Juno News - Hundreds of CAF members launch $500M vaccine mandate lawsuit

00:00:00.000 I want to move to the other issue I mentioned a couple of moments ago which is a very big one

00:00:13.340 and well we can look at the situation in Canada and say oh yes the lockdowns are done the COVID

00:00:19.040 mandates are done that's all the past for people who were targeted by these things it is not at

00:00:25.680 all over and there is one group in particular who had a hugely offensive and insulting treatment by

00:00:34.580 the government on this and that was Canadian soldiers members of the Canadian Armed Forces

00:00:39.200 who were subject like everyone else in the public sector in Canada to vaccine mandates but

00:00:44.540 it was particularly stinging for this group who have given so much and continue to give so much

00:00:50.480 in pursuit of Canada to fight for Canada they wear a uniform and put their own lives on the line to

00:00:57.020 fight for their country and the ideas and ideals that this country represents but Justin Trudeau

00:01:03.140 looked at the military and said you guys are not fit for service if you don't get the COVID jab this was

00:01:09.560 the decision that they had to make to either get vaccinated or leave and this was not an easy

00:01:15.580 decision and again it's not just exclusive to the military it was also true of airline pilots of

00:01:21.560 federal public servants and frankly of anyone who wanted to get on an airplane or a train but for

00:01:27.760 members of the Canadian Armed Forces I'm reminded of that exchange when Justin Trudeau told I can't

00:01:33.240 remember if he was a soldier or a veteran I think he had left the military by then at a Q&A that veterans

00:01:39.420 were asking for more than the government could give them and it's amazing when you remember that

00:01:46.100 remember that exchange remember that line that the government had that Trudeau had how unsurprising

00:01:52.620 it is to see the broader treatment of members of the military but as we talked about a couple of

00:01:58.420 months ago on this show there are some that are not prepared to just ignore this and move on there is

00:02:04.080 now a proposed class action lawsuit that has been filed and the lawyer representing the class is

00:02:10.620 Catherine Christensen who's the founder of Valor Law and joins me now Catherine it is good to talk to

00:02:16.420 you again thanks very much for coming back on the show today hi Andrew it's great to be back so let's

00:02:22.200 just start here you've got 330 some odd current and former members that are in this right now but the

00:02:30.280 number you're actually representing is much larger than that is it not there is now one thing I want

00:02:35.680 to clarify is this is not actually a class action it's a mass tort okay I apologize I was going based

00:02:41.380 on a media report that got it wrong there but I think exactly setting that straight what is that

00:02:45.900 difference actually for people that don't know yeah so a mass tort is seeking uh relief so what we're

00:02:52.360 asking for from uh the government just for those people that are named in the lawsuit as plaintiffs

00:02:57.740 a class action on the other hand has uh example plaintiffs that if you match that person then

00:03:05.040 you're part of that class and you can get compensation through that without ever actually

00:03:09.160 taking legal action yourself um so this is a mass tort 329 because I know there was discussion

00:03:16.880 previously of a class action there was uh the reason that we decided to go this route was because

00:03:23.220 these people were the ones that stood up in October of 2021 uh they have stayed hard and fast

00:03:30.400 that they wanted to hold the chief of defense staff and and the Canadian armed forces to account

00:03:35.880 uh for abusing their power and so the decision was made by the group that they would do it as a mass

00:03:41.700 tort versus a class action now we're talking about hundreds of people that are known right now there is

00:03:49.140 still a group out there that we don't yet know about and what I'm hearing from them pardon me

00:03:54.220 I'm hearing from them well you are and what bothers me so much about this is that there are two types

00:04:01.120 well more than two but two in particular types that stand out here there are those who uh were faced

00:04:06.240 with this mandate that for whatever reason didn't want to get vaccinated and did and kept their jobs

00:04:11.420 and that was the only way they kept their jobs and continued to serve and those who still wouldn't

00:04:16.240 and said okay I I have to leave and and the government views by design that first group as

