Western Standard - EXCLUSIVE： Canadian forces vet on protest march still on Topp of the world

00:00:00.000 good afternoon my name is Amanda Brown I'm a reporter at the Western Standard

00:00:07.860 today I'm speaking to James top James is a Canadian forces veteran who is a

00:00:13.260 quarter way into a trans Canada protest March that began in Vancouver in February

00:00:18.600 and will finish in Ottawa in June welcome to the Western Standard James and thank

00:00:23.460 you for talking to us hi there nice to meet you thanks can you put into your own words please

00:00:31.540 what it inspired you to start this march yeah absolutely i'll just uh give you a quick overview

00:00:38.740 i was uh in the armed forces from um 2000 uh well basically 1990 to 2019 in the regular army i

00:00:48.580 transferred to the reserves in 2019 that allowed me to pursue a career with the RCMP as a civilian

00:00:57.780 managing a facility in Chilliwack British Columbia so I was I still maintain

00:01:06.260 membership in the Canadian Armed Forces until such time as I am released which is ongoing

00:01:12.180 but what inspired me to do this was two things I was placed on leave without pay from my civilian

00:01:18.960 job with the RCMP and not much longer after that I was told that I would be released from the Armed

00:01:27.840 Forces under item 5f which is basically saying that they are releasing me for my unwillingness

00:01:39.300 or inability to change a certain type of behavior and that was due to my refusal to

00:01:48.960 follow achievement staff orders on a certain medical procedure that I had

00:01:54.440 certain objections to and that's the same reason why I was placed on leave

00:01:57.680 without pay from the RCMP so those two things combined had put me in a very bad

00:02:05.880 place, psychologically speaking. I was inspired by members who had spoken out

00:02:15.120 from the RCMP about these policies and went public. I was inspired by personnel

00:02:22.680 from medical and other law enforcement fields who decided to make a stand

00:02:28.020 about against these mandates I was inspired by a number of truckers who

00:02:37.020 went to Ottawa to represent themselves to our government and furthermore I just

00:02:48.840 I think I'm standing on the shoulders of giants really there was a number of

00:02:52.380 people who over the last two years had a number of things to say and point out

00:02:57.540 about all of the policies that have been in place and are serving to divide our society in ways I don't think we predicted.

00:03:08.200 So, I started this in February the 12th.

00:03:16.220 I put my uniform on as a currently serving member of law enforcement.

00:03:20.500 I put my uniform on, I went out in public, and I made this announcement that I was going to take part in this protest march.

00:03:29.040 But it's become more than that.

00:03:30.660 It's also become a repair mission, an effort to reunite Canadians from all walks of life, of all shapes and sizes, because I'm getting a lot of support.

00:03:43.120 I've been doing this for 41 days now.

00:03:45.060 I left Vancouver on February the 20th.

00:03:46.880 and I just have been meeting a lot of amazing people along the way

00:03:54.400 and the effort now is to re-establish our unity

00:04:00.540 bring people together under the flag

00:04:08.720 and what we think the flag means as a national symbol

00:04:12.960 so does that answer your question?

00:04:15.200 It does indeed. Can you elaborate on what you're hoping to achieve?

00:04:20.200 Absolutely. So I had stated my intent to begin this protest march on February 12th. I started on February 20th.

00:04:32.200 I'm going to go to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Ottawa to the National War Memorial because I believe that there was a traumatic event.

00:04:44.200 dealt to the veteran community at that particular place back in January and I

00:04:53.980 need to go there to reclaim that on behalf of veterans and once that is

00:05:00.760 done I have further plans to try to capture the attention of our members of

00:05:13.600 Parliament through a through a letter writing campaign which consists of me

00:05:22.500 telling them why I'm doing what I'm doing also telling them that I'm speaking

00:05:29.680 on behalf of people who have lost employment lost their businesses have

00:05:36.700 suffered from divided relationships I'm speaking on behalf of all of the

00:05:42.000 personnel in uniform who had to accept the medical procedure they probably would not otherwise have

00:05:48.060 had it not been for this

00:05:50.220 coercion and arm-twisting.

00:05:52.960 So I'm going there to speak to them and I'm actually going there to demand an audience in a way that the

00:06:01.180 in the way that the truckers who went there to protest in January were ignored.

00:06:06.880 I'm not planning to overcome that through kind of a slower motion campaign.

