The general in charge of Canadian military health-care services told his organization before the imposition of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate that full vaccination was not necessary.
“Modelling has proven that you can safely deploy a ship with less than 100 percent vaccination,” Brigadier General Scott Malcom is paraphrased as saying during a planning meeting on the mandate in August 2021, according to documents obtained by The Epoch Times.
The comments are part of a string of revelations suggesting the military imposed a mandate despite expert advice to the contrary. It now faces lawsuits over that policy.
The words attributed to Brig.-Gen. Malcom were written in an Aug. 13, 2021, email from Lieutenant-Colonel Krystle Connerty, a planning director with the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) Strategic Joint Staff (SJS). Lt.-Col. Connerty was providing minutes from the Strategic Operations Planning Group to another SJS staff.
The Epoch Times obtained the email via the access to information regime.
The first portion of the email was redacted under solicitor-client privilege, but the remainder contains comments from various CAF and Department of National Defence (DND) personnel. Several of them expressed concerns about the vaccine mandate and its potential consequences.
Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) General Wayne Eyre imposed a vaccine mandate on his troops in October 2021. While the CAF is not a public service entity, it followed the mandate the Liberal government imposed on public servants and federally regulated workplaces.
‘Punitive Nature Is Concerning’
Another legal staff member made similar points as the JAG at the same August 2021 meeting that the force’s medical chief Brig.-Gen. Malcom had questioned a potential vaccine mandate.CAF member and DND lawyer Chantel Helwer reportedly said during the meeting that “we shouldn’t be punishing people for a medical decision.”
Reams of internal DND records show the organization’s process for dealing with CAF members not in compliance with the vaccination directive. Gen. Eyre decided not to use section 126 of the National Defence Act to charge soldiers refusing vaccination, and instead opted for an administrative release process.
This led to hundreds of soldiers voluntarily quitting the forces or being kicked out and deemed “unsuitable for further service.”
“The punitive nature is concerning,” Ms. Helwer reportedly said. She also expressed other concerns about the mandate plan at that stage in August 2021, noting there is “no flexibility built” into it. The lawyer also remarked that most public servants were already working from home, “so what’s different now?”
Ms. Helwer also questioned human rights and privacy issues related to the upcoming measure. She reportedly raised “concerns that this is violating people’s charter of rights and freedoms.” She added: “there should not be differences between the unwilling and unable.”
In theory, the CAF was supposed to permit accommodations, including religious ones, for those wishing not to be vaccinated. In practice, a fraction of the requests were approved. Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff Lt.-Gen. Frances Allen told a parliamentary committee in April 2022 that 158 accommodations were granted out of 1,300 requests.
On the issue privacy, Ms. Helwer reportedly asked how the organization had the authority to collect information, presumably on the vaccination status of personnel, and how the information would be protected.
“You are basically sharing your personal information with everyone,” she said, a concern current and former CAF members have shared with The Epoch Times. Vaccination statuses were added to the database the CAF uses to track members’ qualifications, called Monitor Mass.
Lawsuits
These issues are being challenged in federal court by two different groups of active and former CAF members, many of whom allege suffering from a vaccine injury after complying with the mandate.The list of alleged infractions include “ignoring established law” on the right to privacy, informed consent, and the right to choose medical treatment, and “allowing the physical and/or psychological torture of members under the command of CAF commissioned officers.”
The Attorney General has said in a statement of defence the lawsuits are “scandalous, frivolous, and vexatious.”
The grievances reviewed by the Military Grievances External Review Committee have been sent to Gen. Eyre, who is the final authority on the matter.
The Epoch Times reached out to DND for comment but didn’t hear back by publication time.
In a previous statement to The Epoch Times inquiring on legal advice the force had received on the issue, Spokesperson Andrée-Anne Poulin defended the force’s vaccine mandate.
“The Canadian Armed Forces always bases its decisions on vaccination by considering the most up-to-date medical evidence and advice, the current federal posture, and the need to be operationally ready in terms of both force health and ability to act in an environment where any vaccine-preventable illness is a hazard to individuals and the mission,” she said.
The CAF vaccine mandate was lightened in October 2022, several months after the federal government’s June removal of its workplace and travel mandates.
