A petition sponsored by a Liberal MP is reviving calls for a fresh look at whether veterans of the Afghanistan conflict should be reconsidered for Canada's top military honour.
Liberal MP Pauline Rochefort is sponsoring the new petition in Parliament. It calls for the creation of an "Independent Military Honours Review Board to review Afghanistan veterans' cases" to determine whether any of them meet the bar for the Victoria Cross.
The federal government says the Victoria Cross is reserved for soldiers who demonstrate "the most conspicuous bravery, a daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice, or extreme devotion to duty, in the presence of the enemy"
It has never been awarded to any Canadian for service in any conflict since the end of the Second World War.
Rochefort is MP for Nipissing—Timiskaming, which was home to the late Jess Larochelle, an army private whose actions under fire in Pashmul, Afghanistan in 2006 have inspired a movement to award him a posthumous Victoria Cross.
She said many of the Afghanistan veterans she meets at Legion events feel that their contributions during the conflict have not been fully recognized or appreciated, and "there's a reason they're not backing down."
Rochefort said it seems like the right time to make this renewed push, as the federal government moves to reinvest in the military and boost recruitment.
"HR gurus will tell us the first thing you must do is appreciate your personnel because if you don't, they're not going to stay. So if we want to attract young people to our military and qualified personnel, the first thing we must do is to show appreciation," she told The Canadian Press.
"When you have a significant component of the people that have been there, who have fought there, 40,000 of them, and they're saying, 'We're not sufficiently recognized,' I think that that's something to be paid attention to."
Retired corporal Bruce Moncur, who started the petition, is part of a group called Valor in the Presence of the Enemy. He said his group has identified roughly three dozen soldiers it believes could stand for the medal.
He said Larochelle's story stands out as a shining example due to the courage it took to hold off a Taliban attack on an observation post while badly wounded.
"I like to think that there's four parts to it — you changed the course of the battle, you saved lives, you're killed or wounded, and you did an incredible act of bravery. In my books, Jess clicks all those boxes," Moncur said. "What Jess did that day was nothing short of superhero."
Retired lieutenant-general Omer Lavoie, who led the counterattack that day and wrote a citation for Larochelle, remembers well what happened when the platoon came under fire.
"Two soldiers were killed almost immediately based on explosions from the rocket-propelled grenades," he said.
Larochelle was struck with shrapnel in the back and neck as he defended the strategic position. He remained in his position with a broken back, firing handheld rocket launchers and a machine-gun at the attacking insurgents.
"There's no doubt in my mind, having seen it first hand, that his immediate actions, fighting while being wounded, certainly cracked the momentum of that Taliban attack and bought us time to counterattack," Lavoie said. "Incredibly, he did this while being pretty seriously wounded."
Larochelle was awarded the Canadian military's second-highest honour, the Star of Military Valour, in 2007.
He died in 2023 at age 40.
Moncur pushed in 2021 for a review of Larochelle's actions. He said he wants to press the case for a wider review under Prime Minister Mark Carney's government.
He said Ottawa should consider new evidence indicating that Larochelle had volunteered for the assignment.
"They knew an attack was coming and he put his hand forward and volunteered to man that observation post instead of being ordered to man it," he said. "So, that is just a perfect recipe for a Victoria Cross and I don't think anybody could convince me otherwise."
A motion by former Conservative leader Erin O'Toole in 2022 sought to press the government to launch a military honours review panel. It failed in the House of Commons when Liberals opposed it.
"The continued inaction on this issue by the Liberal government speaks for itself and veterans are fed up," Conservative veterans affairs critic Blake Richards told The Canadian Press in an emailed statement.
"Conservatives will continue to advance the case for Jess Larochelle to be awarded the Victoria Cross and will always stand with Canada’s veterans to ensure that our heroes and their sacrifice for our country are not forgotten.”
The Department of National Defence did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.
Ottawa has said that the system for awarding national honours is designed to be insulated from political influence and public pressure campaigns.
"To ensure fairness and that honours were awarded according to the appropriate criteria, National Defence conducted an in-depth review in 2012 of all of the 20 Stars of Military Valour that were awarded in relation to the Afghanistan campaign," said a government response to a previous petition effort on Aug. 17, 2022.
"The review committee found that the process was fair and consistent, that none should have received a different decoration, and that all awards respected the intent and criteria for the Star of Military Valour."
Moncur said that response felt like a "punch to the stomach." He said the statement — released "in the middle of the summer" when it would get little attention — "didn't actually mention Jess by name."
This time around, though, he has found a champion on the government bench.
"Why as a country have we not been awarding Victoria Cross medals? That's the highest order. If we're not going to do it, take it away," Rochefort said.
"I don't want to minimize what this award represents, but it's there for a reason. It's important and therefore it should be awarded in times when it's necessary."
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Colin Perkel