00:06:12.000 and get the support of people along the way and have them, you know, add their voice to mine

00:06:20.800 so that when there is my arrival in Ottawa, after I go to the War Memorial,

00:06:26.960 pay my respects at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and then get that audience with our members of Parliament

00:06:35.400 so that we can have a dialogue, we can have a conversation,

00:06:39.780 we can have an understanding of how we got to this particular point in time in history

00:06:44.880 and how to repair the damage that's been done.

00:06:48.240 So it's not just going to be me going there to wave my arms over my head and say,

00:06:54.520 here I am, okay?

00:06:56.080 It's me going there with a pointed mission.

00:06:58.700 I'm going there to get the attention of our government

00:07:01.220 and remind them of who they actually work for

00:07:05.140 because I think there's a part, at least a segment of that population in the House of Commons

00:07:12.000 that has forgotten that, that they work for the Canadian public.

00:07:19.540 I'm not going there just to speak.

00:07:23.100 I'm going there to get this audience.

00:07:26.680 I have a plan to assemble a number of allies, the same folks who were in Ottawa earlier this year.

00:07:35.140 i hope to have them rejoin me in ottawa so that i have a panel of experts in medical

00:07:46.020 and legal fields who can speak intelligently and they can have their voices heard in a way that

00:07:53.380 that wasn't not possible earlier this year so these are the same people who have been censored

00:07:58.740 and silenced and had their right to be heard taken away and i plan on getting them heard again

00:08:07.700 later this summer well you've got plenty more time to gather momentum and support

00:08:14.340 um how are you feeling now that you're a quarter way through the march

00:08:18.980 well i feel like uh we really have accomplished something coming over the mountains

00:08:24.420 um you know we were most fortunate in that uh the weather system that hit us we were able

00:08:32.100 to get out in front of them or just uh just get you know underneath them so that we weren't

00:08:39.380 affected uh that much by uh any winter storms uh the fact that we were able to go from um

00:08:47.700 you know, Vancouver, BC, make it all the way over the mountains, and we're coming up on

00:08:54.720 left bridge, you know, 45 days later, it's an accomplishment for me and my team.

00:09:02.680 And I feel pretty good physically, and I think we got a long stretch going through

00:09:12.460 the Prairies

00:09:15.140 and we're going to gain a little bit more speed and momentum

00:09:18.360 I think

00:09:18.900 and you were a career soldier in the army

00:09:22.420 for 28 years

00:09:23.600 that's right I am a career soldier

00:09:25.920 just to clarify

00:09:27.780 I'm still serving until such time

00:09:30.360 as my release is

00:09:31.300 completed and my file

00:09:34.440 is still sitting in Ottawa

00:09:35.600 as it stands right now

00:09:37.260 so

00:09:37.560 just to make it perfectly clear

00:09:41.340 I am still a member of the armed forces but I am a veteran from my regular

00:09:49.260 force days as well. So how do you feel your military experience has empowered

00:09:53.220 you to take on this task? Well it's empowered me in every possible way they've

00:09:58.580 given me the training I need physically and mentally because this is not

00:10:09.960 exercise. This is a real-life mission and it requires stamina, both physical and

00:10:14.940 mental, and that's everything I learned serving in the Armed Forces and everything

00:10:19.980 I learned from the individuals who trained me. Furthermore, I have gotten a

00:10:29.700 lot of training in regards to planning operations and training for soldiers

00:10:35.640 that has helped me kind of find this particular mission so that has helped as well so what are

00:10:44.920 some of the biggest challenges that you've had to deal with so far well at the beginning i would say

00:10:53.880 it was getting a group of people together um because when i had made my announcement

00:11:01.480 in uniform, almost immediately, you know, I was approached by a number of people saying,

00:11:07.440 you know, they want to help me. And then when I actually went to Vancouver on the 20th to step

00:11:19.320 off, I was joined by a number of other folks. So actually getting, you know, a bunch of people I

00:11:26.060 didn't actually know getting us working together and moving in the direction I

00:11:32.600 wanted to move that was kind of a challenge although I will say that we

00:11:37.100 came together quite quite easily and quickly and it wasn't that much of a

00:11:43.980 challenge there was some other aspects of it like certain hard logistical

00:11:49.280 requirements that I thought we might need going through the mountains such as

00:11:53.060 I've managed to enter into a kind of a private payment plan with an individual who owns an RV.

