Juno News - October 29, 2023


Military bans prayer on Remembrance Day (ft. Tom Marazzo)


Episode Stats

Length

16 minutes

Words per Minute

174.98497

Word Count

2,910

Sentence Count

4

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show
00:00:06.360 i wanted to move on to this story which came up out of ottawa i i have never shockingly been a
00:00:15.080 girl guide i know you were it was 2023 i could have been uh but girl guides of canada which has
00:00:21.240 been around for as my late british grandmother would have said donkey's years which just means
00:00:26.120 a long time but it's far more amusing to say it with a british accent uh girl guides of canada
00:00:31.060 has told its chapters they are not to participate in santa claus parades yeah santa claus parades now
00:00:40.640 you may wonder why it's not because santa claus is an evil uh you know white male patriarch but it's
00:00:46.180 because santa claus is associated with christmas which is a religious holiday and girl guides of
00:00:51.700 canada believes it needs to embrace its policy of secularism in the name of diversity inclusion
00:00:57.780 and tolerance so as such a girl guide chapter which wants to jump in and join the santa claus parade
00:01:05.340 as the chapter in canada near ottawa or in ottawa wanted to do is unable to so this is rather absurd
00:01:12.560 and you know every year there are these stories where you know people will coin the phrase or use
00:01:16.700 the phrase a war on christmas and i find often the so-called war on christmas gets a bit overblown
00:01:21.700 but i don't believe if a girl guide group wanted to i don't know not that they have ramadan parades but
00:01:27.700 i don't think if a girl guide group wanted to march in a ramadan parade as a show of solidarity
00:01:32.480 that they would be they would be told they are not allowed to do so uh but this is what happened here
00:01:39.140 and then you can't you uh juxtapose that with this story that was broken last week by the epic times
00:01:44.720 which was a fascinating and very upsetting story that military chaplains who are there for the
00:01:52.340 spiritual health and well-being of members of the canadian armed forces are now prohibited from
00:01:57.720 doing public prayers including at remembrance day ceremonies they have to be as nondescript and
00:02:04.160 non-religious as they can tom marazzo is with me he is a well you know him as a key volunteer and
00:02:11.380 player with the freedom convoy and also author of the book the people's emergency act but he is also
00:02:17.880 a retired captain in the canadian armed forces and joins me now tom uh good to talk to you with a bit
00:02:23.960 of a different hat on today yeah thank you this is unusual that i get to talk about something
00:02:28.880 different than the convoy so thank you it's uh look and i mean thank you for your service as as i say
00:02:35.560 any veteran that i speak to but this is a really really disgusting turn of events i mean the reason
00:02:41.820 military chaplains exist is because faith is so tremendously important to people uh we have
00:02:46.860 incorporated in our religious observations uh you know in church my church and every church i've ever
00:02:52.340 been to uh honoring veterans on remembrance day and at remembrance day ceremonies prayer has always been
00:02:58.020 a very uh prominent thing and why on earth is now the time to say this is no longer permitted these
00:03:06.340 people that are still part of the canadian armed forces that have a role are no longer able to actually
00:03:10.880 be spiritual leaders you know it's such a bizarre story excuse me i i don't know what the the timing of it
00:03:21.820 other than to say that it does seem like it's something orchestrated um but i don't want to i don't mean
00:03:26.900 to suggest some sort of con you know conspiracy theory or anything but i just find it interesting and
00:03:32.500 when i saw the story broke the first thing i thought was you better change the first line of the canadian
00:03:38.100 charter of rights and freedoms which is you know whereas canada is founded upon the principles that
00:03:44.200 recognize the supremacy of god in the rule of law um so it begs the question what is it that veterans
00:03:52.240 are fighting for if not for you know the very way of life that we have in canada why did our veterans
00:03:59.500 why did our combat veterans go to world war one and two and afghanistan and korea and all these these
00:04:05.960 missions overseas if not to preserve the way of life that we have here in canada and for many that
00:04:15.280 includes god and it doesn't have to be the christian god it could be the god of whatever religion that you
00:04:22.060 prescribe to but you know the timing of this i find extremely bizarre especially coming right up um
00:04:29.420 you know close to remembrance day and it it makes no sense to me other than i would say it is just one
00:04:38.100 more further erosion on you know the the foundations of this country that we built and i don't mean my
00:04:48.760 generation but i mean the judeo-christians that settled from europe and came and built canada
00:04:54.380 into such a great country or what it used to be i would argue that it's not so great anymore under the
00:05:00.600 current uh political landscape but it's interesting to me that you know the very things that made us
00:05:09.000 canadian seem to be the very things that are being taken away from us slowly incrementally and to me
00:05:16.700 personally i find it really offensive you know i i spent a lot of my life questioning my religious
00:05:24.540 beliefs and i have had many occasions to sit down with military padres and talk about the the existence
