Tarnished Brass: Crime and Corruption in the Canadian Military

Dean F. Oliver is a postdoctoral fellow at the Norman Paterson School of
International Affairs.

Completely without references, brimming with anonymous sources, and
plagued by logical inconsistencies, this passionately argued tome might
have enjoyed the shelf life of a tuna sandwich were it not for one
uncomfortable truth: with each passing day, Canada’s Department of
National Defence appears to resemble all the more closely the bloated,
inefficient behemoth Taylor and Nolan describe. More to the point,
recent events, (for example, the firing of Army General Armand Roy for
expense account irregularities) have also lent credibility to the
author’s claims of unchecked careerism, greed, deceit, and criminal
behavior among the department’s senior officials.

This is not to say that everything postulated by Taylor and Nowlan is
necessarily true. The book’s central argument—that former deputy
minister Robert Fowler and two-time former Chief of the Defence Staff
John de Chastelain combined to destroy the department’s integrity and
operational efficiency—is sustained with messianic fervor. In many
places, however, in lieu of actual evidence one finds elaborate but
unproven allegations and frequent resort to ad hominem attacks.

Yet if Taylor and Nolan have even some of their story straight—and,
as events have demonstrated, they most certainly do—Canadians have
been scandalously hoodwinked by the DND’s reigning mandarins over the
years, none more so than the military’s long-suffering rank and file.
The authors are at their best when highlighting the detestable double
standard that exists between these parvenus and those they serve
(including everything from pay and compensation to military justice and
personal integrity) and when bemoaning the postunification morass that
Canada’s defence forces have indeed become. Their proposed
solution—that an outside auditor (perhaps an honorary colonel from a
militia unit) be appointed to sort things out—betrays a shallow
understanding of deeper causes, but is surely no less odd than a
military that, according to the authors, does not have enough modern
combat helmets to go around but does have plenty

of money to send “overworked” Ottawa-bound pencil pushers to
relaxation classes with a California guru.

This book is as timely and as tenacious as they come. It deserves a
wide readership.