SMOL: Canadian Forces members wounded in Wainwright fire must not be forgotten
· Toronto Sun
Without resorting to Google, how many might know of the CFB Valcartier grenade incident of 1974 (six killed), the HMCS Kootenay fire of 1969 (nine killed), the CFB Chilliwack engineering range explosion of 1988 (six killed), the CFB Petawawa parachute debacle of 1968 (seven killed), or the tragic series of RCAF Hercules plane crashes at CFB Edmonton with seven killed in 1982 and 10 killed in 1985?
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No knowledge or recollection? Don’t worry, you are not alone.
I apologize in advance for any other catastrophic, non-combat Canadian Armed Forces incidents over the decades I haven’t mentioned. Sadly, there have been many over my lifetime.
What exactly am I rambling about here?
All of the above, and others, are examples of catastrophic non-combat military incidents that, shortly after they occurred, have essentially dropped out of our collective historical memory.
And while it is heartening to see such a surge of public sympathy for the dozens wounded at CFB Wainwright, my concern for those who survived – battered and burned, literally – is that our concern for their pain and struggle will prove ephemeral and will soon drown in the news cycle, and our collective memory, as quickly as one can say, “2026 U.S. Midterm Election Results.”
Dozens of military careers on hold or ended
Meanwhile, with their military careers likely put on tenuous hold or eliminated, the Wainwright wounded will for years have to navigate the not-so-friendly Kafkian labyrinth that is Veterans Affairs Canada bureaucracy.
The same overwhelmed, undervalued and underfunded department that “elbows up” Carney cut $4.2 billion from in the Liberals’ last budget.
It is enough of a challenge for any seriously disabled veteran, not to mention their immediate family, to move on with their life in or out of uniform. But it can be even harder to get recognition for their alleged “sacrifice” if their legacy, for lack of a better term, was an unintended fatal training accident rather than a planned military operation.
No doubt we’ll invariably hear more about individual acts of heroism on the ground at Wainwright, where four soldiers were killed. But ultimately our military’s career-advancement-obsessed, card-punching, senior brass will, once they have identified their administrative heroes and villains, want to figuratively press the delete and empty trash button on anything and anyone that might remind them of how, directly or indirectly, they may have failed in their duty of care to the trainees at Wainwright.
I may sound cold and callous. But if the hundreds of cases that I have become aware of in the past as a journalist and veteran advocate are any indication, the 39 (at last count) Wainwright wounded cannot assume, despite the current surge of sympathy, that the Forces and Veterans Affairs will indefinitely act on their behalf and cater to their medical and psychological needs once the inquiries are done, the negligent counselled, and the safety regulations changed.
Soon, individually or as a group, they will have to find the strength to self-advocate and, pardon the pun, hold the government’s feet to the fire.
And if a group of former army cadets can do it, so can they.
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Former cadets eventually won a settlement
Let’s go back to the 1974 Valcartier grenade incident mentioned at the very start of this piece. In July 1974, during an-of all things- a safety lecture to a crowded classroom of cadets, a box of “dummy” grenades and mines were brought in for demonstration by the regular military staff.
In a gross act of negligence by the base staff, this collection of “dummy” explosives contained an actual live grenade. The inevitable happened when the crowded classroom of cadets was allowed to handle the “dummy” explosives and grenades at the end of the lecture.
In 2009, I was one of several journalists approached by members of a group of Valcartier incident survivors seeking compensation from the government for their ongoing health issues, not to mention their pain and suffering. Because the cadet trainees were not officially part of the military, most received little to no compensation.
Nonetheless, through advocacy, articles, books and interviews, the former cadets eventually won a settlement.
The 1974 Valcartier grenade incident may have been forgotten by the public, but due to the efforts of the survivors for compensation, the government had to ultimately recognize their liability.
Likewise, the Wainwright wounded and their families should not fall into the trap of assuming their care and recovery will always be a top priority to the Forces and Veterans Affairs. Instead, they would be well advised to start ensuring, in the months and years to come, that they are not just another sad edition to this decades-long pattern of forgetting, bureaucratic delay, and military self-forgiveness once the flags are no longer at half-mast and the military marches on.
– Robert Smol is a retired teacher and veteran who served in the Canadian Armed Forces for more than 20 years and is currently completing a PhD in military history. He can be reached at [email protected].