Defence Ombudsman Calls for His Office to Be Made Independent of National Defence

The ombudsman for the Canadian Armed Forces has called on MPs to make his office independent of the Department of National Defence (DND), arguing it “makes no sense” for him to report directly to the defence minister while overseeing the department. “My organization is subject to oversight and investigation by the same department that it is mandated to oversee. The conflict here is obvious,” Ombudsman Gregory Lick told MPs on the House of Commons defence committee on Feb. 26. Mr. Lick said that in the past, his lack of independence from the DND had resulted in investigations that “completely lacked credibility.” He spoke of one incident in 2019 where a Federal Court ruled that an individual in the forces, “was denied procedural fairness in the investigation and in the decision-making process.”...