A A

The video footage shows a Canadian Forces soldier with a history of white supremacist activity gleefully declaring in Somalia: “We ain’t killed enough n—–s yet.”

In another video a Canadian soldier involved in the Somalia mission yells, “We’re not racist — we just don’t want n—–s in the Airborne.”

Twenty-seven years later, the Canadian military has yet to come up with a definition of what is “hateful conduct.”

Senior military leaders say they are working hard on that goal and Department of National Defence sources say new policies could be rolled out as early as the summer.

But until the Canadian Forces can define “hateful conduct” it is hard to discipline soldiers and keep good statistics about how many are involved in white supremacist and far right activities, Brig.-Gen. Sylvain Menard, chief of staff operations for military personnel, told the CBC in a recent interview.

Menard didn’t explain why the Canadian Forces hadn’t, in the 27 years since the problem-filled Somalia mission, come up with a definition of hateful conduct.

Part of the reason it is now working so hard to define hateful conduct is the publicity surrounding the case of an alleged far right extremist Patrik Mathews. The former Manitoba-based Canadian Forces reservist is now in jail in the U.S. Last year a journalist with the Winnipeg Free Press exposed Master Corp. Mathews, his connections to the Canadian Forces and his role in recruiting for the far right organization, The Base.

The Canadian Forces, which states it was aware of Mathews and his activities, put the soldier under investigation. But because of the seriousness of the allegations against him, the military fast-tracked the soldier’s request to be released from service, according to the DND. Mathews disappeared shortly after, slipping into the U.S. where he joined forces with other alleged far right extremists.

It was the FBI who grabbed Mathews in an undercover operation into white supremacists. Prosecutors in the U.S. say Mathews wanted to start a race war and advocated derailing trains, killing people and poisoning water supplies.

The Canadian Forces calls its actions surrounding the Mathews case a “success story,” even though no disciplinary action was ever taken against the soldier.

After the Mathews case became public in August, Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jon Vance said the military was at the early stages of dealing with the problem of extremists in the ranks. He stressed that the military had no room for vile ideologies and it would boot out anyone who was so inclined.

“I’ve had discussions, and I assure you that we will take this as seriously as Canadians would expect us to take it,” Vance told journalists. “But it’s going to take some time for us to think about how to do it right.”

Right now, hateful conduct in the Canadian Forces is lumped into a category of behaviour that involves a military member not measuring up to expectations, the senior Canadian Forces leaders pointed out the CBC.

But Bernie Farber, head of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, said it is incomprehensible the military still doesn’t have a definition of hateful conduct after all these decades. “The Somalia inquiry for the 1990s recommended they produce these definitions and they have a strategy to deal with these issues and they just didn’t do that,” said Farber, referring to the public inquiry into the 1993 torture-murder of a Somali teen at the hands of Canadian troops. “Where is the leadership?

Farber points out that over the decades there have been plenty of incidents that should have pushed the military leadership into action.

In 1997 the Canadian Forces kicked out a 25-year-old soldier after he was involved in theft at CFB Petawawa and found to have hate literature among his possessions. The reason Nathan LeBlanc was booted from the ranks was because of the theft, not the hate literature. Just weeks after his removal from Petawawa, LeBlanc took part in the fatal beating of Nirmal Gill, 65, on the grounds of a Surrey, BC Sikh temple.

LeBlanc received a 12-year sentence while some of his fellow neo-Nazis involved in the attack received 15 years in prison. The judge called them “unrepentant racists.”

During a subsequent investigation, four other soldiers in LeBlanc’s company were identified as having possible racist involvement. No charges were laid, but all four were the subject of administrative action such as mandatory probation and counselling.

In 2003 the military launched investigations into allegations six members of the Canadian Forces were involved with white supremacist groups. No details were available on what, if anything, was done to the individuals.

A 2011 counter-intelligence report obtained by the this newspaper acknowledged that white power and neo-Nazi groups are “attractive to some members of DND/CF.”

That same year the military launched an investigation into the activities of a Winnipeg-based soldier who planned to attend a white pride rally in Calgary. The 17-year-old reservist denied he was a racist, although he acknowledged posting comments on racist websites and planned to travel to Calgary to watch the rally.

The desire for training in weapons and use of explosives had prompted some extremists to join the military. A Military Police Criminal Intelligence Section report in 2018 warned that many hate groups emphasis firearms training and other military skills. As such, Canadian Force members are seen as important recruits for the extreme right. “Drawing on their training and deployment experience, current and former military members find that their skills are valued by these groups,” the military police report pointed out. “Further, they provide structure to these organizations, therefore, affording them the ability to gain positions of leadership.”

The Canadian Forces, however, argues that known incidents of racism and white supremacy in the ranks remain very low. Investigations or other corrective measures are made on a case-by-case basis and initiated when there is reason to suspect inappropriate behaviour exists. Since November 2018 three members of the Canadian Forces have been released from the ranks for incidents related to hateful actions. Fifteen were either counselled, warned or disciplined but still remain in the military.

For instance, in 2018 this newspaper reported on a white Canadian Forces reservist who targeted black soldiers with racial abuse, repeating challenging them to fights and taunting them with racial slurs. The reservist was counselled about his actions but was allowed to stay in the military because he claimed his actions were related to feeling stressed out by his military training. The fact the 17-year-old reservist’s father is a senior officer in the army reserve didn’t have anything to do with the decision not to charge the soldier, the Canadian military noted.

Last year, Ricochet, a public-interest journalism news site revealed that a soldier who made racist statements on a white nationalist podcast, had returned to duty without any restrictions.

Incidents involving hate doesn’t have to have connections to neo-Nazis or the far right.

In 2016 the CBC broke the story about a Cree member of the Royal Canadian Air Force who left the military after enduring years of racism. Master Cpl. Marc Frenette served under “poor, incompetent and often inconsistent leadership” that allowed the harassment to continue for so long, according to a military report obtained by CBC News.

Frenette, an aviation technician, said he joined the military to be part of a team. But the racism he faced at Canadian Forces Base Petawawa where he was transferred to so he could work on Chinook helicopters was by all accounts disgusting. For three years he was subjected to constant racism while officers in charge did nothing.

Frenette faced taunts on a daily basis. He was called “wagon burner” and other derogatory names. The racial abuse reached a breaking point for Frenette when in February 2015 he was working on a Chinook helicopter and a fellow RCAF member sparked a lighter underneath him, adding that it’s “time to burn this Indian before he burns any more wagons.”

The internal Canadian Forces report into the investigation that CBC News obtained also determined that the 25 squadron members interviewed by the military during the probe either withheld information or only told partial accounts of what happened. In other words they tried to cover up what they did.

So what was the outcome? The squadron leadership who knew the racial abuse was going on but did nothing were reminded about the need to ensure a harassment-free workplace. They were also required to attend a series of professional development sessions. The officer who ignored Frenette’s complaint about racism received a recorded warning.

That was it.

And what about Frenette? Beaten down by years of hateful conduct by his co-workers he had to leave the Canadian Forces.

ALSO IN THE NEWS

Phoenix: Government backs off, won’t transfer nearly 3,500 RCMP civilian members to plagued pay system

Coronavirus fears prompt empty shelves as Canadians follow health minister’s advice to stock up

Canadian Forces nixes post about military “bling” but moves ahead with other initiatives to recruit women

Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2020