00:12:01.580 So he let me use it.

00:12:05.020 And it turned out to be important for us going through the mountains

00:12:09.040 because we had that kind of place where we could go and get warm

00:12:14.200 when the weather did get a little cold

00:12:16.200 and we could take refuge in it and prepare meals for ourselves.

00:12:19.520 and um you know just getting stuff like that together right at the beginning was probably

00:12:25.660 the biggest challenge and then once we got rolling it uh got a little bit easier

00:12:30.080 i had uh i had a uh couple of times when my uh physical issues arose

00:12:39.660 but i was able to overcome them with no much problems

00:12:43.340 so how are your interactions with canadians that you're meeting along the way

00:12:49.740 uh pretty amazing actually that's uh in a way um this has been a growth experience for me i never

00:12:59.720 really expected you know to be doing anything like this and um i've you know learned a lot

00:13:07.320 about myself over the last, well, eight weeks since all this started, you know, being approached

00:13:15.360 by strangers, wanting, they want to know what I, who I am or what I'm doing and having to explain

00:13:20.800 that to them, you know, being approached by folks who are very supportive, it's been overwhelming.

00:13:28.760 Like, it's, I'm, I've been brought to tears on several occasions.

00:13:37.320 How are you finding the challenges of a good night's sleep and staying well-fed?

00:13:41.740 You must be going through a serious amount of calories.

00:13:46.000 Probably. Definitely it's not.

00:13:49.580 The support from the public has been as such that when myself and my team initially started out as kind of a one-man show

00:14:01.980 and then it turned into there's nine of us now,

00:14:04.180 even after that posting stuff on social media when people found out what we were doing

00:14:12.420 you know they had given us offers of lodging and that is one of the ways we've been able to get so

00:14:23.040 far so fast so you know being able to sleep in a bed or at least you know in a basement

00:14:29.800 where we have shelter um you know this has made all the difference in the world and we wouldn't

00:14:37.080 have gotten this far had nothing for folks opening their homes to us um or you know arranging for us

00:14:43.440 to sleep in like a church basement on our air mattresses or something like that town halls um

00:14:49.000 you know bringing for motel rooms for us here and there it's made all the difference and then again

00:14:56.700 you know there's uh folks who really believe in what we're doing and they want to contribute with

00:15:02.060 a cooked meal and again it's just uh it's been amazing it's been an amazing experience to connect

00:15:07.340 with folks like that so how many kilometers are you guys getting under your belt every day

00:15:13.980 well it varies like i need to there's days when we get 40 or over 40 and then the days like today

00:15:22.300 we get under because we've been invited to a local town here and we're gonna go

00:15:33.060 meet with some folks here in monarch and then from monarch we're going to go

00:15:39.480 another four kilometers to a place called countryside barn which is a venue

00:15:44.300 for like weddings and stuff like that um so today we didn't get in as many like yesterday

00:15:52.620 we also had a walking interview and we had to pace ourselves because um we're also going to

00:15:59.500 be going to calgary on the on saturday because we've been invited to a rally there so the last

00:16:06.300 few days we got 32 and 25 and we'll take a break and then when we hit left

00:16:14.240 bridge we'll probably got back up to you know approximately I need to get 38 to

00:16:20.800 43 kilometers a day to make it to Ottawa by the target date which is around the

00:16:25.480 end of June. You must have some serious footwear how are your feet holding up?

00:16:32.420 Yeah, not too bad. I was having an issue with my right ankle for a little bit, but

00:16:38.360 it seems to be clearing up. I mean, at the beginning we knew it was going to be

00:16:42.240 kind of a conditioning exercise. I mean, for all the folks who, for me

00:16:48.380 personally, it's something I'm used to. Being an infantry soldier is something

00:16:54.740 that, you know, going kilometers and days and days, we're carrying a pack on my

00:17:01.320 back, nothing new. However, it had been a couple years since I'd engaged in that kind of activity

00:17:07.000 starting out. So I knew there was going to be a conditioning phase, so to speak, in the first few

00:17:14.760 weeks. And there was some discomfort for sure, just as we all did, but we're all getting stronger

00:17:21.320 and our feet are getting tougher and we made it through the mountains.

