DND turned aside solution to suicide investigation backlog two years ago: memo

OTTAWA – National Defence was told two years ago how to ease the backlog of investigations into military suicides — but the department chose to ignore the recommendation.

New documents show officials were told in the spring of 2012 that the system could be improved by changing the agency responsible for the inquiries.

The change involved moving the responsibility to conduct boards of inquiry from the overworked director of casualty support management to the chief of review services.

But senior officials felt the move wasn’t necessary even though the number of unresolved cases kept piling up and some military families were left in the dark about circumstances that may have contributed to their loved one’s death.

Defence Minister Rob Nicholson called the country’s top military commander on the carpet last January about the case backlog and a memo written following that meeting shows the shift in responsibility for inquiries became an important concern.

There were, at the time, as many as 75 cases — some of them dating back as far as 2008.

A defence spokesman says only eight boards of inquiry remain in the review stage and that the entire file of incomplete work will be cleared by early autumn.