Looking at the comments Mercier makes in the interview extracts, I have a feeling, like ER and others, that this is a conflation of what may be a small (but still serious) issue in the CAF with what is probably a larger (and certainly much noisier) problem in the US.
I'm not sure that it's fair to paint the CBC as "totally anti-military": there has been plenty of good reportage by the CBC of events in Afghanistan and elsewhere. I'll certainly grant that they have their strain of anti-militarists, but it's more likely, as some have suggested, that this is a way of embarassing the current govt which early on wrapped itself in the banner of pro-military sentiment. (We've discussed THAT elsewhere on this ste...)
Macleans can scarcely be called a "left-wing" or anti-military publication if you look objectively at what they've published over the years. Don't forget that it was Macleans who offended the Muslim community in this country with a depiction of Islamic culture a few years ago.
All of that aside, I am very, very skeptical of these figures, and of how they were arrived at. It will be interesting to see. If they are true, then the CAF has slipped, badly and has some housecleaning to do. It sounds like another leadership failure in the making.
If, on the other hand, these figures are BS extrapolations or "guesstimates", which I highly suspect, a false image of the CAF is going to emerge that may clash badly with attempts to maintain public support, including support for wounded veterans.