The Canadian military is facing a social media backlash after Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Art McDonald outlined the need for more diversity by tweeting a photo of himself and seven other white male senior officers at a meeting.
The pushback was immediate, with Twitter followers calling the tweet embarrassing and an example of the failure of the military on diversity.
Other tweets were less than complimentary. “What’s it like having your head this far up your own a.., admiral?” one individual tweeted.
Some Twitter folllowers pointed out the only diversity in the post was an unidentified woman in the background on a television monitor.
In response, McDonald later tweeted that, “I hear your comments and I take them to heart. It’s true: the leadership of the CAF is, and historically has been, predominantly male and white. That needs to change.”
It’s the second tweet this week from the Canadian Forces that has garnered negative attention.
The official Royal Canadian Navy Twitter account “liked” a tweet on Feb. 9 that joked about defence funding and “Porn Sub”, a reference to the pornography website Pornhub. Pornhub, whose parent firm is based in Montreal, has been accused of putting child pornography on-line and is the subject of a Canadian parliamentary hearing. The firm has also been hit with a class-action lawsuit in Quebec alleging that since 2007 it profited off material showing child sexual abuse.
The navy said it made a mistake in liking the tweet and had later “unliked” it.
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