Western Standard - Lawyer Catherine Christensen on a class action suit on behalf of CAF members

00:00:00.000 back in october i was approached i my practice has always been with members of the canadian armed

00:00:04.960 forces or veterans so in october last year they approached me and told me that there was

00:00:11.040 a mandate coming uh everything had been voluntary up to that point and that there was a group who

00:00:17.600 did not want to be vaccinated now i've been watching the canadian armed forces for a few

00:00:22.720 years now on uh things that they've been doing to their own people that i call in a nutshell the

00:00:30.560 abuse of power and the vaccine mandate was an absolutely perfect example of that abuse of power

00:00:37.600 and uh what may had me hesitating uh didn't last long once they started telling me the stories

00:00:44.560 and some of those stories were in linda's article there's a lot more of them and i was appalled at

00:00:51.520 what we were doing to our own people and in fact uh to this date the mandate still exists

00:00:59.360 you are required to be vaccinated they were going to get 100 vaccination no matter what it took

00:01:04.560 there's rumors that they're going to bring in a booster as mandatory and if you go into any

00:01:09.680 building inside uh the canadian armed forces you have to wear a mask still so you know there doesn't

00:01:18.000 look like they're changing their mind uh there was rumors that they were going to take back the

00:01:22.640 mandate i'm not seeing it i think it's all smoke and mirrors well and something that was pretty

00:01:28.400 appalling like this was beyond what you would see say in the private sector even or other government

00:01:33.600 areas where they'd say this is the mandate get vaccinated or we're going to release you without pay

00:01:39.680 or or possibly even permanently fire you there was harassment and shaming and a number of other

00:01:45.680 issues going on to try and essentially really force and coerce people into taking a vaccination

00:01:50.320 they didn't want it was truly a psychological operation people were physically isolated whether

00:01:56.880 it was the infantry guys that were put into an unheated tent in december or navy guys who were forced

00:02:03.520 into a room together every day completely isolated uh people that were told that they before the the

00:02:12.960 mandate they were working from home with no issues doing their job all of a sudden they were told they

00:02:18.160 weren't allowed to come near the base uh without their co's permission to even use the gym go to the

00:02:25.040 medical facilities do anything they needed to do they had to get their commanding officer's permission

00:02:31.840 before they could even come on the base uh so they were the people in my group say they felt like

00:02:37.840 they were you know the unclean uh completely discriminated against and this is in armed forces

00:02:44.800 that uh we have the chief of defense staff going on the news and saying it's all inclusive and they

00:02:50.640 want to welcome everybody they'll accommodate everybody um i even have uh chaplains uh catholic priests who

00:02:59.840 asked for a religious accommodation that were denied saying that their belief wasn't sincere enough

00:03:05.440 i mean i don't know how you get more sincere in your religion than being a priest but

00:03:10.800 that's what they were told i had people denied religious accommodations for the wrong religion

00:03:16.160 they weren't even the religion they were denied on um medical accommodations people who had had

00:03:22.560 decided to take the first shot um had a bad reaction in some cases very serious reactions and were still

00:03:31.360 ordered to take the vaccination for the second time um and the harassment of our pregnant soldiers and air

00:03:39.200 pilots unbelievable you would not believe what they did to these poor women 1.00

00:03:44.720 yeah and i mean you would think the forces have been dealing with a lot of difficulties as it is with

00:03:49.760 with with treatment of women as they're trying to culturally adapt and change uh with with our

00:03:53.840 female members uh of all things you think they'd be more responsive rather than shaming or humiliating 1.00

00:03:59.360 or stressing i what i believe one said brought to the brink of suicidal thoughts yes um and then more

00:04:06.480 than one um thankfully i have a really good team of people who when we we keep a close eye on our

00:04:14.320 members in the uh lawsuit and if we get any indication that there's uh mental health issues we

00:04:21.680 you know uh get band together and we keep an eye on people we get them help that they need

