February 2024 Arbour Report Card Update
This latest update to the Arbour Report Card includes a number of recent developments surrounding the implementation of the 48 recommendations, including the second External Monitor Report, Minister Blair’s December 2023 update, and the launch of the Canadian Military Colleges Review Board.
As of February 2024, 16 recommendations have been implemented, 30 are underway, and 2 remain to be started. These numbers reflect an overall improvement from the Report Card’s last update in June 2023, where 7 recommendations had been implemented, 27 were underway, 3 had been proposed, and 11 had not yet been started. However, these results still undermine the milestones and timelines announced by Minister Blair in his December 2023 update on culture change reforms. Made on the one-year anniversary of the Report to Parliament accepting all 48 of Madame Arbour’s recommendations, this update detailed the “substantial progress” made over the past year.
While Minister Blair announced that 19 of the IECR recommendations would be implemented by the end of 2023, that remains to be seen. Intended recommendations for completion that are only still underway include recommendations #1 and #2, covering updates to sexual violence terminology in the Defence Administrative Orders and Directives (DAOD). These terminology and policy updates have yet to be released, despite commitments from the Department of National Defence for their implementation by December 2023.
The Minister’s statement that all 48 recommendations are underway also seems to overlook delays to progress on recommendations #4 and #39, where detailed frameworks and timelines for changes have not been established. This is unfortunately reminiscent of past criticisms made against the CAF, when the organization had announced the full and complete implementation of all recommendations in the 2015 Deschamps report, despite having not done so. While the Chief Professional Conduct and Culture (CPCC) has detailed a more accountable process for the “closure” of Arbour’s recommendations, shortcomings are still evident.
Even for recommendations that have been implemented, questions remain as to the accessibility, efficacy and awareness of these changes. For example, little information has been made available on recommendations #7 and #9, in how new options for victims to seek justice with the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) have been communicated to servicemembers. Details on the work the Department of Justice has been doing, as a crucial body in these two recommendations, has also not been offered. Additionally, recommendations that have been updated to ‘Underway’ do not necessarily reflect substantial, ongoing and coordinated efforts by the CAF. For a number of these, initial steps have been taken in the process of implementation, but a lack of timelines and plans of execution suggest that these recommendations’ status may be ‘Underway’ for the foreseeable future.
However, a positive development in the CAF’s broader aims of culture change comes with the second External Monitor’s Report released in November 2023. Here, she describes a “multi-year plan to delineate the prioritization and sequencing of activities in response to the recommendations” that has recently been produced by the CPCC in consultation with various stakeholders. A framework such as this was identified as lacking in the External Monitor’s previous report. Once made public, this multi-year plan will offer important insight into the strategy and categories of measurement being used by DND to move the organization towards its goal of culture change.
See the full updated Report Card here.
