Hateful conduct experiences in Canadian navy rising after years of decline – National | USAEMALL.com

The Canadian military saw a rise in reported incidents of hateful conduct last year, reversing a years-long trend of declining reports, internal data suggests.

The data, obtained by Global News from the Department of National Defence (DND), has both former military members and outside experts warning of a persisting issue of extremism in the Canadian Armed Forces and society at large despite years of work to confront it.

“The Canadian Forces has always had a problem with racism, sexism and other toxic ideologies,” said Walter Callaghan, adding it’s part of what ultimately drove him away from the military in 2010 after nearly a decade serving as a medic.

“It’s just the nature of an institution that is this old, that is so enmeshed in the foundation of Canada.”

The data comes from the Hateful Conduct Incident Tracking System (HCITS), established to track incidents reported to the chain of command involving military members.

Last year, 54 incidents were reported to the HCITS, almost double the 31 incidents reported in 2023.

The number of hateful conduct incidents reported so far this year — 34 — has already surpassed that 2023 number, according to the data.

There have been 364 incidents of hateful conduct reported to the HCITS since 2020, DND says.

Broken down annually, the number of reports had been steadily falling from 116 in 2020 alone before last year’s spike.

That increase was driven largely by a rise in reported instances of engaging in hate speech or propaganda — 26 incidents in 2024 versus 10 in 2023 — and intimidation or uttering threats (17 last year versus 11 in 2023).

There have already been 20 reports of hate speech or propaganda this year, double the 2023 number, the data shows.

“It doesn’t completely surprise me,” Callaghan said after looking at the data. “It’s been a long time coming.”

A DND spokesperson noted the data only reflects when reports are received, not necessarily when the incident occurred, and that one incident can feature across multiple categories when deemed appropriate by the chain of command.

“Hateful conduct, including extremism, is completely incompatible with the values and ethical principles of the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces,” a DND spokesperson told Global News.

The data comes shortly after a pair of high-profile cases of alleged extremism involving members of the Canadian military.

Last month, two active military officers were among those arrested for allegedly plotting to forcibly seize a plot of land in Quebec in what authorities called a violent “anti-government” operation. The military members were denied bail last week.

Military police have reopened an investigation into a now-defunct Facebook group involving Canadian Army members that Lt.-Gen. Michael Wright, the Army’s commanding officer, said contained “racist, misogynistic, homophobic and antisemitic comments and images” in an internal email that called the group “abhorrent.”

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The commanding officer of the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa has been removed from his post in connection with the probe into the “Blue Hackle Mafia” social media group, Wright confirmed last month.

Asked about those two investigations Friday during an announcement on boosting pay for military members, Prime Minister Mark Carney called them “terrible situations” and underscored the continued need for “systematic” culture change in the military.

“First is to call it what it is,” he told reporters. “Second is to be systematic about understanding what’s going on across a huge complex organization — that’s as true for the government of Canada as it is for the (Canadian Armed) Forces as it is for a private sector organization — and then taking action on the specific cases but also doing those systematic reforms.”

Carney said the government and military have implemented over 60 per cent of the recommendations in former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour’s 2022 report on sexual misconduct and culture within the Canadian Armed Forces, which called the military a “broken system.”

Work is ongoing to address the outstanding recommendations, the prime minister added.

That 2022 report followed exclusive reporting by Global News over the course of 18 months into allegations of sexual misconduct in the highest ranks of the Canadian Forces.

Before that report was issued, Callaghan wrote a 2020 paper as a PhD candidate in medical anthropology at the University of Toronto that expressed skepticism that the military would be able to truly change its culture and root out sexual misconduct and “toxic masculinity.”

That culture — particularly the strong military bonds that can discourage speaking out or reporting troubling incidents — applies to hateful conduct and racism, he says.

“That trust is at such a level, that the idea of calling someone out or ratting someone out to the authorities — even when we see the worst behaviours happening — it becomes almost impossible to do that,” he said.

As members rise through the ranks, Callaghan said, “You end up with someone in a leadership position that either holds some of these views or turns a blind eye to them that allows it to grow.”

Government data suggests an eroding hesitancy to report troubling incidents. According to the HCITS, the number of days between an incident and a report to the chain of command fell from 169 days in 2019 to just three in 2023.

David Hoffmann, a sociology professor at the University of New Brunswick who co-led research into far-right extremism with the military, says the spike in HCITS reports reflects a growing normalization of hateful behaviour that extends beyond the current political climate.

“Society has loosened the bonds and loosened the social consequences for this type of behaviour,” he told Global News. “Which is problematic.”

That trend has been observed around the world and goes back decades, he added.

“This isn’t just one individual pushing this narrative, like (U.S. President Donald Trump) or anything like that. This is something that’s happening globally.”

Canadian law enforcement and outside analyses suggest extremism has been rising in Canada in recent years, however, fueled in part by the COVID-19 pandemic and growing anti-government sentiment.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service told Global News in January that the agency and the government’s Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre “are seeing a concerning increase in the volume of ideological, political and religious extremist rhetoric and activities.”

But it said the government had “effectively managed the threats,” and those planning violence have been “successfully disrupted.”

A report in April from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue warned Canadian extremists were capitalizing on the deteriorating relationship between Canada and the U.S. under the Trump administration to draw people towards their movements.

Canada’s Integrated Threat Assessment Centre, in a report obtained by Global News last month, said female “extremist influencers” are using popular online platforms to radicalize and recruit women.

Hoffmann said more education on how to recognize and confront harmful behaviour is critical for both the military and society at large to combat extremism.

“It’s not something you can catch ahead of time,” he said. “It’s something you need to cut out when you find it.”

The Canadian Armed Forces told Global News that culture change is “an evolutionary process” that remains ongoing.

“It will require incremental, iterative, and deliberate changes to systems, structures, policies and practices that have been in place for a long time,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

“More importantly, it will take time. And while we have made great progress, we know that there is still more work to do.”

—With files from Global’s Amandalina Letterio, Alex Boutilier and Stewart Bell