A Ukrainian flag drapes above the front door of retired Lieutenant-General Michel Maisonneuve’s St. Catharines home. On the door hangs a wreath with one word through the middle: Thankful.
Both adornments seem fitting.
Maisonneuve, a former chief of staff of NATO’s Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk, is constitutionally dispositioned to care about global security events like the war in Ukraine, and now, Israel-Hamas. And it’s mere days since Thanksgiving when I meet him and his wife of 22 years, retired Major Barbara Maisonneuve, whom he describes as the “woman of my dreams.”
When I’m ushered inside the couple’s cozy, tidy home, I notice something less typical for the fall season: Christmas music.
At what point in the year do you give yourselves license to get into the holidays, I ask as Maisonneuve readies coffee in the kitchen. “January,” he says laughingly.
In military circles, Maisonneuve has been a prominent figure for decades. He served for 35 years in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), ultimately rising to Assistant Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff, before retiring in 2007. He then spent ten years as Academic Director of the Royal Military College Saint-Jean. His role was to bring it “back online” following then-prime minister Stephen Harper’s decision to reopen a second military college.
It was for these and other contributions that Maisonneuve received the 2020 Vimy Award, which recognizes “a Canadian who has made a significant and outstanding contribution to the defence and security of Canada and the preservation of democratic values.”
Perhaps ironically though, Maisonneuve came to broader public attention not for receiving the award, but for giving a controversial speech when he accepted it. In the speech, Maisonneuve argued two crucial foundations of Canadian greatness — leadership and service — had gotten lost in a culture of “entitlement, me first, ‘not my problem’ and endless subsidies and handouts.” The speech led to some organizations cancelling their association with him.
Most recently, Maisonneuve and his wife shot to national prominence when they gave the opening-night address at the Conservative Party Convention in Quebec City. The convention, which I covered, is believed to have been one of the best-attended conventions in the party’s history. At it, more than one person told me that they thought the Maisonneuves’ address was the best of the event.
Lest Pierre Poilievre start to worry, Maisonneuve asserts convincingly that he has no political ambitions. “I have no filter,” he cites as one reason, before proceeding to give a more colourful illustration of how this would play out in practice.
“Neither does Barbara [have political ambitions],” he continues, “although she would be an outstanding candidate.”
Indeed, it was his wife’s speech at an officer and naval cadet dinner in 2018 that caught the eye of Poilievre, says Maisonneuve. Speaking at the height of the #MeToo movement, Barbara pushed back on some of the negative “fallouts” of that movement and suggested there may be a “need to create a new movement: #CommonSense.”
Sound familiar?
“We were both invited to speak [at the convention] because Pierre read Barbara’s speech,” Maisonneuve says. “I was very proud to stand beside her. She’s one of my heroes.”
On the matter of speeches, I ask Maisonneuve if he anticipated that his 2020 Vimy Award acceptance speech would be so controversial.
“Oh yeah. I wanted to be controversial, Lauren.”
“I made those comments in a non-partisan way… I was unhappy with my country and I still am unhappy with my country… I wanted to start a dialogue.”
“I’ve spent 50 years protecting the freedom of speech. For 45 years, I kept my ideas to myself. Now I have a right to speak and I still do.”
‘It’s the first priority’
Maisonneuve is not alone in expressing dissatisfaction with the state of Canada’s military.
In April, more than 60 former top security officials, commanders and politicians signed an open letter imploring the Liberal government to take national security and defence more seriously.
“They didn’t ask me to sign, but that’s alright,” Maisonneuve says a bit wistfully.
I ask him what it would look like for the government to take national security and defence more seriously.
“I think it’s very simple. The prime minister himself has to declare that serving in the CAF is an important, noble endeavour. That service to your country is something that should be valued. And then that needs to be replicated and filtered down through all the [cabinet] ministers, so that Canadians can understand that. That’s the talk.”
“And the government needs to lead the walk. Start funding appropriately.”
But the government has done the opposite.
In September, newly-appointed defence minister Bill Blair announced that the Department of National Defence (DND) would cut $900-million annually from its budget over four years.
As Canadian Affairs reported, experts say these cuts will further undermine Canada’s standing on the international stage during a geopolitical period that is, according to Maisonneuve, “probably one of the most dangerous times ever.”
