The Tragic Case of Major Cristian Hiestand

Military police are embroiled in yet another controversy about Canadian military justice, but it is a controversy that is regrettably fading from the public consciousness.

Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) flying instructor at Canadian Forces Base Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and Afghan war veteran Major Cristian Hiestand concluded a brief and turbulent relationship with a civilian woman. She then accused him of two counts of sexual assault after their breakup. Military police arrested and charged Major Hiestand in Saskatchewan provincial court in November 2021.

CBC’s highly respected military affairs journalist Murray Brewster reported that, in response, Canadian military authorities removed him from duty, directed him to have no contact with the complainant and a number of his co-workers, and to work remotely. This led to feelings of “isolation and amplified feelings of anxiety, stress and hopelessness." His family says he became isolated and depressed.

Major Hiestand took his own life on 17 January 2022 — some six weeks after he was charged.

The Hiestand family’s lawyer said the Major was never interviewed before being charged and was ignored when he asked the military police investigator if he could explain his side of the story and show a text exchange between himself and the complainant to give more context and evidence to his claim of innocence.

The investigator refused and Hiestand was told that MPs did not need to interview him, as they "... had all the evidence they needed to prosecute him," the lawyer said.

Hiestand dropped out of sight in the days before his death and was found dead in his home on 18 January 2022.

The Department of National Defence (DND) launched an internal professional conduct investigation into the actions of the military police officer who handled Hiestand's case. However, Major Hiestand’s family wants a more independent investigation by the Military Police Complaints Commission.

According to Brewster, a military medical officer and a social worker believed Major Hiestand was a "moderate" suicide risk, but his superiors largely ignored his circumstances.

The case raises troubling questions about how military police conduct sexual misconduct investigations, notably about their obligation — or lack of one — to interview suspects in these cases.

A board of inquiry (BoI), frequently done following a military fatality, was obtained by CBC News. It notes that  "Procedures and responsibilities regarding the supervision of Maj. Hiestand were devised on an ad-hoc basis. . . .  There was no established standard operating procedure to supervise members who are working from home as a result of arrest and release conditions,” and any follow-up with Major Hiestand ended during the Christmas break in 2022.

The BoI concluded that the arrangement, "due to his release conditions, increased his feelings of isolation and amplified feelings of anxiety, stress and hopelessness," given that much of his self-worth was closely tied to his status as an RCAF officer.

On 15 March 2024, Murray Brewster reported “An almost two-year-long internal investigation into how military police handled the criminal case of an air force officer who took his own life after being charged with sexual assault has cleared the officers involved of any wrongdoing.

     Unsurprisingly, the report by the Office of Professional Standards of the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal, dated Feb. 9, 2024, concluded that complaints made by the family of Maj. Cristian Hiestand were "not substantiated.

Canada's Military Police Complaints Commission (MPCC) received three complaints about how military police conducted their investigation. Two came from Hiestand’s family and the third, from a former military officer who was serving at the time at the CFB Moose Jaw’s military police detachment that handled Hiestand's case.

His par­ents and sis­ter filed sep­ar­ate com­plaints with the mil­it­ary police, say­ing they “rushed to judg­ment” and didn’t take a state­ment from the accused before lay­ing charges. A mil­it­ary police officer has also filed a com­plaint alleging the invest­ig­at­ing officers did not record the woman’s inter­view even though they could have, and that an off-­duty ser­geant tried to help with the invest­ig­a­tion while intox­ic­ated.

The family requested a public interest hearing. In a 27 March 2023 letter, the watchdog agency initially declined their request saying it is prepared to do a public interest investigation — a step down from a hearing — once the military has concluded its professional standards probe. MPCC chair Tammy Tremblay responded that the circumstances and "the arguments set forward in your request do not warrant a Public Interest Hearing."

Conclusions

The tragic case of Major Hiestand leads to several conclusions:

Legitimacy: Commentators, in addition to the CBC’s Murray Brewster, view the military police handling of this matter with alarm. The MPCC public interest inquiry can have the effect of making the Hiestand inquiry a systemic test case.

Pressure to Reform: The case is being used to support calls for legislative reform of the National Defence Act to strengthen the MPCC’s legal powers, clarify oversight and compel observance of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. If reform is too difficult for our lawmakers, they could simply replace the military police with the more experienced and better trained Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The result would be immediate cost savings as the RCMP already has its own fully-established complaints process in the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC), and more efficient policing of the military.

Cultural issues: Beyond individual failures by military police, the Hiestand investigation and inquiry suggests to this writer that military police culture, training, and policy may not be sufficiently aligned with civilian standards, do not project the gravitas required for sexual-assault investigations, and continue to fail to achieve contemporary best police practices, a persistent problem. 

Institutional intransigence: The CFPM’s public response shows an unsurprising effort by the Provost Marshal to balance cooperation with MPCC while prioritizing its own investigatory autonomy — a tension that analysts see as a barrier to meaningful change if not addressed through law reform.

Absence of senior military and departmental oversight: In recent history, GOFOs have studiously avoided becoming involved in military police investigations, perhaps out of fear of allegations of improper interference, out of a fear of being charged with criminal interference in an investigation, out of institutional intransigence, or because they feel it is beneath their dignity to become engaged in such pedestrian matters.

The Hiestand case has become a catalyst (or at least a major touchpoint) in broader reform conversations about military justice and military policing in Canada. While not all reforms are “cause-and-effect” from that case specifically, there is a clear and growing policy response centered on civilianization of serious sexual offence investigations, stronger MP oversight, better investigative practices, and legislative modernization.

These reforms, if fully implemented, could address many – but not all -- of the systemic concerns raised by the Hiestand case. There remain real challenges, especially around capability, capacity, timing, professionalism, ethics, and political will.

The Hiestand case cannot be allowed to fade from public debate as it begs important questions concerning civilian oversight of military justice. The MPCC’s report demonstrates that institutional resistance remains strong at high levels of the defence department, which could impede meaningful reform unless there are legislative reforms.

If Major Hiestand’s circumstances slip out of public consciousness, the MPCC’s potential for legislative reform to strengthen its powers of oversight will fall below the horizon of public knowledge, jeopardizing the Commission’s continuing efforts to hold the military police to account when its members fail to meet the standards of best police practices. This is so often the reality which all other military members must endure but to which members of the military police branch appear to be invulnerable.

The public-interest investigation can be a powerful tool with the potential to shine a light on continuing systemic investigative failures, as well as individual mistakes.

A review of the database of military police decades of faults, flaws and failures (see:   https://military-justice.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/MPFU_Master.xlsx ) strongly suggests that the Canadian military police may be beyond repair and governmental consideration should perhaps lean in the direction of abolition in favour of the RCMP forming provost detachments to undertake the policing of the Canadian military, as the national police services do in France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey.

In the 12 December 2012 MPCC special report “Updating Civilian Oversight”, the Commission reflects on its origin in the late 1990s and argues that civilian oversight mechanisms have not kept pace with expectations. 

(To learn of the latest developments in this public interest investigation, please see: https://www.mpcc-cppm.gc.ca/public-interest-investigations-and-hearings-enquetes-et-audiences-dinteret-public/hiestand-investigation-enquete/pii-eip-2022-017-041-043-index-eng.html.)