MONTREAL – Coordination of Canada’s coronavirus vaccination campaign is set to be taken over by another army general, said the Public Health Agency yesterday, after a probe into allegations of sexual misconduct sidelined her predecessor.
Brig Gen Krista Brodie, a logistics expert who served in the Balkans and Afghanistan, is to replace Gen Dany Fortin, who was dismissed due to a military investigation into what media reports said involved allegations of sexual misconduct dating back some 30 years – a charge that he has strongly denied.
Brodie had already been working on Covid-19 vaccine coordination within the team led by her predecessor, as part of a partnership between the army and public health authorities set up last November.
The appointment comes three days after the announcement that Fortin is being sidelined from his post of coordinator “pending the results of a military investigation”, according to the Defence Ministry.
The departure of Fortin, a respected soldier who notably led the Nato mission in Iraq, is a further blow to the Canadian army, which has been shaken for months by a series of investigations into high-ranking officials suspected of sexual misconduct, including the former chief of the defence staff, Gen (Rtd) Jonathan Vance.
Vance retired earlier this year before the allegations were made public. His successor, Admiral Art McDonald, also left office a few weeks after his appointment after an investigation was opened into similar charges.
At the end of last month, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan instructed Louise Arbor, a former prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, to conduct an independent investigation into the handling of cases of sexual harassment within the army. – AFP, May 18, 2021