I note that Blair replaced former defence minister Anita Anand after she had served a mere year and a half in that role. Does the regular shuffling of cabinet ministers undermine their effectiveness, I ask.
“I’d take a sip of coffee, there. We’re pretty intense already,” he says and we both laugh.
“Everyone — maybe except the prime minister — knows that the CAF are in a crisis. I’ve been in the headquarters when the new minister is onboarded. To onboard a new minister takes months. It takes almost 24-7 effort by the staff to update and brief the new minister to make sure he or she comes in aware of the situation and what’s going on.”
“So it was a big surprise to me that he shuffled Minister Anand out. From what I heard, she was doing a good job. Perhaps that’s why he shuffled her out.”
Of course, Anand was shuffled to the Treasury Board, where she was soon demanding cuts from all departments.
The DND, Maisonneuve explains, tends to be particularly vulnerable to budget cuts like these, because it is one of the only big department budgets that is discretionary. “That’s why it gets raided. Often.”
What the military and procurement projects instead require is “stable, long-term funding.” Without that, spending decisions become “a political fricking football.” Maisonneuve points to the example of the F-35 fighter planes, which successive governments subjected to competitive reviews over a decade.
“We took so long to make a decision. If we’d made a decision eight years ago to get these airplanes, our pilots would be flying them today, as they are in other places.”
“It’s a silly thing… There is no other airplane,” he states matter-of-factly.
“One of the things that bothers me about politics is it always seems we’re governed by polls… As opposed to saying, ‘What’s good for our country?’… And then communicat[ing] to Canadians why we made that decision.”
“What the prime minister and the government need to explain to Canadians is that, if you don’t have security and sovereignty of your country, you can’t have any of the other social programs that we’re so enamoured with. It’s the first priority.”
‘Move beyond it’
The general is a clear and engaging speaker. So much so that I’ve barely touched my coffee or the chocolate-chip cookie made by one of their neighbours.
With our remaining time, I bring up some of the factors contributing to the CAF’s acute personnel shortage, including the military’s sexual misconduct issues.
“We need someone to say, ‘We’ve had difficulties with sexual misconduct, but we’ve worked hard and made changes… that those that make mistakes will be punished’…. [But] at some point, you have to say ‘It’s done.’ You have to move beyond it.”
I note former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour, who conducted an independent review of the CAF and DND, had observed that military colleges “appear as institutions from a different era” and may contribute to the sexual misconduct problem.
When I ask Maisonneuve whether he agrees with this assessment, he points to a 2022 report he co-authored, which notes Arbour’s “warning must be heeded” and argues for a college “reset.”
“The origin of the problems faced by the institution stem from the fact that over the years the [Canadian military colleges] have lost their raison d’être,” the report begins.
“It’s almost as if we’re looking beyond the military profession,” Maisonneuve tells me. “We should focus on how do you best prepare a military officer on how to be a commander, a leader in the military.”
“I believe [the military colleges should provide] a liberal arts degree that gives you a bit of everything, including cultural studies, so you can actually be a proponent and keeper of the culture. The culture of the military profession. Behaviour as an officer. Behaviour as a gentleman or lady. How to have high moral and ethical standards.”
Maisonneuve says he is the first to whip out his business card when he meets young people who are considering joining the military.
“The advantages are great,” he says, before ticking off the reasons. “You can get a degree. You’ll be bilingual. You’ll be in great shape. You’ll learn leadership.”
Indeed, it was these attractions that drew Maisonneuve himself into the military as a young man.
Having grown up in a lower-middle class household, “I didn’t think that asking [my parents] to pay for university would be the right move,” he says. “And so when the offer of RMC came in, that sounded like a really good option.”
Clearly, it was.
“I never looked back. A lot of my buddies in my class said ‘I’m going to pack it in.’ I never once had those thoughts in my entire career.”
“Eventually I got to think of what the mission was and what the question of service was. I enjoyed the service part of things. I enjoyed serving my country.”
Excellent read.
I much enjoyed reading the story about Maisonneuve! An intelligent patriot.
Elly Gotz
Great Article, Thanks Lauren.
Loved this article Lauren. Thank you.
Mac