00:04:22.980 being a success they view that as being great we we told them they had to do this and they did it

00:04:28.560 well here's the thing is that the people that left the Canadian armed forces they were some were

00:04:35.060 forced to leave they chose to leave under a voluntary release but there's a large group of them

00:04:39.980 that were released under what's called a 5f unsuitable for further service this is the release

00:04:45.600 category that if you are a drunk or a drug addict who won't get rehabilitated you're a domestic 0.56

00:04:51.340 violence offender you're uh sexual you've been found to be guilty of sexual assault this is the

00:04:58.100 category they released those people under so it wasn't just a fact that they chose to lose their jobs

00:05:03.900 when they lost their jobs they lost them under what used to be called a dishonorable discharge

00:05:08.780 and in fact several members of the chain of command told them it was a dishonorable discharge

00:05:13.560 uh and that there's implications for it like for instance they can't re-enroll in the Canadian armed

00:05:19.080 forces without the chief of defense staff permission and they have to wait five years

00:05:22.600 uh they cannot apply for any federal government job because they're not going to get it for being

00:05:27.460 released under this they call it honorable now but like I said it's it's it's a real black mark on their

00:05:33.000 records so it was a big choice they had to make because it limited what they could do even out of

00:05:38.960 the armed forces well and also what I find so troubling about all of this is that it would be

00:05:45.040 one thing if the military had this rule that you have to be vaccinated against COVID to join the armed

00:05:50.920 forces and I would still oppose that but they would at least have some transparency there about what

00:05:55.880 the rules are when you join in this particular case you have people that are being threatened their

00:06:01.940 careers are being threatened and jeopardized for non-compliance with a rule that never existed

00:06:06.680 when they joined and hadn't existed for the however many years they'd been in service but one day with

00:06:11.980 a stroke of a pen did and it's as though you're right they've committed some heinous act in uniform

00:06:17.080 if they don't go along with this rule that they never could have conceived of when they first joined

00:06:22.040 right so under the national defense act section 126 the chief of defense staff has the power

00:06:27.540 to uh force of vaccination on on members of the forces however they are allowed to say no they

00:06:37.040 then face face a court martial and if they are found to have a reasonable excuse for not taking it

00:06:42.900 then they're acquitted and they're there then have to be accommodated he chose not to use section 126

00:06:50.000 and he has been reprimanded for that by the review uh grievance review committee uh because they first

00:06:58.560 of all they couldn't have withstood three to five thousand courts martial the jag office just isn't that

00:07:03.520 big and the other is they couldn't risk one win because one win would put it into law that he can't do

00:07:09.680 what he just did uh so they chose an administrative route which is how we end up with 5f releases uh

00:07:17.120 remedial measures that were accelerated far beyond anything they had ever done before but he had

00:07:23.600 been told in a briefing note uh that i discussed last time i was on your show that he couldn't do what

00:07:29.360 he is about to do and the grievance external grievance review committee has actually come out and backed me

00:07:34.720 up on that and said no he could do what he did and that he breached the charter section 7 of the charter

00:07:41.280 uh that freedom to say what happens to your body and uh he under the national defense act he cannot

00:07:48.640 issue an order that violates the charter so this is an unlawful order that he issued and that has

00:07:55.680 consequences in the courts there was i remember it was in august 2021 so the mandate wasn't in effect

00:08:03.040 yet but we were certainly hearing a lot of discussion about it and i i happened upon this and i can't

00:08:07.760 remember how but on the department of defense website there was a page and on this page it said

00:08:14.400 that the canadian armed forces quote cannot require a public servant to get a vaccine nor is mandatory

00:08:20.640 vaccination supported under canadian law and it added the same thing for for members of the canadian

00:08:27.440 armed forces and i reported on this in august 18th 2021 two days later the page had been entirely scrubbed

00:08:35.120 and had none of this so so you know obviously a government website is whoever wrote its perspective