00:05:32.840 of god and where i fit into the universe uh in you know the morality of what i'm doing or what i did for
00:05:40.840 for 25 years of my life and to see that that somehow becoming
00:05:49.400 sort of taboo um amongst the those celebrations that are so important to us
00:05:55.640 to honor the sacrifices of of past men and women who've given up their lives and not just the ones
00:06:01.240 who've given up their lives but who have been wounded who have psychologically suffered as you know
00:06:07.880 as a result of answering the call of canada to go off to foreign lands and do things in doing that
00:06:16.040 knowing they were one protecting the way of life in canada in the traditions that we have but you know
00:06:23.320 there is a saying that uh something to the effect that you know in war um everybody in a foxhole believes in
00:06:32.440 god you know and i certainly think that it is an affront to the canadian public to put limitations or
00:06:43.960 even curtail or or reframe these these things around remembrance day ceremonies i just think it's wrong
00:06:52.440 and i'm not saying i'm not just go ahead go ahead no i just wanted to jump in just to give people the
00:06:57.480 full context of what has been changed here so uh the directive and i'm reading this from the epic
00:07:02.760 times here uh well the dimension of prayer may occupy a significant place for some of our members
00:07:08.520 we do not all pray in the same way for some prayer does not play a role in their lives therefore it is
00:07:14.600 essential for chaplains to adopt a sensitive and inclusive approach when publicly addressing military
00:07:21.000 members it goes on to say that any spiritual reflection not a prayer needs to be inclusive
00:07:27.720 and nature in nature and respectful of the religious and spiritual diversity of canada
00:07:32.680 uh because of the gender-based analysis you cannot actually refer to god as male uh if you are going to
00:07:39.960 reference god you can't say heavenly father because that's gendered uh and then they've also taken
00:07:46.040 away and this is i think really crazy uh there are scarves that chaplains wear and i i didn't know
00:07:51.640 this necessarily but each scarf has a an emblem on it depending on the religion of that chaplain
00:07:57.720 because they aren't all just christians and those emblems have to go so now like a christian minister
00:08:02.920 a catholic priest that's a chaplain has to pretend that you know they are just this nondescript uh you
00:08:08.920 know force here so they're trying to just like it's weird that they're trying to do the best of both worlds
00:08:14.200 because they're trying to claim that we still have this spiritual role but we have to strip away the
00:08:19.720 thing that makes that role relevant to people and and by the way it's muslims and jews that also suffer
00:08:25.000 from this because they're not allowed to have any uh recognition of their faith if of a chaplain of their
00:08:30.760 denomination yeah i i read all that as well and i found it interesting that this report or this policy
00:08:38.120 came as a report based on a 2022 committee studying diversity and inclusion within the canadian armed
00:08:44.760 forces um this is more wokeism this is what it is again this is about you know the true nature of of
00:08:53.560 supporting military members on the battlefield or military members at a remembrance day ceremony this is
00:08:59.480 about wokeism and you know to me it's irrelevant what religious faith you come from what is relevant to
00:09:09.080 me is you know section two to a of the canadian charter of rights and freedoms which is you know
00:09:16.600 you have a fundamental freedom regarding uh freedom of conscious and religion okay and so when you look at
00:09:25.560 this woke ideology uh which i would say is directly attributed to marxism marxism isn't very friendly
00:09:33.320 to religion of any kind this is just one more example of a marxist takeover of another institution
00:09:40.920 it's another nail in the coffin of the canadian military why would anybody want to join the canadian
00:09:47.240 military given everything that has been socially experimented on within the the calf i mean our priority
00:09:54.040 needs to be about training for the defense of this country not spending copious amounts of hours being
00:10:02.920 trained in diversity uh and denied you know your section two you know religion uh freedom of your
00:10:11.000 conscience so i i find the whole thing absolutely absurd and and the reason i say why would you want to
00:10:17.400 serve is because what the hell are you fighting for what is it that you want to sacrifice your your life to
00:10:23.240 defend in this country i don't even recognize this country anymore there have been like i know
00:10:29.960 it's separate from the chaplain discussion but there has been this tremendous relaxing of standards
00:10:34.920 in the last few years for uh members of the canadian armed forces and just to give one example i was
00:10:39.800 at the airport uh the other day and i uh was walking through and there were four uh young men in
00:10:44.360 uniform that were you know just eating at the restaurant and presumably going somewhere or coming back from
00:10:49.240 somewhere and you know one of them had this like neck tattoo which i look i don't love tattoos do
00:10:55.400 what you want and you know he's still serving his country and i have no ill will towards him but there
00:11:00.360 are certain standards that existed even a couple of years ago that don't now and the reason they've had
00:11:05.480 to do that and i know the policy on tattoos is one of them is because no one wants to join there is an
