General orders investigation into himself

The commander of Canadian troops in Afghanistan has ordered a special investigation into his own actions.

Brig.-Gen. Daniel Ménard, the head of Joint Task Force Afghanistan, announced Saturday that he has summoned the military's National Investigation Service to probe the unintended discharge of his gun.

Ménard said he was loading his C8 carbine at Kandahar Airfield on March 25, something he said he has done thousands of times, when it went off. No one was injured and nothing was damaged, but the National Defence Act makes it an offence to accidentally discharge a weapon.

The military police probe will determine whether the general's weapon was fired accidentally or negligently, or whether it malfunctioned.

If it was an accidental or negligent incident, Ménard would likely face a court martial. The penalty for a guilty finding in such cases is often as low as $10 or even a reprimand, but because of Ménard's rank and position, he would probably be fined a much heftier amount.

Ménard said he felt compelled to relate the information in the name of openness.

In the last 18 months, more than 600 Canadian Forces soldiers have been convicted of accidentally or negligently discharging their weapons. Most of those incidents involve inexperienced soldiers, and often it's a case of pulling the trigger on a firing range before being given the command to do so.