Dec 6 2021 — Murray Brewster — CBC — New report calls for a high-level approach to emerging threats, such as disasters driven by climate change. More than 250 national security experts, including former high-ranking government officials, are calling on Ottawa to re-think its approach to security threats to confront new sources of peril — from fast-spreading disease outbreaks to natural disasters driven by […]
Nov 22 2021 — Murray Brewster — CBC — The Liberal government is setting up an internal working group to study whether the civilian justice system should take over all the duties of military prosecutors and defence lawyers in cases beyond sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces, CBC News has learned. The review, being conducted in coordination with the federal Department of Justice, […]
Nov 16 2021 — Murray Brewster — CBC — The country’s acting top military commander and the deputy minister of National Defence are expected to deliver a formal apology to survivors of sexual misconduct in the armed forces as early as this week, CBC News has learned. An internal briefing document intended for newly appointed Defence Minister Anita Anand, dated Oct. 19, 2021, said […]
Nov 11 2021 — Murray Brewster — CBC — By all accounts, Sgt. Samuel Moses “Moe” Hurwitz was a one-man army. For Hurwitz, as for many Canadians, the war was deeply personal. The Montreal native went into Normandy in the summer of 1944 distraught over the plight of his younger brother Harry, who had been captured by the Germans when the Canadian destroyer HMCS […]
Nov 3 2021 — Murray Brewster — CBC — Military police and civilian law enforcement have investigated up to 70 cases of alleged hateful conduct and racist attitudes within the Canadian Army since a crackdown began in September last year, CBC News has learned. A briefing prepared for the army’s acting commander last winter and obtained under access to information legislation shows 115 cases […]
Oct 27 2021 — Murray Brewster — CBC — As any student of government will tell you, there are traditional levers of power in Ottawa: Finance, Foreign Affairs and Defence. They constitute the power to spend and make economic policy, the power to manage the country’s image abroad and the power to defend ourselves in a time of crisis. Those levers are now — […]
Oct 26 2021 — Murray Brewster — CBC — It could take up to seven years for the Canadian military’s recruitment efforts to recover from the fallout of both the sexual misconduct crisis and the pandemic, says the country’s acting chief of the defence staff. Speaking Monday at the Kingston Conference on International Security, Gen. Wayne Eyre said he’s increasingly worried about the decline […]
Oct 21 2021 — Murray Brewster — CBC — An alleged extramarital affair involving Canada’s former top commander at NORAD was investigated by military police for several months after the Department of National Defence (DND) publicly stated that no rules were broken by former lieutenant-general Christopher Coates. Sources with knowledge of the probe told CBC News that interviews were conducted and statements taken from […]
Oct 15 2021 — Murray Brewster — CBC — The last few weeks should have been among the happiest of Safia’s life. She was supposed to be a new bride by now, on her way to a new life. Instead, the collapse of Afghanistan and the internment in Tajikistan of her fiancé, a former Afghan Air Force pilot, have turned her dream into an […]
Oct 9 2021 — Murray Brewster — CBC — Had it gone on any longer, it could have been a calamity. Sailors in all navies are used to austere conditions, but there are certain things — especially in the Royal Navy — that are simply sacrosanct. Things like tea — that steaming amber liquid that steadies frayed British nerves and takes the chill out […]
Oct 8 2021 — Murray Brewster — CBC — As international tension simmered this week over Taiwan, the Pacific Ocean saw a not-so-subtle display of allied military solidarity — one that included a Canadian frigate. A joint military exercise off the Japanese island of Okinawa this past weekend brought together three western aircraft carrier strike groups and a Japanese helicopter carrier that’s now able […]
Oct 7 2021 — Murray Brewster — CBC — The country’s pandemic early warning system has issued only a handful of alerts — most of them unrelated to deadly variants of COVID-19 — since facing intense public scrutiny and criticism from Canada’s auditor general, new federal documents show. Records obtained by CBC News under access to information reveal that between January 2020 and May […]
Sep 24 2021 — Murray Brewster — CBC — Britain is signalling its interest in working with the Canadian military in the Arctic by offering to take part in cold-weather exercises and bring in some of its more advanced capabilities — such as nuclear-powered submarines — to help with surveillance and defence in the Far North. In a recent exclusive interview with CBC News, […]
Sep 17 2021 — Murray Brewster — CBC — The criminal case involving the country’s former top military commander that went before provincial court in Ontario today has been adjourned until Oct. 15. Retired general Jonathan Vance was charged by military police in July with one count of obstruction of justice in relation to an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct. The Canadian Forces […]
Sep 11 2021 — Murray Brewster — CBC — Gul Ahmad Rasooli’s phone rang the day the Afghan government collapsed. The now-former governor of Zabul — the remote, mountainous southern Afghan province bordering Kandahar — had taken refuge in Kabul as the security climate in Afghanistan unravelled over the summer. The Taliban had overrun Qalat, the provincial capital, and Rasooli had escaped with his […]