CDN Defence Minister says he wants to change the drinking culture on military bases!

On December 15, 2023, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation( CBC) announced that the Minister of National Defence, the Honorable Bill Blair, has concluded that the government has “no plans to ban alcohol consumption on Canadian Armed Forces [CAF] establishment." This announcement came on the heels of a recent Statistics Canada survey which found that 33 per cent of CAF members who were sexually assaulted in 2022 believed that the perpetrator’s use of alcohol or drugs was a contributing factor in the said assault. Asked about the results of that survey and the military practice of requiring all serving CAF members to belong to a military mess, the Minister admitted that he was not aware that CAF members were actually ‘compelled to actually join the mess.”

The following day, the Department of National Defence [DND] confirmed ‘that membership in messes is actually mandatary.” The defence department also said messes on military bases are "an important part of military life" that permit members to socialize and "engage in leisure activities, while at the same time continuing to promote military values and traditions. DND added that “all CAF members must belong to a mess appropriate to their rank".

In May 2023, the author of this post opined on this issue in a separate news release published by CBC News

"There is no good reason for the CAF as an institution to permit, to continue to finance, schedule and arrange for social activities involving the consumption of alcohol while members are deployed on duty and serving in uniform on a defence establishment,"

"No other profession would tolerate having members consume alcohol while on duty, or on the premises of their professional place of work."