Anand, Eyre to deliver official apology to victims of military sexual misconduct today | CBC News

It’s meant to be a small but significant step toward formally acknowledging the violence, pain, anger and frustration experienced by thousands of soldiers, sailors and aircrew, and by the civilians who work with them.

“For 25 years, I have waited for this moment,” said Ann Dickey, a former private who left the military over two decades ago after reporting that she was sexually assaulted in February 1996. She said her superiors confined her to barracks and ordered her not to report the rape to military police.

Dickey said that, on a personal level, she wants to hear an apology that acknowledges not only the acts of misconduct themselves but the way military and government officials too often received them with a mixture of institutional indifference, denial and hostility.

“For me, I would like them to apologize for the personal things they did in my case after I was assaulted,” she said.

“I don’t think they have the right to apologize to me for who raped me, but I do believe they have the right to apologize to me for the things that happened after, the secondary trauma.”

How will the apology be received by victims?

Whether the majority of survivors accept the apology remains to be seen. Dickey, for one, said she’s “willing to listen” and to help the military be better and do better.

The official apology will be received by people “who run the complete gamut of emotion,” she added.

Some, she said, are “not at the stage of healing where they’ll be able to accept that apology,” while others “will never be able to accept an apology because of the systemic trauma they have suffered.”

Anand, Eyre and Thomas will be speaking to an enormous audience of survivors.

As of Friday, 18,943 serving and retired members of the military, along with civilian defence workers, have submitted settlement claims as part of a class-action lawsuit against the federal government over sexual misconduct.

WATCH: Gen. Wayne Eyre says he wants to repair military’s ‘fragile’ morale

Canada’s new top military leader says fixing ‘fragile’ morale one of his top priorities

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau officially named Gen. Wayne Eyre chief of the defence staff. Eyre spoke about the sexual misconduct crisis, Canadian troops in Ukraine and an increasing domestic demand for disaster response on Rosemary Barton Live. 8:44

Roughly 60 per cent of the survivors are women. Claims have been approved in 5,355 cases and some initial payments have been made.

Roughly 33 per cent of all claims arrived in the weeks immediately before the Nov. 24 submission deadline. That’s led some lawyers to suggest the deadline for applications should be extended again until the end of January — something that is apparently within the discretion of the settlement administrator.

Survivors and lawyers involved in the class action lawsuit will be listening very closely to the precise wording of the apology.

Sincerity matters

Retired major Kashmeel D. McKöena said the apology will have to embrace a higher level of transparency than the government and military have demonstrated to date. The defence department and the federal government, he said, will have to spell out exactly what they’re apologizing for.

“How do you apologize to people if you’re not going to acknowledge what was wrong? And how much of it was wrong?” he said.

McKöena said the government’s expression of contrition must not come off as canned or insincere. If the statement merely offers something generic, he said, such as, “‘I’d like to apologize for all the things that I potentially could have done wrong, didn’t do, may have done,’ that is not an apology.”

The symbolic value of an apology coming from the highest levels of the defence establishment could still be important for many survivors, coming after 10 months of sordid misconduct revelations involving current and former top commanders.