February 1996

The speaker provided a reality check [page 1]

In the best traditions of the Airborne and with only two days notice Institute Director Captain Nicholas Stetham jumped into breach as guest speaker for the joint Fort York Legion Branch/RCMI dinner. The speaker who had been booked, Toronto Sun columnist, Mr. Douglas Fisher had been hospitalised with pneumonia. In a thought provoking wide ranging speech, which was only slightly short of being an autopsy, Nick Stetham offered a critique on the current moral and effectiveness of the Canadian Armed Forces and the events that led up to it. He postulated that this country's military suffers from a leadership crisis created by a number of factors. Stetham stated that over the years Canadian governments have had a propensity to attempt to rewrite history. In doing so Canadians have shed the history that does not match our political correct perception of what we are. History that does not fit the current government's vision of future has been deliberately loss and in doing so we are cutting off our roots. Stetham identified the former Soviet Union as a classic example of a country that consistently rewrote its history, and today Russia is now living with the results.

Retiring to the Long Bar after dinner, LCol Hugh Stewart and the guest speaker continue the debate over Canada's future

He want on to identify failures of leadership in the officer corp and that the Canadian Armed Forces have lied to themselves. Leadership in Ottawa suffer from a lack of policy and have no clear vision. Stathem also when on to identify other failures in defence and foreign policy. Most notably Peacekeeping and deployment to Somalia. The only apparent highlight was our NATO involvement. He said that concept of NATO was a Canadian trick in concert with Britain to create a cushion against being dominated by the United States.

In addressing the misadventure of unification that stripped Canada of a Navy, Army and Air Force, Stetham said that fortunately it was a passing trend. The best thing that can be said about unification was, it saved the Australian government a lot of money. After seeing the negative effect it had on the Canadian Armed Forces the Australian's decided not to follow our experiment. After his presentation Nick Stetham fielded a number of questions from the packed dinning room. While some members might not have savoured all his remarks, no one could take issue with the reality of them.

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