General Alleges Political Interference in Withdrawn Sexual Misconduct Case

Lt.-Gen. Steven Whelan (R) and his lawyer, Phillip Millar, arrive to court in Gatineau, Que., on Sept. 25, 2023. (The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick)

In his $10 million lawsuit against the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) over now-withdrawn sexual misconduct charges, former senior officer Steven Whelan is accusing the federal government of destroying his career for political reasons.

“The military tried to fix a problem that had been identified, and they mishandled it because they thought fixing the problem was pleasing the politicians as opposed to dealing with the root issue,” Lt.-Gen. Whelan’s lawyer Phillip Millar told The Epoch Times.

The case of Lt.-Gen. Whelan is one of two lawsuits where members accused the government of pressuring the CAF to prosecute them for acts they were ultimately found not guilty of. These cases relate to a 2021 sexual misconduct crisis within the forces, which led to over a dozen high-ranking CAF members resigning or being pushed out while a cultural reckoning took place within the force.

The second lawsuit is that of Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin, who was charged with sexual assault in 2021 over an alleged incident in 1988. He was acquitted in 2022, with the CAF clearing him of misconduct the next month.

Retired Lt.-Gen. Michel Maisonneuve, a 35-year CAF veteran, told The Epoch Times that the CAF does not have an adequate process for handling the situation when charges are dropped or the members are found not guilty.

“There’s no process whereby you say, ‘OK, if you’re not guilty, you’re going to go back and be reinstated. Basically, your life and your career are ruined,” he said.

The Department of National Defence told The Epoch Times that for ongoing cases, it would be “inappropriate to provide any comment.”

2021 Sexual Misconduct Crisis

In 2021, the CAF was rocked by a series of sexual misconduct allegations that came under military police investigation. It led to some members being criminally charged and others being terminated.

Over the course of eight months in 2021, 13 military officers were suspended, investigated, or forced to retire due to allegations of sexual misconduct.

Some of the figures who faced allegations included former chief of the defence staff and retired general Jonathan Vance as well as his successor, now-retired Admiral Art McDonald, who was later replaced by current chief Gen. Wayne Eyre in February 2021.

Others included now-retired Lt.-Gen. Christopher Coates, who had served as Canada’s former top commander of NORAD, and Maj.-Gen. Peter Dawe, a former commander of the Canadian Special Operations Command.

Lawsuits Against CAF

After an investigation was launched into a sexual assault allegation involving Maj.-Gen. Fortin, he was removed from his position as head of Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout campaign in May 2021. While he was charged with one count of sexual assault in August that year, he was acquitted in December 2022 by the civilian Quebec Superior Court.

That Quebec judge ruled that the Crown prosecutor had not established beyond a reasonable doubt that Maj.-Gen. Fortin had sexually assaulted a fellow student at the Royal Military College in 1988. In January 2023, the CAF also concluded that he “did not engage in sexual misconduct,” but did not assign him a new posting.

Maj.-Gen. Fortin launched a $6 million lawsuit against various government and military figures in March 2023, citing harm to his reputation due to the allegations. He also claimed that the decision to remove him from his position had been made jointly by the ministers of health and national defence, the prime minister, and the clerk of the Privy Council, arguing that Chief of the Defence Staff Wayne Eyre should have made the decision.

In October 2023, Maj.-Gen. Fortin settled his lawsuit for an undisclosed amount and retired from the military days later.

Lt.-Gen. Whelan, a three-star general, was also removed from his position as CAF’s head of military personnel in October 2021 and was put under investigation by military police for an alleged inappropriate relationship with a subordinate.

He was charged in January 2022 with two counts of conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline. Prosecutors dropped the first charge, related to allegation of an improper relationship with a subordinate, at the beginning of the court martial in late September 2023. They then dropped the remaining charge in October, a week later.

In a May 21 statement of claim, Lt.-Gen. Whelan alleges his accuser misrepresented the facts and defamed him, the Prime Minister’s Office and Privy Council Office acted in response to political pressure, and the military’s top brass conspired to minimize the political fallout of his removal.

The statement of claim further alleges that the Prime Minister’s Office and Privy Council Office attempted to “silence or highlight certain matters for improper purposes without the public being aware of it,” which it says was done to the detriment of Lt.-Gen. Whelan’s rights.

‘Pendulum Has Swung Too Far’

Lt.-Gen. Whelan’s lawyer says the CAF’s sexual misconduct crisis in 2021 led to the forces becoming a “convenient whipping boy” for the federal government, which did not want a scandal so close to an election.

The lieutenant-general’s statement of claim says he alleges the government directed the CAF to “bury” the scandal at the time, knowing that if he resigned in early September 2021, prior to the federal election later that month, “public knowledge of it could have threatened the election outcome.”

“They made the conscious decision to say, ‘We’ll sacrifice General Whelan’s career so as to not be criticized in the media for not taking sexual misconduct seriously. And those orders were coming from the government,” said Mr. Millar.

Individuals in the federal government wanted to use the crisis to “attack a masculine institution,” he suggested.

Retired Lt-Gen. Maisonneuve said that perpetrators of sexual misconduct need to be charged to the “fullest extent of the law” if found guilty. However, he said the “pendulum has swung too far” within the CAF.

“The burden of proof remains on the accuser and the presumption of innocence remains with the accused. So those are two principles that I think, in certain ways, have been violated at times,” he said.