July 13, 2024

By Ray McGinnis

458 Canadian Armed Services personnel have launched a lawsuit against the Canadian military over the vaccine mandates. The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Catherine Christensen, spoke about the case at the Manitoba Stronger Together Conference in Beausejour, Manitoba, June 21-23. She stressed the foundation on which trust is built in the CAF: that “those in command will look out for the well-being of those who serve under them.” When the Trudeau government brought in vaccine mandates for civilians, they expected the same from the CAF.

Christensen, with Valour Legal Action Centre, in St. Albert (AB), said “Our military members were used to set an example for the population of Canada for a 100 percent vaccination rate come hell or high water. …the directives from the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) were not about stopping the spread or mitigating risk to the ranks or operational effectiveness. The Chief of Defence Staff stated the purpose is to show ‘leadership.’ That’s not the purpose of our armed forces, nor should it be.”

“The two Chiefs of Defence Staff ahead of this current service Chief of Defence Staff did not bring in a mandate. The documentation shows they were very aware it could not be done and no doubt understood the risks of a medical treatment decimating the entire Canadian military if something went wrong.” The C-19 vaccine trials were several months, compared to routine five-to-ten-year trials to document medium and long-term outcomes, and ensure safety.

In each case, when a senior CAF official stood in the way of giving the green light to vaccine mandates, they were removed under a cloud of sexual misconduct allegations.

Christensen told the audience in Beausejour, “General Jonathan Vance was the Chief of Defence Staff when the vaccines first emerged” in the winter of 2020-2021. “He didn’t bring in the mandate. He was removed under a cloud of sexual misconduct allegation. It turned out Vance had been having an affair with a staff officer at army headquarters, for two decades, since 2001.” He had children with the woman. Vance pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in March 2022. But was cleared of sexual misconduct.

The military’s second-in-command, Lt.-Gen. Mike Rouleau, resigned from his post on June 14, 2021, after Global News reported that he’d played golf with Vance, who was under investigation for sexual misconduct. Rouleau’s public show of support for Vance took place before the former general was charged. Christensen told this reporter “Rouleau’s forced resignation was political. He was more qualified than Wayne Eyre,” who was eventually appointed CDS on November 25, 2021. If he had stayed, there’s every reason to believe Rouleau would have been as cautious as Vance about the question of vaccine mandates. So, “a charge of sexual misconduct likely would have emerged to get Rouleau removed.”

Lt.-Gen. Steven Whelan was removed from his post as head of military personnel on October 15, 2021. He was head of human resources for the army and cautioned that vaccine mandates would destroy CAF recruitment. Whelan was arrested at his house also under a cloud of sexual misconduct allegations. He was cleared of allegations of sexual misconduct in October 2023. On May 21, 2024, Whelan launched a $10M lawsuit against former Chief of Defence Staff General Wayne Eyre, CDS General Jennie Carignan, former Deputy Minister of National Defence and National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister Jody Thomas, and others for “abuse of office, negligent investigation, malicious prosecution, and involvement in media leaks that destroyed his reputation and career.”

Admiral McDonald took Vance’s place as CDS. Christensen notes, “Within a few weeks, he was under a cloud of suspicion for sexual misconduct – because I’ve seen his briefing note, and it clearly states that he could not bring in a mandate.” The Ottawa Citizen reported in December 2021, that “his lawyer, Rory Fowler, blames this situation on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canadian Forces officials and the news media. The admiral, Fowler says, is “an innocent man… accused of wrongdoing and tried in the court of public opinion.” The Canadian Forces National Investigation Service decided not to lay any charges of sexual misconduct due to “insufficient evidence.”

General Dany Fortin was then in charge of the vaccine rollout in Canada. Fortin didn’t bring in the mandate. “So then we get General Fortin accused of sexual misconduct,” noted Christensen. In December 2021, Fortin was acquitted of a charge of sexual assault going back to 1988.

General Wayne Eyre became Acting Chief of Defence Staff. Christensen recounted, “He is given a briefing note from Lt.-General Trevor Cadieu that you can’t do this… and Cadieu is then accused of sexual misconduct.” Charges against Cadieu were stayed in February 2024, relating to allegations from 1994.

As of July 2024, there have been no deaths in the CAF due to COVID-19. Yet, “The mandate still exists, even as the rest of the world’s militaries have been removing their mandates.”

In her legal brief, Christensen documents how “doctors who asked how to report vaccine injuries were ordered not to report or stay silent, or to report the symptoms as something else other than a vaccine injury.”

For those who followed orders, got injected and are now permanently disabled, “Veterans Affairs Canada is telling them, “No, not service related.” Veterans face a “procedural system that fails them and are forced to go to the court for deserved compensation.”

Among those Christensen is representing is a CAF chaplain. “A Catholic priest who was a chaplain… was told his belief wasn’t sincere enough to get a religious accommodation. Now if a chaplain who is a priest who is in uniform isn’t an example of someone with sincere religious belief, nobody was going to get an accommodation” based on religious belief.

Those most affected by vaccine injuries in the military were between the ages of 18 and 45. Christensen has heard from military families about sudden deaths post-vaccination. “I know of healthy young men who died in their sleep, but they are not releasing the autopsy results.”

Others Christensen represents include “A young soldier was made to stand in the bitter cold of a Canadian winter for three months while his fellow troops taunted him.”  She also told the conference in Beausejouor, MB, about “a CAF member who was only weeks from a full pension after 35 years of service, including multiple deployments without a single blemish on her record, who lost it all while her husband was dying of cancer.”

Christensen testified about the CAF vaccine mandate related lawsuit before the National Citizens Inquiry in April 2023. Since the vaccine mandate was required in the military, Christensen’s sources tell her it resulted in the loss of 5,000 military personnel. The National Post reported the Canadian military’s “actual strength of regular force on March 31, 2015, stood at 66,130. In April 2024, War on the Rocks placed the number of regular Canadian forces at about 55,000. Christensen, says her sources in the CAF tell that such numbers are padded to including personnel in transition to retirement, rangers who guard the north, and cadet instructors.

It’s time to get politics out of decisions around vaccine mandates for our military, if we hope to recruit a new generation ready to stand on guard.

Ray McGinnis is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.