00:08:42.080 of the law but it does suggest that the canadian armed forces had been operating up until this mandate

00:08:47.040 came into effect with this idea that you've just shared which is that mandatory vaccination is not just

00:08:52.240 not a policy of the armed forces in canada but not even legal if they wanted to right so there were

00:08:59.040 members who have never taken the flu vaccine for example with no repercussions uh i there's a member

00:09:05.200 of the lawsuit who had never had a vaccination in her entire life and she was serving in the canadian

00:09:11.120 armed forces without any issue until this came along so this is why the lawsuit isn't uh a covet 19

00:09:18.560 lawsuit what i've done is it's uh i've been watching the forces for a while there's been a lot of

00:09:23.760 corruption and abuse of power in the ranks and when he issued this in october 2021 he handed me a perfect

00:09:31.760 example of how they abuse their power in the chain of command because i've got a nice concrete start to

00:09:37.200 it october of 2021 and here's what all these people did to their troops along the way until to the

00:09:43.680 present day and it continues to this present day because the mandate still exists uh they still have

00:09:49.440 to are required to be vaccinated and uh the people that are still in who somehow managed to escape

00:09:55.760 being released through all of this they're now being punished all over again they're being sent to

00:10:01.520 postings that are going to bankrupt them or are places that they don't want to be uh we've got pilots

00:10:09.360 that are being sent to fly desks instructor pilots we need instructor pilots to fulfill well

00:10:16.400 trudeau says he's training uh uh ukrainian pilots but he's got a whole bunch of instructor pilots that

00:10:23.600 are sitting at desks instead of flying so i'm not sure how he's going to accomplish that well and for

00:10:29.440 years the the military has had increasing difficulty in recruiting and we know that a lot of the standards

00:10:36.720 that have long been established in the military i mean on tattoos on grooming on facial hair on dress

00:10:42.320 all of these things are being relaxed because the argument is that well you know we uh can't afford

00:10:47.360 to discriminate against people with face tattoos because you know there's slim pickings in the

00:10:51.200 recruitment offices and here you have people that are not just willing to serve but have been serving

00:10:56.560 and want to even in spite of this want to continue serving that are being told no because you won't get

00:11:02.800 this vaccine which has whatever you think about it limited efficacy this long after uh if not negligible

00:11:11.680 efficacy this long after the mandate required them to have been vaccinated so it's of zero benefit

00:11:17.120 right and uh these were people at the peak of their careers we've we've done kind of a rough

00:11:23.200 calculation just of the 300 some people in the lawsuit they've lost over three billion dollars in

00:11:28.880 training and experience from this group that are in the just in this lawsuit so i can't imagine

00:11:33.760 in administrative costs for doing all these releases uh people who aren't going to renew their

00:11:39.040 contracts because they didn't like what happened and now they're seeing that you know it was an

00:11:43.440 unlawful order what else are they going to ask me to do uh billions and billions of dollars have been

00:11:49.520 lost uh through this whole thing for what is essentially an unlawful order and we've got a

00:11:55.840 military right now that says that they're not accountable to the law i was in in the court federal

00:12:00.560 court in february and the crown stood up and said this court has no jurisdiction over the chief

00:12:05.360 of defense staff in military matters and i watched the justice's eyebrow rise and i thought oh really

00:12:12.720 well let's settle that question because in my world the rule of law applies and no one's above the law

00:12:19.040 i don't care who you are uh so this is part of the questions that are going to have to be answered

00:12:25.520 let me ask you about the morale aspect of this because you know that i again i i tried to address this

00:12:31.600 earlier on when i was talking about this uh before i i brought you in catherine the the fact of the

00:12:36.160 matter is well i i believe the mandates are wrong in general i i do have a particularly uh a particularly

00:12:44.320 smaller tolerance for jerking around members of the military and i i think in general canadians left and

00:12:50.080 right have for the most part supported members of the armed forces we all really embrace remembrance day

00:12:58.240 we all really embrace veterans causes i remember when the afghanistan mission was on you'd see those

