Addressing Hateful Conduct in the context of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF): The CAF Hateful Conduct Policy & the CAF Harassment and Discrimination Survey: Hateful conduct and extremism results

Justin WrightNote de bas de page 1, Dr. Manon LeBlancNote de bas de page 1, Dr. Jennifer PeachNote de bas de page 1, Chadley WagarNote de bas de page 2, and
François LeconteNote de bas de page 2

Department of National Defence / Ministère de la Défense nationale

Introduction

Over the last decade there has been an increase in Right Wing Extremism (RWE) groups and activity in Canada (Perry & Scrivens, 2016). Recent scholarship (e.g., Perry & Scrivens, 2018; Perry & Hofmann, 2020) indicates that since 2016, Canada has seen:

• the emergence of new RWE groups and new chapters of existing groups
• a shift in demographic profiles of RWE groups toward older, more educated, and well-employed membership
• evidence that different RWE groups sometimes form coalitions and work together
• an increasing tendency toward arming themselves; and
• activity in urban areas more than in rural areas with noted differences in manifestation across provinces.

With respect to the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), the problem of increased RWE prevalence in Canadian society represents particular risks. The past few years have seen an increase in media reports of CAF members affiliated or actively involved with groups such as the Proud Boys (McMillan & Patil, 2017) or the 3 Percenters (Thompson & Brewster 2020). Subject matter experts suggest that RWE groups are likely attracted to what they feel they can gain from association with the military, notably skills training in combat tactics and arms use, as well as reputational credibility (Perry & Hofmann, 2020). For example, Master Corporal Patrik Mathews specifically joined the Canadian army reserves to gain access to military training needed to advance his neo-Nazi agenda (Khan, 2019; McCarten, 2021). As the CAF reflects the society from which it recruits, the potential impacts and consequences of those holding RWE views or affiliations and joining the CAF are evident. Any alleged and reported incidents of CAF members affiliating with hate groups or promoting extremist ideologies are a concern for the institution, as it undermines trust (both within the ranks and with the public), cohesion, confidence and morale, and thus threatens CAF operational readiness and effectiveness. Hateful conduct and RWE, moreover, are contrary to the values and ethical principles set out in the CAF’s Code of Values and Ethics and in doctrine such as the recently published Trusted to Serve (Department of National Defence [DND], 2022a). CAF members engaging in hateful conduct and embracing RWE erodes Canadian society’s trust in the CAF as being representative of Canada on the world stage and brings discredit to the CAF as an institution.

CAF policy response to the issue of hateful conduct

As a first step in efforts to address hateful conduct, the CAF and DND introduced an amendment to its existing policy, Defence Administrative Orders and Directives (DAOD) 5019-0, Conduct and Performance Deficiencies (DND, 2022b). This amendment clarifies what constitutes hateful conduct; explicitly prohibits hateful conduct in the CAF; provides guidance (in conjunction with the supplementary CF Military Personnel Instruction 01/20 Hateful Conduct) on the required training and education to prevent, detect and respond to hateful conduct; and establishes clear expectations for CAF leadership with respect to intervention pertaining to hateful conduct incidents. While existing policies and regulations already addressed and prohibited various forms of related misconduct (e.g., racism, harassment, discrimination), the amendment provided the CAF with a clear definition of hateful conduct that was required to begin building specific policy intervention and guidance. The CAF defines hateful conduct in DAOD 5019-0 as:

« [an] Act or conduct, including the display or communication of words, symbols or images, by a CAF member, that they knew or ought reasonably to have known would constitute, encourage, justify or promote violence or hatred against a person or persons of an identifiable group, based on their national or ethnic origin, race, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, genetic characteristics or disability. ».

Of note, the CAF’s hateful conduct policy applies to CAF members outside of the workplace, including online. It is also important to note that hateful conduct encompasses a potentially broad spectrum of misconduct and inappropriate behaviour that can be linked to hate. Extremist behaviours and activities up to and including acts of violence, extremism-related criminality, and terrorism would fall on the most egregious end of this spectrum. Examples of non-violent behaviours covered by this policy would include promoting extremist ideologies or engaging in hate speech, including over social media; actively affiliating with extremist groups, or engaging in recruiting or fund-raising for such groups.

Situating and defining hateful conduct in policy has allowed the CAF to move toward policy implementation efforts, including tracking of incidents and appropriate response, communications, and identification of training and education needs for its members. This effort is evidence-based and supported by an emerging program of research. An important first step of this research program was to measure the prevalence of hateful conduct behaviours in the CAF.

