Watchdog challenges militaryâs secrecy over investigation into soldierâs suicide
OTTAWA—A military watchdog has gone to court to challenge the secrecy of Canada’s Defence Department and its refusal to make public its response to the investigation into a soldier’s suicide.
The Military Police Complaints Commission has filed an application with Federal Court seeking to overturn the department’s decision to keep secret its position on an independent investigation into the actions of military police officers.
“I find it absolutely outrageous. It’s beyond the pale,” said Michel Drapeau, a retired colonel and lawyer for the family of Cpl. Stuart Langridge.
“It’s a public interest hearing made to investigate the conduct of military police . . . We want to make sure our system of law is open and there is accountability,” he told the Star on Thursday.
“They are operating as if they were outside the law,” Drapeau said.
“For them to do that, within a civilian democracy . . . at the 11th hour is to thumb their nose at an independent oversight body,” he said.
He questioned whether Defence Minister Jason Kenney endorsed the decision or was even aware of it.
Langridge took his life at an Edmonton military base in 2008. The military police complaints commission, an independent body that oversees the military police, began its review of the case after complaints from his parents that the investigation into the death was poorly handled.
The many missteps included withholding his suicide note from the parents for 14 months.
The commission held a public interest hearing into the case that heard from 90 witnesses over 60 days.
The commission submitted an interim report to Canadian Forces Provost Marshal on May 1, 2014 for comment. Last December, the military delivered its “notice of action,” outlining its response to the report and whether the recommendations would be accepted.
But with the report set to be released in just days, the military has thrown a blanket of secrecy over its response. It has designated its notice of action as “protected B,” a designation meant to prevent the publication of sensitive personal, private or business information that could result in “grave injury,” according to the commission.
That prevents the commission from including the military’s response in its final report, meaning there were will be blank pages or blacked out pages.
Maj. Yves Desbiens, a spokesperson for the provost marshal — who commands the military police — said that the military sent a notice of action to the commission but declined to comment further.
“As this matter is now the subject of an application for judicial review before the Federal Court, no additional comment will be made at this time,” Desbiens said in an email.
In the court filing, the commission argues that the military’s claim to keep its response confidential is “unreasonable, made without jurisdiction and with no support in law.”
“The Notice of Action does not contain any sensitive or private information capable of posing a risk of grave injury to anyone if disclosed,” the court filing says.
Drapeau too says there is no justification for keeping the government’s reply under wraps, noting that any personal details about Langridge himself were publicly aired at the open hearings.
Instead, he says the military police is likely trying to “protect its own hide.”
He said the decision only adds to the pain endured by the parents so far.
Drapeau said the military has also kept secret the results of its own board of inquiry investigation into the death and has even refused to respond to the family’s demands for a copy of that report.
