Global Courant 2023-05-24 01:56:46
The military police watchdog is launching an investigation into how investigators handled a landmark sexual assault allegation against a senior officer who was a central figure in Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
A court in Quebec acquitted Major General. Dany Fortin filed a sexual assault report last December after military police investigated the 1988 allegation and then referred the case to county prosecutors.
Fortin claims he was the victim of a partisan investigation and was charged on the basis of insufficient evidence.
The Military Police Complaints Committee is now investigating how the military police handled the case, saying Fortin’s allegations about the involvement of senior military officials make the matter a public concern.
The commission wrote a letter to Fortin, which it posted online, indicating that it requested the full investigation file from the military police at the end of January. The letter said the military did not respond until two months later with a synopsis document “a few pages long, containing only a summary of the investigation.”
In a written statement made through his lawyer, Fortin said the decision was “outrageous and unacceptable” and welcomed the commission’s decision to review the case.
Fortin led the federal government’s rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine in May 2021, when he was removed from his position pending an investigation.
A Quebec civil judge acquitted him, saying the complainant had likely been sexually assaulted, but that the Crown had failed to prove Fortin was the assailant. The Canadian Forces subsequently cleared him of wrongdoing.
Fortin demands reinstatement
Fortin has accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other senior members of the government of targeting him for purely political reasons at a time when Liberals were accused of not doing enough to address sexual misconduct in the military.
He has demanded that the military restore him to an equivalent position.
The Complaints Commission says its inquiry will address whether “investigations of sexual assault, whether intentional or unintentional, would become contaminated by bias against victims or suspects” as a result of public and media attention.
On April 20, the committee was still waiting for the complete investigation file.
When asked if the file has since been provided, the Canadian military confirmed an email on Tuesday and said it would try to provide a response.
The charge of sexual assault stemmed from Fortin’s time at the military school in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., which the complainant also attended.
A Crown prosecutor told the court in September that the complainant, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, waited until 2021 to bring the incident to light because she had retired and no longer feared career consequences.
The judge said the complainant had credible reasons for not reporting the incident for so many decades, given the shortcomings in the military’s handling of such allegations.
