Soldiers who refused Covid shots still face barriers to re-enrolment
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Summary
In the wake of the release of veterans from the Canadian Armed Forces who were told they were unfit to serve because they had not been vaccinated against COV19, a new report suggests that some have been given waivers allowing them to re-enlist if they had previously been sanctioned for not getting the vaccine. We talk to Catherine Christensen, a lawyer with Valor Law, about why this might be happening.
Transcript
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Well, let's pivot to this. I mentioned the Freedom Convoy. This is a relic in some ways of an era
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that many people would rather move on from an era in which Canadians were segregated along the lines
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of their vaccine status. And we saw people that were forced out of jobs they had had for years,
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careers they had for years, and people who bravely put on a uniform for this country that were told
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they were no longer fit to serve Canada in the Canadian Armed Forces because they would not get
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vaccinated against COVID-19. Well, a story from the Epoch Times this week says that at least some
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Canadian Armed Forces members have been given waivers that allow them to serve once again if
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they were previously sanctioned for not getting the COVID vaccine. I wanted to talk about this with
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Catherine Christensen, a lawyer with Valor Law. Good to talk to you again, Catherine. Thanks so
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much for coming on today. Good afternoon, Andreas. Good to be back. So let's first off start with
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what's actually changed here. What has the Canadian Armed Forces done? Well, first of all, the mandate
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still exists for Canadian Armed Forces members. Certainly anyone who isn't vaccinated, isn't getting
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deployed, isn't eligible for promotion. Although I can tell you that some of the people who stood up
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and managed to stay serving have been promoted, have been on deployments without vaccination. So
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there's some confusion there. But apparently last fall, they quietly brought in a policy that
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anyone who would receive a 5F, which is unfit for service release category, strictly because of the
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COVID mandate, would be allowed to re-enroll and that their applications were welcome. And with the caveat
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that all 5F reapplications have to be approved by the Chief of Defense staff. So if you get past the
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recruiting application piece, the Chief of Defense staff has final say. Now, I have had clients of mine who
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were 5F'd approach recruiting centres, certainly since last fall, even as early as last month here in March,
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and the recruiting centres won't even take their application. But then I got news directly from a
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recruiting source that indeed this policy is now back, that they are allowed to apply. Now, in Noah's
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Chartier's article, he points out that they say they've only had one person apply under this relaxed
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policy. And I'm going to question that because I know that for sure that there has been a lot more
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than one person try to apply and been turned down at the recruiting centres. Well, and I would also point
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out here, I mean, while this might be on the surface, something that looks quite positive, it doesn't
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really get to the crux of the issue here, which is that they still have, as you know, the mandate,
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they've never really apologised for it. They've never done anything to say, hey, we want you back.
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It seems like they're just dealing with the fact that very few people are wanting to go into the
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Canadian Armed Forces right now. They've got a recruitment crisis. And I think they're trying
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to really dance around the real root of the issue here. Yeah, well, the real root of the issue is,
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two years ago, these same people were told they were unfit for service, that they were not any
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type of person that the Canadian Armed Forces wanted. And now, all of a sudden, they're quietly
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saying, oh, no, come back, but come back without return, necessarily return to your same trade.
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What about compensation for the time you were off, if you were that qualified, that they want you back?
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I'm thinking that there's a bit of a conundrum they've got, because if they allow them back,
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they're defeating their own defence, because we've got lawsuits against them in the courts right now.
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I'm being able to stand up and say to the court, well, these people were supposedly unfit for service
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and needed to be permanently released, but now they're okay to come back. That's a bit of a dilemma.
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Yeah. And the mandate itself is particularly absurd now, because if you had had two doses of the COVID
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vaccine in 2021, your protection is zero at this point. You have no benefit over someone who did not
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get vaccinated at this point. I mean, so let's even assume there was a benefit in 2021. There isn't now.
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So the idea of clinging to this mandate just defies any sense of science. And really, I had spoken to one
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veteran about this a couple of years ago, and he had said that basically it was a compliance issue more
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than it was a medicine issue. They wanted to weed out the type of person that didn't want it more than
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there was any, you know, strategic or operational reason that it needed to be there.
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Exactly. Because let's face it, going into this mandate of General Ayers, they'd already gone through
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working in the nursing homes. So ground zero, where a lot of the deaths took place, we had armed force
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members there, and not one of them died of COVID from that exposure. So that's pre vaccine.
