General Joseph Édouard Jean Boyle, CMM, CD (born November 23, 1947) is a former Canadian Chief of Defence Staff.
He resigned in disgrace less than a year after his appointment, when it was revealed he was involved in "almost every facet" of the attempt to manage the aftermath of the Somalia Affair, including the alteration of documents released to the media.
[6][7] Boyle was appointed the Chief of Defence Staff in January 1996, at the relatively young age of 48, being chosen ahead of more senior officers who were expected to be picked for the job.
[11] On April 8, 1996, Boyle ordered the military to "stand down all but essential operations" to help conduct a search for files relating to Somalia that had not yet been provided to the Commission.
The only noted exception was 1,000 peacekeeping troops serving in Bosnia, about whom there were conflicting media reports as to whether they had been forced to stand down for the day to join the hunt.
While the move was widely ridiculed by the media, it led to the inexplicable discovery of logbooks belonging to 2er Commando being found in a locked filing cabinet at CFB Petawawa.
[1] On September 10, 1996, Gonzalez announced that he had remembered the details of giving the information to Boyle, Assistant Deputy Minister Robert Fowler and Dr. Ken Calder - although there were questions about his credibility.
[1] When Collenette was forced to resign shortly afterwards, it was suggested that the government could not forgive Boyle "for endangering the Minister" and would leave him to figuratively fall on his own sword.
[2][5][26] Since his appointment to the Defence Firm came only three months after his resignation, the Ethics Commissioner was asked to investigate, but reported that all routes were properly pursued and there was no wrongdoing.