CAF Harassment and Discrimination Survey

The CAF Harassment and Discrimination Survey (CAFHDS), a recurring survey administered internally by the CAF/DND, covers a broad range of harassment and discrimination behaviours, including harassment based on personal characteristics such as race, age and gender; and other forms of misconduct including abuse of authority, hazing, cyber aggression and microaggression. The most recent survey was updated to include some questions on awareness of, and exposure to, hateful conduct and extremism, as well as questions on members’ knowledge of the updates to the CAF policy. The survey was administered to both Regular Force (Reg F) and Primary Reserve (P Res) members between October 2020 and February 2021. The survey was completed by 4,715 Reg F members (36% response rate) and 1,215 P Res members (23.8% response rate).

In general, the demographic profile of this survey’s respondents was representative of the CAF across regions (Figure 1) and most other variables, including first official language, age, and service environment. Because of the topic of this survey, we oversampled women and other equity seeking groups, including racialized and Indigenous CAF members, to ensure their perspectives and experiences were captured. As is typical of response to our surveys, junior ranked, non-commissioned members were also under-represented. However, results were weighted by environmental command, employment equity group status, and rank, to be representative of the Reg F population; and by reserve class of service, employment equity group status, rank, and gender, to be representative of the P Res population. When responses were weighted, the demographic profile of respondents generally reflected that of the CAF population: women made up 16% of the Reg F and 15.5% of the P Res, those from employment equity groups made up about 1 in 5 members overall (18.3% Reg F, 25.6% P Res), and most members spoke English as their first official language (70.2% Reg F, 73.6% P Res). While weighting the data allows these results to be generalized back to the CAF population, there is still a degree of uncertainty associated with any estimate. Results presented here therefore use the coefficient of variation (CV), a standardized measure of variability, to provide an indication of an estimate’s uncertainty (Statistics Canada, 2007). A CV greater than 16.5% is denoted with a superscript “E”, indicating that the estimate should be interpreted with caution. A CV greater than 33.3% means the estimate is too statistically unreliable to report and the letter “F” is reported instead (Statistics Canada, 2007). Finally, it should be noted that results for the Reg F and P Res come from discrete survey administrations. Therefore, they are not directly statistically comparable, and are only presented together here for descriptive purposes.

CAFHDS hateful conduct results

Knowledge of updates to CAF policy related to hateful conduct

We asked respondents to rate their knowledge of the recent updates to the CAF policy related to hateful conduct, and the majority indicated they were at least moderately knowledgeable (Figure 2). Again, while direct comparisons cannot be made, a higher proportion of P Res members indicated they were more knowledgeable. It is worth noting that the P Res survey was administered later than the Reg F survey and that messaging about the policy updates was quite recent at the time. Thus, organizational messaging about the change had more time to disseminate among P Res members.

Awareness of other members’ affiliation with extremist groups

Respondents were asked whether they were aware of other members, either inside or outside of their unit, who are affiliated with extremist groups. As illustrated in Figure 3, the charts on the left side refer to those who were aware of others inside their unit who were affiliated. The charts on the right refer to those who were not aware of anyone inside their unit, but were aware of other members outside of their unit who were affiliated. Taken together, these findings indicate that roughly 5-6% of the military population was aware of at least one other member who was affiliated with an extremist group.

While these results provide an initial estimate of the prevalence of CAF member affiliation with extremist groups, more research needs to be done to fully understand how members define and understand affiliation and extremism. Some insight can be gained from the open-ended comments that survey respondents provided. For example, one Reg F junior officer noted, “I know several members outside my organization who hold significant ‘far-right’ views… they are very open about their opinion via social media.” Other comments speak to the issue in less direct terms, such as that from one P Res junior officer: “I do not know of any member that is in a hate group. However, I have heard rampant distribution of conspiracy theories and disinformation that originates from hate groups and far right extremists.” These comments help illuminate how “affiliation” can be nebulous and difficult to interpret. Regardless, these results still indicate that there are some within the military who are aware of peers who are affiliated with extremist groups.

Prevalence of hate speech encountered in the CAF

Respondents were asked whether they had heard another member express hate speech against others based on personal characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, sex, or gender identity, again either inside or outside of their unit, in the past 12 months. As shown in Figure 4, about 8% of CAF members had heard another member inside their unit express hate speech, and another roughly 8% of CAF members had heard hate speech expressed by another member outside of their unit only. Taken together, this suggests an estimated 15-16% of members had heard someone in the military express hate speech.

Of all the hateful conduct behaviours examined on this survey, hate speech was the one most reported. Again, this provides a first look at prevalence, but more needs to be done to better understand the lived experience of military members related to these behaviours, including how they define and understand hate speech and how they respond to it.