00:17:25.640 so the next the next challenge will be making it across the prairies and the

00:17:30.080 winds and sometimes the weather gets a little bit unpredictable and then now we

00:17:36.920 have probably clouds and clouds of black flies to look forward to as we get into

00:17:41.780 Ontario so what are you missing most about not being at home I don't think

00:17:49.160 about it that much really I mean I'm focused on my mission here you know

00:17:54.920 I'm in a unique position because I had done all my time I got out of the

00:18:01.980 regular army got a pension it's paid for my mortgage I don't have any you know

00:18:06.740 children or anything and not in a relationship so I don't I missed my old

00:18:15.860 job and that's one of the reason why I'm going Ottawa but yeah I'm committed to

00:18:24.600 mission I'm actually surrounded by my new family so it's all good so who is

00:18:31.500 helping you on your daily walk you have a support crew yeah yeah well there's

00:18:36.300 Christian he's holding the camera I got Esther behind me she came up she's a 0.99

00:18:43.500 Canadian citizen who came up from Texas where she was living at the time she

00:18:51.480 felt compelled to fight for Canadian freedom. We got Gavin, and introduce yourself. Trevor,

00:19:08.000 they joined us along the way for a short march into monarch. Dan Jones is the flag carrier.

00:19:17.140 met us in Vancouver back February the 20th been with us ever since got Logan

00:19:23.800 over there he's an action photographer coming up on my right coming up on the

00:19:33.900 right is Tanner another action photographer I got Jeremy Cormier he's

00:19:44.020 driving the RV not in this picture presently I got Tyler Pollock driving a

00:19:51.680 safety car I also got a gentleman named Dallas doing some administrative duties

00:20:00.400 right now in RV such as fire managing finances and route route planning so

00:20:10.360 James has there been a time when you have wanted to quit yeah but it's

00:20:16.840 fleeting I mean it's one of those things right like you know who doesn't want to

00:20:24.280 quit their job and go live in a tropical island somewhere right but what's real 0.93

00:20:28.900 what's the reality I got a mission to do here it's become my life's work I read

00:20:36.460 that you were under investigation by the canadian forces is that still an ongoing thing yes yeah i'm

00:20:43.960 being charged with uh two now counts of article 129 national under the national defense act

00:20:49.880 conducts unbecoming for appearing on uh social media in uniform and making statements against

00:20:56.260 government policy regarding vaccines and uh there will be uh likely a court martial because of that

00:21:03.720 so what do you want to say to canadians what do i want to say to canadians i want to say

00:21:13.240 to canadians that it's time for us to get back together i think that over the last two years

00:21:18.840 we have been divided in a way that we've never seen or experienced before and it's based on this

00:21:26.720 idea of uh of health and what constitutes health and who's healthy and who's not and i i think that

00:21:36.480 the damage that has been done through these policies is incalculable and i'm not even sure

00:21:44.400 if it's possible to bridge this gap anymore but i'm going to try

00:21:49.440 so this is me james top speaking to the rest of canada here's my hand i'm holding it out

00:21:54.560 so do you have any particular message for prime minister justin trudeau and his government

00:22:00.980 i have a message for everyone in the government of the federal government and that message has

00:22:07.240 been stated on my uh website canada marches all one word dot ca in which i've written a letter

00:22:14.320 that is also going to be sent out to every member of parliament and um

00:22:19.720 In that letter I state clearly who I am, how it affected, what I'm doing, and who I'm speaking for, and how I see us forging a way forward together in the way that I already expanded on.

00:22:39.320 Well, thank you, James. You look very well, given the amount of Mars that you've got under your belt already.

00:22:45.520 Thank you.

00:22:46.180 Thank you for speaking to the Western Standard. It was great to hear your update.

00:22:49.720 And I hope the wind stays behind you.

00:22:53.180 James' progress can be followed on his website, canadamarches.ca.

00:23:01.620 The site includes live GPS of his location, links to his social media and his blog,

00:23:07.660 as well as information for people who wish to give support.

00:23:11.780 Thank you very much, James.

00:23:13.680 Thank you. Good to speak to you.

00:23:15.780 Take care.

00:23:16.360 Take care now. Bye now.

00:23:19.720 Hello, hello, hello.

00:23:26.720 I put my jacket on.

00:23:33.720 Where's the uh, the church is right in.

00:23:41.720 Thank you.

Western Standard - April 02, 2022

EXCLUSIVE： Canadian forces vet on protest march still on Topp of the world

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