00:04:26.720 um yeah the the mental toll on these people it truly it was a site the psychop was successful i would say

00:04:34.160 in tor mentally torturing their own troops i mean i guess it was a good experiment on their part but

00:04:41.920 yeah i mean if there's been any i guess you know mental pressures typically put on troops and

00:04:47.280 training it you know is a long debatable thing on on how they're treated but usually it's at least

00:04:53.360 meant to unify the troops because it's so critically important in times of crisis or or conflict that

00:04:59.760 they're tight-knit and and they're together on things this sounds like it was much more of a

00:05:04.320 divisive effort i mean not only you know setting aside the damage being done to these poor members who were

00:05:09.120 or were ashamed and isolated from others but i imagine it hurts morale and unity within the forces

00:05:14.160 as a whole well they already had a huge morale problem before last fall let's let's face it the

00:05:20.720 canadian armed forces was having a really hard time keeping up morale then they bring this in and

00:05:28.320 as word started to spread i mean we have a small military doesn't take long for anything to spread

00:05:34.160 through the ranks and after what has happened my feedback from people even people who have

00:05:41.600 fully vaccinated had nothing to do with the lawsuit the feedback i'm getting from them

00:05:46.160 is that the morale has sunk to a low they never ever expected because they did not expect to be treated

00:05:52.560 this way uh by their chief of defense staff we have no faith uh in the ranks before the officers

00:05:59.680 people do not trust the officers um they don't trust their chain of command and if you don't have

00:06:06.720 trust in your chain of command you don't have a military because you have to absolutely have

00:06:11.680 tight-knit trust between all the ranks and trades in order to execute anything in the military we don't

00:06:18.880 have well that's another problem is trust has been shattered and even if as you say it sounds

00:06:24.160 questionable even if the van the mandates are lifted and and people did return to the forces i mean a lot

00:06:28.880 of them at this point i imagine don't want to return to that environment or if they did they

00:06:33.200 wouldn't be feeling comfortable or or in a trustworthy environment at this point they would not be uh most

00:06:40.080 do not want to come back um mainly because their confidentiality their private medical privacy was

00:06:45.600 completely violated and everyone knows who they are everyone knows their medical status which should

00:06:51.280 never have happened um not just for general medical privacy rules but under the calf's own policies you

00:06:58.640 should never know medical information about another person but here is the catch the rumor was that

00:07:05.680 if they lifted the mandate they were going to allow people to return but if you've been released under a

00:07:10.880 5f which is a not suitable for further service and in this case the cds has said you have a moral weakness

00:07:18.000 if you chose not to have the vaccination shots uh the only person who can allow you to come back in is the

00:07:25.600 chief of defense staff the same guy that is on the news calling these people terrible things saying they

00:07:32.000 have no honor they have no morals they have no ethics do you really think he's going to let these people

00:07:36.960 come back i don't think so i i imagine there's going to be a lot of research and planning and things done but

00:07:44.800 i guess was there any evidence that uh non-vaccinated people caused any harm or damage i guess while serving

00:07:50.640 within the uh forces or uh you know i mean it should be proof of how dangerous these non-vaccinated 1.00

00:07:56.640 people were i would imagine wouldn't there well let's put it this way not a single member of the

00:08:02.720 canadian armed forces died of covet and uh not the outbreaks that have happened they kept them tried to

00:08:10.320 keep them really quiet but as i said it's a small military rumors and information travels uh all of the

00:08:17.680 the outbreaks involved vaccinated members of the military not unvaccinated so just it's so frustrating

00:08:24.800 they didn't cause any harm yeah i mean we we've had problems with our veterans and our military and how

00:08:30.080 they're treated in canada for decades this is just sort of the the latest thing and i mean people forget

00:08:34.800 we're we're asking a heck of a lot of people i mean it's a calling rather than a you know a trade i

00:08:40.480 would imagine i mean it's not an easy it's not a path to easy money it's not an easy lifestyle you have to