Prevalence of hate posted on social media by a CAF member

Respondents were asked whether they had seen or read a social media post by another military member that promoted hate against others in the past 12 months, and about 10% (Reg F: 10.3%; P Res: 9.5%) indicated that they had. Space was included on the survey for open-ended comments, and comments about social media posts were among the most common, across a cross-section of both Reg F and P Res members, as well as from officers and non-commissioned members. These included reports of images posted to social media (e.g., of hand gestures that have been identified as a hateful sign), as well as opinions/comments on social media platforms such as Facebook that were characterized as hateful based on race, gender identity, and sexual orientation. In some cases, respondents noted that these posts were made with symbols of the military connected to it, such as a CAF member wearing their uniform in their profile picture, indicating for the observer that the line between personal opinion and professional duty had been violated. The comments also indicated that some CAF members are impacted directly by hateful social media posts they have encountered. As one Reg F junior officer commented, “I have seen a lot of anti-immigration posts from CAF members on my Facebook page. I unfriended them all since I’m first generation Canadian.”

Prevalence of attempts to recruit CAF members into extremist groups

Respondents were asked whether anyone, either inside or outside of the military, had ever attempted to recruit them into an extremist group in the past 12 months. The overwhelming majority (99%) indicated that they had not experienced this, and of the few who indicated they had, most indicated the person who approached them was from outside the military or the defence department.

There were a few open-ended comments on the survey that spoke to this issue, including comments from the perspective of supervisors, bystanders, some who experienced this directly, and some who had heard about it happening to others. For example, one Reg F junior officer commented, “[a] subordinate of mine requested permission to attend a rally; I gave it. Upon his return, he had an exchange with other members of [the] unit expressing his somewhat extreme views.” An example of a member experiencing this directly came from a junior non-commissioned member in the P Res: “I do not know the real name of the individual who tried to convert me into a far right, white supremacist extremist. All I do know is he is a member of the Royal Canadian Navy as a regular force member…”

When interpreting these results, it is important to note that more research is needed to better understand how members understand the topic of recruitment into an extremist group, and what behaviours might fall within that understanding. However, this provides a first look at the level of awareness of this happening within the Canadian military population.

CAF member responses to aspects of hateful conduct and extremism

Où en sommes-nous rendus aujourd'hui? Si l'option souverainiste a déjà grimpé jusqu'à 60 % en 1990, tout au long de la dernière décennie elle s'est maintenue autour de 40 %, malgré une chute lente et progressive de ses appuis.

Overall, the results indicate that about 1 in 6 CAF members (Reg F: 16.2%; P Res: 15.5%) observed one or more aspect of hateful conduct or extremist behaviour measured on this survey. Finally, respondents who observed at least one aspect of hateful conduct were asked what actions they took in response. As shown in Figure 5, the most common actions reported were to do nothing or to speak to the person directly about their behaviour.

When interpreting the actions taken by CAF members, it is worth noting that the organizational policy response to hateful conduct was still relatively new at the time when this survey was administered. It is thus likely fair to assume that people were still learning and making sense of expected responses. We also saw some examples where members took other actions outside of the military context. These included reporting hateful posts on social media to the platform administrators, which resulted in the member being removed.

Nevertheless, this is another area where the survey results provide an important avenue for further research to better understand how members are navigating these situations and have important implications for designing training interventions.

Summary and conclusion

The hateful conduct results from the CAFHDS are the first measurement of prevalence of exposure to, and awareness of, hateful conduct and extremism-related behaviours, generalized across the CAF population. The majority of CAF members indicated they were at least moderately knowledgeable about the update to the DAOD 5019-0 policy regarding hateful conduct. Overall, an estimated 1 in 6 CAF members observed one or more aspects of hateful conduct or extremism in the past 12 months prior to the survey. Very few (<3%) were aware of other CAF members in their current unit who belong to an extremist group; and fewer still (<1%) indicated having been encouraged to become involved in an extremist group in the past 12 months. The more common aspects of hateful conduct involved having heard hate speech inside the unit or having read or seen a social media post by another CAF member that promoted hate against others in the past 12 months. Among members who observed one or more aspects of hateful conduct or extremism, the most common actions taken were to do nothing or to speak to the person about the behaviour.

Overall, these results suggest that the majority of CAF members have not been exposed to hateful conduct. However, these results also demonstrate a few key insights. First, that at least some CAF members have been exposed to hateful conduct and extremism. Second, these results help us identify some directions for in-depth inquiry into members’ experiences, particularly with respect to how members define and understand extremism. Third, these results help us understand how hateful conduct and extremism manifest and spread within the CAF, and what aspects of the military experience make these phenomena unique in this context. Future research will look at risk factors of hateful conduct and extremism in the CAF, whether members who experience hateful conduct have access to adequate support, and what the impacts of these lived experiences might be on members’ health and well-being, as well as organizational outcomes such as morale, unit cohesion, and retention.

As the CAF’s understanding and response to hateful conduct and extremism matures, it will be important to refine and administer this survey again, to measure whether there have been significant changes in member experiences and awareness.

References

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Last modified 20 June 2022.

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