00:13:03.520 yellow ribbons just everywhere on on cars and corporations would get involved it's one of the

00:13:08.720 safest causes to take up support for the military and support for veterans despite you know little

00:13:14.960 uh you know squabbling you might get on the fringes on on the left so when we're talking about

00:13:21.760 something like this to people who have served and continue to serve it really stings a lot more

00:13:28.240 than the mandates in some other context and i was wondering if you just had any reflections on

00:13:32.720 that and and how that's been for the people who wear these uniforms and in some cases would love to

00:13:37.120 still be doing that after all this uh i have to tell you that the morale is low um in the canadian

00:13:43.600 armed forces it's and the number of broken people that we have with mental health issues is

00:13:50.480 uncountable uh i know that in our group of of people uh we've had some attempted suicides we've

00:13:57.600 managed to save everybody because we've created this really strong knit group that we're looking

00:14:02.880 out for each other uh but there ha there has been a real price to this whole thing uh because there's

00:14:11.360 a lot lack of trust between the chain of command and the people the their troops uh and they were

00:14:18.800 already suffering with some of the changes cultural changes that the people that were signing on the

00:14:24.880 dotted line to volunteer to serve canada didn't agree with and were being forced to adjust to it and

00:14:33.840 yeah no uh i'm just seeing more and more broken people who even the ones that are still in that took

00:14:40.400 the vaccine uh they regret they have big big regrets and watch and now when uh since the lawsuit is

00:14:48.080 launched uh they're coming forward and we're hearing from them uh and the vaccine injured i've been

00:14:55.600 getting more and more calls for that from them as well now is that a separate legal fight or can that

00:15:01.440 actually be addressed under this same mass tort that you filed here i'm going to bring the vaccine

00:15:06.400 injured ones separately uh because we have to go through veterans affairs canada first they have to

00:15:11.360 see if they can be uh covered they are not being covered right now by veterans affairs canada

00:15:16.000 they're being told it's not service related i disagree even though they weren't even though

00:15:20.800 this was a condition of their service to get exactly that otherwise they might not have you

00:15:24.880 don't take it you're out of the military i'd say that's a service related injury so that battle is

00:15:29.920 ramping up uh we have some quite severe injuries uh there have been some deaths associated with the

00:15:35.440 covid vaccines i can tell you officially that the covid 19 vaccine killed more troops than covid did

00:15:42.080 because covid killed none zero zero people died even the ones that were on the front lines in the

00:15:47.920 nursing homes nobody died of covid in uniform so that's to me that says a lot uh we forced something

00:15:58.320 on people i mean they have their own policy that they're not supposed to vaccinate pregnant women and

00:16:02.960 they they were still i had women that were one day away from maternity leave being pressured 1.00

00:16:08.720 to uh take to take the injections so uh you know they didn't stop well and i think when you mention

00:16:17.040 that and it's absolutely horrific and i i followed in particular a lot of the the the vaccine injury

00:16:22.160 cases in the united kingdom where i think they had a larger problem because of the the particular

00:16:26.720 vaccines they were pushing there and and how widely they were and uh in a canadian context we certainly

00:16:31.600 don't hear these stories and and i think it all goes around to the idea of why choice is so central

00:16:38.320 and why why choice is so pivotal here and if yes you know someone wants to look at the situation and

00:16:42.960 say you know i'm balancing this i'm weighing this and and here's what i decide we should be encouraging

00:16:48.160 that and i wanted to ask just because we we sort of glossed over it earlier about accommodations

00:16:52.720 because anytime these mandates were in place the argument that was put as well yes of course you know if

00:16:58.400 you absolutely need for medical reasons or religious reasons to get an exemption you'll be

00:17:03.280 able to but it's never been as easy as they make it seem and and i know in universities and the public

00:17:08.560 service they fought tooth and nail against this i'm assuming from your nodding that that was the same

