Sexual assault rates within the Canadian Armed Forces saw a “significant increase” in 2022 despite promises of reform within the military following years of intense scrutiny, Statistics Canada says.
The national statistical agency released on Tuesday the results of a survey that found roughly 1,960 regular force members, roughly 3.5 per cent, reported they were sexually assaulted either inside or outside the workplace involving a Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) or another military member.
“This rate of sexual assault — which includes sexual attacks, unwanted sexual touching, and sexual activity where the victim was unable to consent — represents a significant increase from rates reported in 2018 (1.6 per cent) and 2016 (1.7 per cent) when previous iterations of the survey were conducted,” Statistics Canada said.
CAF was described as a “broken system” that is a “liability” to the country by former Supreme Court of Canada justice Louise Arbour, in her blistering report into sexual misconduct in May 2022.
Arbour’s review was formally launched a year before that — in May 2021 — in response to exclusive reporting by Global News into allegations of sexual misconduct among the highest ranks of the Canadian Armed Forces.
Global News first brought to light in February 2021 allegations of sexual misconduct against senior leaders — the first of dozens of exclusive reports into such allegations and the military’s handling of them over the 18 months after that initial report.
The federal government has promised reform, and said earlier this month that a highly anticipated review into Canada’s military college system — an “outdated” program with a “problematic leadership model” as described by Arbour — is “about to be launched.”
Statistics Canada said on Tuesday its report is based on results from the Survey on Sexual Misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces that was conducted by StatCan in 2022, on behalf of CAF.
From October 2022 to January 2023, the response rate among regular force members was 33 per cent, down from 52 per cent in 2018 and 61 per cent in 2016.
In all, 18,582 regular force members completed the survey in 2022; their responses were weighted to represent the entire regular force population, Statistics Canada said, which added the submitted responses represented approximately 56,000 regular force members.
More to come.
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