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So then they bring in this vaccination and decimated the Canadian Armed Forces because they've lost so
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many people over it, as well as the woke agenda is also to blame. But they lost a lot of very capable
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people with exemplary military records, just because of the people standing up and saying, No,
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I'm not going to take it, whether it's against my religion, whether I don't have informed consent,
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or I want my bodily autonomy, or I have medical reasons that I can't take it. And now that they're
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desperate, they seem to want them back. We had you on the show back in June when you had launched,
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I think it was like a $500 million lawsuit representing hundreds of soldiers at the time
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about this. And I just wanted to ask, I know these things can take years, but what's the status on that
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one now? Well, it's been interesting, because we ended up launching a second mass tort after the
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first one came out and people approached our office. So we're up to about 458. And the two lawsuits,
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they were only a few months apart from filing, but they've caught up to each other, because it's the
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same Crown lawyer, and they've been playing some games. We've filed, we sent them our affidavit of
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documents, which is basically a list of our evidence. And they reply, they didn't reply back.
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And then so I went into the court to force them to give me a list of their evidence. We've now ended
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up in case management, and we are before the case management justice next week. And I'm looking forward
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to hearing the Crown lawyer defend why he can't give me a list of his evidence to defend. Because at
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this point, they've got no evidence. And the longer they delay, the better it is for me. Because now
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we're well over 300,000 pages of evidence of wrongdoing in the Canadian Armed Forces. So they
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keep delaying, it's just going to get worse. I seem to recall, and I might be mixing up the case,
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but when there was the lawsuit against the federal air travel vaccine mandate, I think the applicants had
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a similar issue and that it was like pulling teeth to get the government to provide the evidentiary
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basis it had for this policy, which I mean, maybe in politics, you can get away with fudging on the
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evidence. But in a court, there is still a process that if you don't provide evidence for your side of it,
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you don't actually have a case, do you? Right? Yeah. So this is exactly what my motion in January,
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when I filed it, was saying, Well, if they don't want to provide me with any evidence to defend, then I
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want leave of the court to bring a summary judgment, give us what we asked for, because you can't
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defend against what we've claimed. They're in a bit of a situation here because CAP is well known
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for blocking any access to information requests. But we spent two years very quietly asking for
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information through access to information requests. And we collected hundreds of thousands of pages of
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evidence before they even knew we were bringing a lawsuit, because not one of those requests came
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out of my office, they were all done by private individuals. So we've kind of gone around, done an
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end run around them. And we have a lot more evidence, I think, than they realized that we have, we would
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have going into the lawsuit. So I also, sorry, go ahead, Catherine. Yeah. Yeah, in my opinion, I think
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they're also trying to delay moving into depositions, where I'm going to be calling General Eyre, General
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Cadu, General Fortan, Admiral McDonald, all of those are going to be called to testify under oath. And
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when General Whalen's court martial was coming along the day before they wanted to have Eyre testify at
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that, they dropped the charges to keep him from having to testify under oath. So interesting.
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Well, they're terrible. They're terrible with access to information requests. I filed one in January
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about tampons in washrooms on army bases, because, you know, they were all getting removed by soldiers
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that thought it was nonsense when there's a tampon dispenser in the men's washroom. And that's still
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taken over three months, and I don't have the records yet. So I feel I have to buckle in for a long
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wait. I'm amazed you got all you did in two years, given how DND has been on these requests in the past.
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Well, the Information Commissioner has actually been very helpful. She has actually brought lawsuits
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against the CAF to get documents that we have asked for. The longest access to information requests,
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I thought it was a long time, but there's some that have been years and years and years, and they still
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don't have that information, even though they're entitled to it. So we did it, we kind of outmaneuvered
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the system, which is what my clients hired me to do. Because after we tried the injunction,
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I said, Okay, we're gonna go deep, we're gonna go dark. And I've got all military people who are
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really good at keeping secrets if they have to, and very smart and very motivated. And they did
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fantastic work for me. Yeah, it shows what happens when you alienate a very skilled, dedicated group of
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people, and they have an axe to grind time on their hands. And those skills that were previously being
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deployed for the country, and now are being deployed against the bureaucrats in the department.
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Keep in mind that these are people who know that the documents exist, because they wrote the documents.
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Yeah, so they know what to ask for, which is so key. It's not just a fishing expedition, right?
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Yeah, yeah. They're like, Well, here's my chain of command. And I know I had emails with all of
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these people. And in some cases, they still had the email, they, you know, they brought it with them.
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So we knew to send in the actual information requests to get it legitimately through the process.
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And then they'd say, Well, though, that doesn't exist. And we go, yes, it does.
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Well, good stuff. Well, wish you well on this, Catherine, please do keep us posted as you work your way
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through the system here. I sure will. And we're also bringing a vaccine injury one. We've got
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lots of members of the Canadian Armed Forces who were injured from the Moderna vaccine. So that's
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coming up, too. All right. Well, appreciate that very much. Catherine Christensen from Valor Law
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out in Alberta. Thank you so much, Catherine. Take care, Andrew. Thanks for listening to the Andrew
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Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.