00:17:13.280 in the canadian armed forces that exemptions were basically not easy to get if at all no that's very

00:17:19.120 true there were very very few that were actually granted um and lots of times it was because maybe they

00:17:26.160 were a couple months out from a 3b medical release so they were being released for injuries and so

00:17:33.200 uh they all will accommodate you for a couple months while you're in the transition center

00:17:37.200 type of thing um we had uh here in edmonton cfb edmonton uh rutland he was a colonel at the

00:17:44.240 time he's a brigadier general now he's one of the named defendants uh he set up a board to review

00:17:50.240 every single accommodation request because he wasn't happy that some of his co's were granting

00:17:55.120 accommodations so they all had to go through this board and one of in one of his decisions he has

00:18:01.120 written that on a balance of probability issue religion won't be harmed by taking it and i'm

00:18:06.880 looking at this and i'm thinking what so he's throwing a legal term in there balance of probabilities

00:18:13.120 but how how is he in a position to decide if someone's faith has been injured or harmed by uh taking

00:18:22.560 this i mean it's gibberish but it's also showing you the arrogance of it uh well this won't harm your

00:18:29.520 your faith well that's not his call to make that's the individual's call to make and our supreme court

00:18:35.440 begs to differ with him about what uh you're supposed to do with someone's religious beliefs

00:18:40.720 you know and this is the the military that has you know long embraced uh you know a specific uh dress

00:18:46.560 issue turban if you're a sikh uh you can wear your hijab in your uniform if you are a muslim so this

00:18:52.560 idea of uh religious accommodations is not new but it's amazing that all of a sudden it's well

00:18:58.080 maybe we get to decide how your religious practice really needs to manifest here i mean i don't trust 0.86

00:19:03.840 these people to be theologians any more than i trust them to uh be charter interpreters at this right

00:19:10.000 well and i mean the chaplain general basically came out and said that there are 25 recognized

00:19:15.520 religions in the in the calf oh really i didn't know we were putting limits on who could what

00:19:22.000 religion was what in canada that's not what the supreme court said so i found that a very interesting

00:19:27.680 piece of information as well and these are things that they put in writing the air that this is the

00:19:33.040 problem andrew is the arrogance and the feeling like they're absolutely untouchable if this lawsuit

00:19:39.440 does nothing else i hope it shows them that they're not as untouchable as they think they are

00:19:44.320 now you mentioned earlier the loss here of billions of dollars in lost wages and training what is the

00:19:50.320 ask what is it you want to get out of this uh so in total uh we are asking for approximately 500

00:19:57.440 million dollars for 329 people uh there is a 1 million dollar ask for each person and then some other uh

00:20:06.080 asks as well for special damages uh but we have also got several other claims there's 30 claims here

00:20:13.200 and some of them are declarations uh the ask for funds is maybe three of the 30. the rest is all

00:20:19.840 asking for uh for instance for the order to be declared unlawful by a court so that the uh release

00:20:27.040 category can be changed so that people remove that black mark of 5f uh asking for them to take another

00:20:34.640 look at their grievance system because how can you have the guy who wrote the order and and

00:20:40.800 demanded the order being the same guy that decides if you've been uh grieved or not because that's

00:20:46.240 what happened cds issued it he's the one you have to grieve to say it's wrong but he's the one that

00:20:52.160 makes a decision on whether it was wrong so there's things like that in there where uh my my people are

00:20:59.200 saying that the money is one thing but that's not the main focus of this it's culture change they want

00:21:04.960 to change what's happening in the canadian armed forces and they're willing to stand up and put

00:21:08.960 their names on paper and say this has got to change that the the abuse of power at the top is over

00:21:16.720 catherine christensen from valor law thank you so much for coming on today great to talk to you again

00:21:21.520 great to talk to you too andrew thank you for having me on thanks for listening to the andrew lawton

00:21:25.200 show support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - June 27, 2023

Hundreds of CAF members launch $500M vaccine mandate lawsuit

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript