Defence Minister Peter MacKay’s decision to approve an eight-year retroactive promotion and financial payout to the officer who led the ill-fated Somalia mission was such a rare occurrence that military paymasters had to partially guess at the amount Col. Serge Labbe would receive, according to newly released Defence Department documents.
Last summer, MacKay, acting on the advice of Gen. Rick Hillier and a review board made up of fellow generals, quietly promoted Labbe from colonel to brigadier general, making the new rank retroactive to July 2000. Labbe retired shortly after his promotion.
Calculating how much taxpayers would pay out to the new general officer was a problem because of the rarity of the situation, according to the records obtained by the Ottawa Citizen through the Access to Information law.
“Our system can only do precise retro calculations back five years,†noted Col. Todd Mitton, director of military pay and accounts processing, in a July 2, 2008 e-mail.
“Bottom line — It is extremely rare,†added Col. Guy Simard on July 25 of the retroactive deal.
Military officers figuring out the payment also suggested including performance bonuses for Labbe as if he was a brigadier general for the period in question. Since Labbe hadn’t actually received a performance bonus rating at a brigadier-general level, military pay officials decided to estimate what type of performance rating he might have received, according to the records.
A specialist, identified as the only person in the military who could deal with such a significant retroactive payment regarding bonuses, was requested to be temporarily transferred to Ottawa from CFB Petawawa to help with the calculations.
The Defence Department will not release the actual amount taxpayers paid to Labbe, saying that doing so would violate his privacy.
“It’s not a substantial amount of money in my view,†said Navy Capt. David Scanlon, a Defence Department spokesman.
In 2008 a brigadier general would have been paid between $147,228 to $159,396 a year. A colonel would have been paid $124,380 to $139,104.
Using data provided by the Defence Department, the Citizen determined the lump sum payment to Labbe would be more than $148,000.
The annual increase to his pension would be around $14,000 as a result of the retroactive promotion, Michel Drapeau, an Ottawa lawyer and retired colonel, estimated.
It is difficult to determine the amount of the bonuses Labbe was paid since that information is censored from the records. Labbe, born in April 1952, would have received more than 200 days’ worth of severance pay, as well, Drapeau added.
Some retired military personnel and parliamentarians have criticized the deal, noting that Labbe was paid for eight years work as a general, even though he never performed at that level.
Labbe, who in the past has declined to be interviewed on the promotion and pay issue, was not available for comment.
Labbe was considered a rising military star when he was selected to lead the 1992-1993 mission to Somalia. During that deployment Canadian paratroopers tortured to death 16-year-old Shidane Arone, documenting the beating of the Somali with a series of photographs.
Also during the mission, two Somalis were shot in the back after they entered a Canadian camp. It was later revealed paratroopers put out food and water as “bait†and it was alleged by a military doctor that one of the Somalis was killed “execution-style†by a soldier.
In 1997 the Somalia inquiry concluded Labbe exercised poor and inappropriate leadership by failing to ensure troops were adequately trained and tested on the Geneva Conventions and that he failed in his duty as a commander.
Labbe was denied a promotion to brigadier general by a military review board. But in early 2008 Hillier ordered a review of the officer’s file as “he believed that the situation merited a closer look because there may have been an oversight in the years following 1998,†according to the Defence Department.
Hillier and Labbe worked together in Kabul in 2004 and the colonel has been a key player at NATO and in the Afghanistan mission.
Unlike in 1998, when the Canadian Forces issued a news release pointing out that Labbe would not be promoted, the military had no intention to publicize its 2008 decision in his favour.
But sources tipped off the Citizen, which published an article on the decision last summer.
The original questions from the Citizen set off a scramble in the Defence Department to figure out how best to provide answers, the records indicate. Information to be released to the media was vetted by three different organizations inside DND before being shipped off for approval by the Privy Council Office.
Source: Ottawa Citizen