00:08:45.520 really love what you're doing to want to do that and as they we we shame and punish our members have

00:08:51.440 chosen to do that it's just more sort of a shameful on our part as canadians it truly is uh these people

00:08:58.880 that uh have undergone this whole process we're talking about very honorable people people who have

00:09:05.040 chests full of medals which are not an easy thing to get in our military people have served for decades

00:09:09.840 without a single mark on their record they've never been in any trouble before uh i would put my life

00:09:16.560 on the line for any one of these people in my lawsuit no questions asked these are very honorable

00:09:21.120 people and they did not deserve what has happened to them since uh the mandate came in so at what stage

00:09:28.800 is is this action in right now then i imagine you're still collecting other uh participants and and

00:09:33.840 get it gathering uh information like is a statement of claim been filed or i i don't understand how all

00:09:38.080 of that necessarily works to be honest yeah uh the statement of claim is ready but we have to have

00:09:43.200 a lot of our information ready to file within 30 days there's uh just under 300 people in the lawsuit

00:09:49.360 now i have 70 more in the past week who have approached me uh and as you can imagine getting

00:09:55.840 that much information from that many people takes some time uh we are also lining up our experts uh to put

00:10:02.400 in the claim so we're clicking right along uh but i do expect to file a statement of claim um hopefully by

00:10:10.960 no later than the end of this year and uh the other thing is is that this uh lawsuit is being funded

00:10:16.960 by crowdfunding uh i am not being paid for this it's being run through the valor legal action center

00:10:24.800 and uh so everybody is uh collecting donations because i didn't want someone to not participate

00:10:32.960 because they couldn't afford it i feel that it doesn't matter whether you're one of my light

00:10:38.320 kernels or whether you're a private who hasn't been in very long but stood up for what you believed in

00:10:44.800 should not be a reason money should not be a reason you can't participate so that's the other thing

00:10:50.080 to note that this is this is a ground grassroots if you will uh application to say that canadian

00:10:56.960 armed forces cannot get away with treating their people in such a poor manner and these things take

00:11:02.320 time i mean the members are already having a hard time they've been pushed out of their jobs and uh

00:11:07.280 as you said i mean the filing might not come towards the end of the year so it could be a couple

00:11:10.960 of years before this is resolved i imagine it's going to take some resources and money yes it will

00:11:16.160 yeah but they're uh they're dedicated uh they are a fantastic group of people they're all pulling

00:11:23.680 together and uh volunteering their time as well and we're putting it together because they they

00:11:31.440 want to serve in the military that they actually signed up to serve not the one that's actually

00:11:36.960 exists at the time at this time yeah well i really appreciate your work on this and then the ongoing

00:11:42.880 work so uh just to remind everybody then where can they find information if they wanted to uh support

00:11:47.840 this or if perhaps there are other military members who need some help at this time if they go to

00:11:52.880 valorlegalactioncenter.org that's our website and valor has the u in it and a canadian spelling of course

00:12:01.360 and uh it has information on there on how to reach our office or if you uh want to support the cause

00:12:08.000 there's information there as well and we also have a give send go account which is on that website to

00:12:14.320 link okay give send go yeah not everybody's too thrilled with gofundme these days but that's a

00:12:19.120 separate issue altogether it is i was glad we hadn't set up a gofundme last fall with the truckers

00:12:25.520 because i'm sure we would have been targeted at the same time so yeah well that's fodder for other shows

00:12:31.440 we've had it is it is all right well thank you very much for coming on to talk to us about this

00:12:37.840 today and for the work you're doing and uh well i i really hope that uh this gets resolved sooner

00:12:42.800 rather than later it's appalling how we treat some of our people who trusted themselves to the armed

00:12:47.280 forces like that exactly thank you very much for having us on and uh look forward to uh future results

00:12:54.720 what we've seen when i was there great great great great great great great great great great great Flux

Western Standard - August 05, 2022

Lawyer Catherine Christensen on a class action suit on behalf of CAF members

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