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Today, Harper’s negative reaction to disabled veterans and their complaints are well-known. Yet, there is no apparent censure to Lt. Col. Michael Higuchi who, in a 2015 Canadian Forces College paper called What is Fair Public Policy?, provided a detailed comparison of veteran care programs in Canada and the United States. Higuchi concluded his detailed study with a list of innovative suggestions (such as free university/college education now being proposed by Justin Trudeau) to improve the situation of veterans in Canada.

And while government scientists are coerced into keeping their mouths and minds shut to climate-change, it may be slightly comforting to know that one Lt. Col. Claire Bramma has recently published a research paper called Directing the DART Towards Climate Change, suggesting that the military’s Disaster Assistance Response Team should begin focusing its mandate to deal with the environmental disasters that will come as a result of global warming. In this thoughtful officer’s opinion, climate change “is now scientifically proven and politically charged issue because the consequences are being felt worldwide as population vulnerability increases and extreme weather events become more frequent.”

There is still one group of public servant who can strongly and openly criticize government policy: the officers of the Canadian Armed Forces

All of these papers, and many more, are available online on the Canadian Forces College website for the entire wired world to see.

Then there are DND-funded journals where military members can academically critique areas of the Forces which they think need a reset in terms of focus. Take, for example, Capt. Brad Benns, a military intelligence officer who is critical of the way the army is recruiting and training recent intakes of intelligence officers. In his paper Leadership in Army Intelligence: Preserving our Most Critical Capability, published in the Canadian Army Journal, Benns publicly states to all Canadians and interested sources around the world that today’s intake of Canadian military intelligence officers “do not necessarily possess the same skill set that the majority of intelligence personnel did coming into the trade throughout the 1990s.” He then goes on to say to the world that, “as a result, the members reach their respective postings unprepared, and the function, their subordinates, and the members themselves suffer failures due to a lack of fundamental leadership abilities.”