The Hook

The Hook Blog

Political News. Freshly caught. A Tyee Blog

Federal Politics

How the Forces announced Ménard’s sacking

By Crawford Kilian May 30, 2010 08:55 pm 1 comments

When the Canadian Forces announced the dismissal of Brigadier General Daniel Ménard, they did so in four short paragraphs with a PS for the media.

OTTAWA — Commander Canadian Expeditionary Force Command (CEFCOM), Lieutenant-General Marc Lessard announced today that he has relieved Brigadier-General Daniel Ménard from his position as Commander Joint-Task Force Afghanistan (JTF-Afg) and has designated Colonel Simon Hetherington as Acting Commander in the interim.

LGen Lessard made this decision following allegations concerning BGen Menard’s inappropriate conduct related to the Canadian Forces Personal Relationships and Fraternization directives, which caused Commander CEFCOM to lose confidence in BGen Menard’s capacity to command.

An investigation into the circumstances related to the allegations is being launched.

In the near future, the Canadian Forces will dispatch former JTF-Afg Commander, Brigadier-General Jon Vance to Afghanistan to assume command, pending the arrival of the next JTF-Afg Commander, Brigadier-General Dean Milner.

The postscript to the media was also concise:

Note to Editors: No further statements related to this matter will be made at this time, and no requests for interviews will be considered.

Crawford Kilian is a contributing editor of The Tyee.

Filed in

1 Comments:

Login or register to post comments

  • DPL

    1 year ago

    Year ago folks used to

    Year ago folks used to mention that Canada, with a very small military was second only to Argentina with the number of Generals. Things don't seem to have changed much as they keep popping up out of the woodwork, and interesting enough two of the ones in deep doodo are considered as "rising stars". One charges with two murders, and one removed for his suggested connection with someone other than his wife. almost forgot, just a week or so ago he was found guilty of "sloppy handling of his weapon"
    If these are rising stars our leaders can sure pick em

    • No best comments selected by an editor for this story yet. To see all comments, click the All Comments tab, above.
    • The discussion for this story is closed. No more comments can be added.
    Search The Tyee
    Register to comment

    'Tight-fisted, hand to the grind-stone' budget

    About The Hook

    Last week Christy Clark surprised the province by firing former-CTV journalist Chris Olsen as her press secretary and hiring Sara MacIntyre, Stephen Harper's former press secretary, to be the premier's director of communications. MacIntyre doesn't start her new position until March 6th, just missing the flurry of media requests sure to come after the passing of the provincial budget on Tuesday, which CTV has labelled "tight-fisted" after Finance Minister Kevin Falcon promised minimal spending increases in order to reach the goal of a balanced budget in 2013-14.

    The Federal Conservatives have their own PR battles this week, with the hacker group Anonymous taking responsibility for the tweeting of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews' divorce affidavit. In a YouTube video posted Feb. 17, Anonymous promised to reveal more information about Toews private life if government did not kill Bill C-30, which would give police access to internet users private information without a warrant. Given that Toews himself didn't know the extent of the power Bill C-30 would give to the police, opponents can feel some relief from Toews announcement the bill will now return to committee for further review.

    Keep checking the Hook this week to watch your bobber on these issues and more!

    -- Katie Hyslop