years. After she succeeded in making the case public in 1996 and placing her concern before a military police advisory group, the military opened a new investigation. In 1998 Mrs. Wheeler was given a summary of the 2100-page investigation report, which in effect said the training exercise had been uncontrolled. The military did not tell her why it took six years to tell her the truth about what happened. Said Mrs. Wheeler, “I’ve got closure but I don’t feel I’ve got justice.”

Pugliese’s revelationary article on what Mrs. Wheeler continues to face, 14 years later, shows the extent of the evasion of full, fair and public accounting that Parliament allows the military. In the Wheeler case, citizens can reasonably expect the Minister and Chief of the Defence Staff to account to Mrs. Wheeler, stating publicly what they see as the Department’s action responsibility in response to what Mrs. Wheeler seeks, and what they will have the Crown do for Mrs. Wheeler, and when. These public assertions can then be audited for their fairness and completeness. Accountability explanations that are PUBLIC assertions have a self-regulating influence on the conduct of those with the responsibilities. Thus far the CDS, Gen. Rick Hillier, has been silent and the new Minister, Gordon O’Conner, in full command of the decision-making and its pace in the case of Mrs. Wheeler, has said only, “this issue will get resolved soon, hopefully.” He did not state the resolution performance standard he sets for the Crown.

Citizens can also reasonably expect the House of Commons Defence Committee to follow up with the Minister, CDS and Deputy Minister, holding them to account for producing an immediate and just resolution. The obligation of these three officials to account is simply the obligation to explain their intentions, reasoning and performance standards: it is not a matter of political partisanship or reluctance as policy to compensate financially for arrogant treatment of the widow of a Forces member.

Pugliese quotes ex-military Ombudsman Andre Marin as saying that he couldn’t believe how the Wheeler case has “dragged on for so long.” Based on the apparent general ploy of litigation lawyers working for the executive government, Marin probably meant the active voice, i.e. that it was the DND lawyers who had purposefully dragged it on.

The track record of DND in the 1990s, whether in medical or justice matters, suggested arrogance. We have as yet no evidence that Parliament will ensure an end to it. It will take concerned citizens holding their MPs to account for requiring DND to publicly give the accountings which, when audited for their fairness and completeness, demonstrate the end of military arrogance and dissembling.