Racism report exposes Canadian military for not doing enough

A much-anticipated report on racism and discrimination in the military was released Monday.

The report says the Canadian Armed Forces aren’t doing enough to address the problem. It says recruitment data shows workplace toxicity has affected the reputation of the forces to the point of ‘repulsing’ Canadians from enlisting.

Canada’s defence minister, Anita Anand made the bombshell report on discrimination public on Monday.

Anand said they found the military has poorly implemented, shelved, or discarded many of the recommendations made over the past twenty years to tackle systemic racism.

“These obstacles hurt our operational capacity and harm the security of our country,” said Anand.

The advisory panel report found the membership of the military and defense department does not represent the diversity of Canada.

Systemic racism is ‘repulsing’ new recruits, explaining that a toxic workplace environment is hurting the organization’s reputation.

Barbara Perry, the Director of The Centre on Hate, Bias, and Extremism says she is disappointed that more attention was not paid to the toxic workplace culture, which she sees as the root of the problem.

“We’ve heard so much about that around sexual misconduct over the past couple of years, and yet it didn’t extend to this conversation,” said Perry.

Perry also was critical of a lack of specific examples and information from the many consultations the panel held.

“That’s another thing that’s missing right? The experiences of communities that are affected by these problems, where were their voices?” said Perry.

The report also found the number of military members belonging to extremist and white supremacist groups is growing, and it’s becoming harder to detect them.

The advisory panel behind the report was created in December 2020 to provide advice on eliminating systemic racism in the forces.

The panel offered 43 recommendations, but also concluded no more were really needed,
just action on the 258 recommendations already suggested over the last two decades.