00:11:11.800 enrollment uh there is an enlistment issue there is a morale issue of people that are in there and
00:11:17.880 there is a treatment issue of people that were in there i remember a story a couple of weeks ago
00:11:21.800 like soldiers i think it was in latvia that had to buy their own helmets or bulletproof vests or
00:11:26.200 whatever it was because the military wasn't holding up its end of the bargain and you know it's easy to
00:11:31.240 look and say that you know this is all just bureaucracy and mismanagement but it's that government
00:11:36.280 is also i fear and this is not to sound conspiratorial but directly or indirectly killing off the military
00:11:44.760 yeah i mean you know joining the military for many people and it certainly was for me
00:11:50.200 uh there's this this sort of inner fire that you have that you want to to join and you want to be
00:11:56.120 part of something that important within your country you want to contribute you you want to do something
00:12:03.400 positive and good and serve your country and you want to do it at a very very high level too that's
00:12:10.440 something that we don't often talk about you don't want to go in there and be mediocre you
00:12:14.600 want to go in there and be exceptional and when you look at this and this is something many of the
00:12:20.040 veterans i know right now are i find find very offensive this relaxing in the standards of dress and
00:12:26.520 deportment because we believe it also contributes to a lack of personal discipline a lack of respect for
00:12:35.160 authority in in wartime i'm sorry but it's it's a military it's not necessarily a democracy it certainly
00:12:41.320 isn't on the battlefield when you're told to jump you jump and you know that comes from discipline it
00:12:48.040 like good order and discipline and you know in terms of how you look and feel i want to feel in my
00:12:54.040 uniform like i am the biggest baddest you know force to be reckoned with on the battlefield i don't want to
00:13:02.280 be you know me and having my own personal ethics but flanked by either side with guys on the battlefield
00:13:08.680 with their their nails polished and earrings and long hair i want to know that i'm there doing the work
00:13:16.120 of the military to the best of my ability and with other people that feel the same and so when i look at
00:13:23.960 this drop in standard i would say that it is directly attributable to this wokeism ideology that
00:13:29.880 is completely engulfed the senior leadership uh of the canadian military and that's you know army navy air
00:13:37.560 and you're right there's not that many people in uniform right now we're we're somewhere shy of uh
00:13:44.520 or short of about 12 000 to 16 000 positions are are vacant in the canadian for right now and i don't see
00:13:55.080 that improving because i don't view the canadian military as a winning team you know it's just not
00:14:03.640 what it used to be it's not a it's not the the military that we had in afghanistan uh that were
00:14:09.640 highly sought after in terms of nato cooperation nato operations you know jtf2 was often selected
00:14:16.600 by the americans because they were so good and i can't you know answer for for the state of them now but
00:14:22.120 that's an example as a canadian special operations teams were highly sought after to go on missions
00:14:27.880 i know canadian soldiers were highly sought after and i'll tell you there's a saying from world war ii
00:14:33.640 and it was from i believe it was from rommel he said that the unstoppable army the unstoppable army
00:14:41.080 in the world german officers american equipment and canadian soldiers you can't say that today you
00:14:49.080 cannot say that today i'm sorry and i'm and i'm not trying to criticize the people that are currently
00:14:53.960 serving but look at the state of the canadian military right now we have a we have less people
00:15:00.200 in the regular force right now or roughly around the same size as the new york city police department
00:15:07.640 that's the state of the canadian military and it's only going to get worse when they start taking
00:15:12.360 religion or religious freedom away from soldiers expressing that because what's next a padre can't
00:15:19.720 express himself his you know so show symbols but what does that say for the soldier now you're not
00:15:26.440 going to be allowed to wear a cross you're not going to be able to pray at the in the mess you know
00:15:31.000 where does it end this is just one step in a long line of questionable conduct by the senior leadership
00:15:37.320 and in the chaplain general should know better yeah and to weave the two issues we were talking about
00:15:41.720 together you can have a face tattoo and express yourself that way but heaven forbid there's a
00:15:45.400 cross if you've got a cross on your cheek you can't have a face tattoo or something that's where
00:15:49.240 things are going uh tom marazzo author of the fantastic book the people's emergency act which
00:15:54.200 you can see just in the the top i think it's left corner on my screen sorry and and i andrew i got
00:15:59.960 i got yours too i got yours too on the okay i've just got the chinese translation of mine uh
00:16:07.000 handy i gave my last english one away so uh take from that what you will but
00:16:11.160 it's a great book and you can get that on amazon and you can also look at my interview with tom when
00:16:16.040 that book came out a few weeks back uh which is over at tnc.news well uh tom marazzo thank you again
00:16:21.880 for your service and thanks for coming on today thanks andrew thanks for listening to the andrew
00:16:26.920 lawton show support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news