Scathing report says Canada military rife with extremism

TRENTON, Canada

The Canadian military is riddled with right-wing extremists including white supremacists and Neo-Nazis and the problem is growing, according to a blistering report released Monday.

The report, written by the four-member Minister's Advisory Panel and 17 months in the making, was released by Defense Minister Anita Anand and it found blatant racism, including Islamophobia.

It makes 13 recommendations designed to root out racism and extremism in the Canadian military, which has about 68,000 regular troops, 27,000 reservists and 5,200 Ranger Patrol Group members, according to a government release dated March 2020.

"The Panel has urged us to consider their recommendations with resolve and urgency, and that is exactly what we will do as we continue our mission to bring the culture change needed in the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence,” Anand said in a statement.

The report said abuse of power is "repulsing" recruitment and hurting the reputation of Canada's military. Over the past few years about a dozen top-ranking male personnel have been under investigation for abuse of power used to, in some cases, form sexual alliances with lower ranking women.

But there are other forces at play and they have a long and troubled history in the military stretching back decades.

“In addition to sexual misconduct and domestic violence, hate crimes, extremist behaviours and affiliations to white supremacy groups are growing at an alarming rate in both Canada and its Defence Team,” the report says. “It is becoming increasingly covert, and technological advances such as Darknet and encryption methods pose significant challenges in detecting these members.”

Cited in the report is a 1993 crime in which neo-Nazi members of the Canadian Airborne tortured and killed a Somali teen during what was supposed to be a humanitarian deployment.

A public inquiry into the affair unearthed Nazi swastikas, Ku Klux Klan and Confederate flags at an Ontario military base before the troops were deployed. After a public inquiry the Airborne regiment was disbanded.

The report also discovered rampant anti-Indigenous and Black racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.

The report notes that despite the knowledge the problems exist, top military personnel have failed to make changes and have not cleared out extremists or bring those responsible for sexual misconduct to task.

“Their presence also threatens the trust of the Canadian population in the Defence Team,” the report says, and yet “the detection of extremist pockets or individuals is still very much siloed and inefficient.”