armed forces
Canadian military members speak out after being told chaplains shouldn’t use ‘God’ in public prayers
From LifeSiteNews
‘Freedom of religion, I’m afraid, is slowly being replaced by freedom from religion,’ one CAF member told LifeSiteNews.
Members of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) gave their exclusive reactions to LifeSiteNews this week after being told they shouldn’t call upon God during public prayers in order to prioritize inclusivity and “diversity” just weeks before the national November 11 Remembrance Day holiday. The Minister of National Defence has stated that public prayer must “reflect the spiritual and religious diversity of Canadians.”
In exclusive phone interviews with LifeSiteNews, CAF members who are known to LifeSite but have asked to remain anonymous spoke out against what they see as an increased secularization of the military.
“In a nutshell, this change is: Abolish God from the public square,” one military member said, explaining that the “ethos undergirding the document” is one emphasizing the “spiritual” rather than the “religious.”
“Freedom of religion, I’m afraid, is slowly being replaced by freedom from religion,” another CAF member told LifeSite.
Their remarks pertain to an October 11 memo signed by Chaplain General Guy Belisle and obtained by The Epoch Times that directed Canadian chaplains to “adopt a sensitive and inclusive approach when publicly addressing military members.”
“While the dimension of prayer may occupy a significant place for some of our members, we do not all pray in the same way; for some, prayer does not play a role in their lives,” the memo reads.
Any “spiritual reflection” offered by military chaplains in a public setting (not including church services or private interactions with members) must be “inclusive in nature, and respectful of the religious and spiritual diversity of Canada,” according to the directive.
Spiritual leaders are also directed to “consider the potential that some items or symbols may cause discomfort or traumatic feelings when choosing the dress they wear during public occasions.”
Minister of National Defence Bill Blair responded to news concerning the directive by emphasizing that “Canadian Forces chaplains are not – and will not be – banned from prayer on Remembrance Day, nor at any other time,” The Post Millennial reported.
However, Department of National Defence spokesman said that chaplains giving reflections in public, mandatory military ceremonies “should not use the word ‘God’ or other references to a higher power such as ‘Heavenly Father’” in order “ to ensure that all feel included and able to participate in reflection no matter their beliefs.”
Active-duty CAF members who spoke with LifeSiteNews say the new directive effectively bans theistic prayer and sets up secularism as the only acceptable religion.
One military member told LifeSite that chaplains had been allowed to call upon a theistic God in an “inclusive” manner at public events like mess dinners and the celebration of Remembrance Day under prior guidance, but under the new directive “God can’t be invoked.”
He said military chaplains are further directed to be “mindful of the Gender Based Analysis (GBA+)” in their reflections, going on to explain that GBA+ is an “analysis framework that [officials are] using to basically re-examine their policies throughout the organization” for the purposes of advancing equity within the context of gender ideology.
Under the principles, the source told LifeSite, it could even be “problematic to say ‘God’ in the masculine, like in the ‘Our Father.’”
Another CAF member told LifeSite that the new memo has made military chaplains “so afraid of saying something wrong” that “even very liberal chaplains” are “too afraid” to write their “own reflection on Remembrance Day.”
He said the authentic variety of religious beliefs – in which Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others are able to express and share their faiths – is being exchanged for secular uniformity packaged as “diversity.”
The source told LifeSite that the recent chaplaincy directive amounts to “a purging of all traditional values” and a message that “the only acceptable religion now will be secularism.”
“If we can’t even live according to our conscience, if you can’t speak truth as we see it, then we’ve lost the essence of what it means to be the military,” he said. “We’ve lost our freedom.”
The first CAF member to speak with LifeSite explained that the new directive rests on the Canadian Supreme Court’s 2015 decision Mouvement laïque québécois v. Saguenay (City), which declared that “The state must instead remain neutral” in matters “religion and beliefs.”
However, he argued that neutrality shouldn’t mean banning specific religious expressions and noted that soldiers going into battle face an entirely different set of risks than ordinary government employees, up to and including serious injury and death.
“Given the realities of soldiering and everything that comes with that, I would ask, has that not changed the equation? Does that not change things?” he said. He argued that soldiers having “spiritual tools at their disposal,” including prayers and blessings, makes the CAF “more resilient, more capable, more spiritually healthy.”
“By taking that away from people, do you have the soldier’s best interests in mind? Do you have spiritual fitness in mind? Are you playing politics? That’s my question,” he said.
armed forces
Judge dismisses Canadian military personnel’s lawsuit against COVID shot mandate
From LifeSiteNews
Associate Judge Catherine Coughlan rejected a lawsuit from more than 300 past and current members of the Canadian military who lost their jobs or were put on leave for not taking the experimental, dangerous COVID shots.
A Canadian federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed on behalf of some 330 past and current members of the nation’s military who lost their jobs or were placed on leave for refusing the experimental COVID shots, because she alleged that their lawsuit lacked “evidence” that the jabs were harmful.
The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members had sought some $1.3 million in damages from the government for having their charter rights violated due to the military’s 2021 COVID mandates, according to their lawsuit.
In a November 13 ruling, Edmonton-based Associate Judge Catherine Coughlan ruled in favor of the Trudeau government, and thus military’s COVID jab mandate, to strike down the case. Coughlan remarked that the plaintiffs’ case lacked “material facts” along with “evidence” and was filled with “vexatious language.”
READ: Canadian father files $35 million lawsuit against Pfizer over son’s jab-related death
“The only indications of bad faith are found when the pleadings baldly assert that, among other claims, Canada failed to carry out safety and efficacy testing for the vaccines, and that the Directives were premature and ‘promoted the fraudulent use of the biologics’,” she wrote, overlooking reports of thousands of injuries due to the shots in Canada alone.
As a result of the lawsuit being tossed, all plaintiffs are now on the hook to pay some $5,040 out of pocket in legal costs.
As reported by LifeSiteNews in June, documents obtained by LifeSiteNews show that the number of jab injuries in the CAF rose over 800 percent in 2021, with the most being credited to Moderna’s experimental COVID shot.
The CAF members’ lawsuit was filed in June of 2023 and overall sought some $1 million in damages, along with an extra $350,000 in general damages. The lawsuit also had a condition that there be a declaration made that mandating the COVID shots for military members was a violation of their charter rights.
READ: Israeli boy featured in COVID vaccine campaign dies of heart attack at age 8
LifeSiteNews reported in July that a member of Canada’s military who was injured after taking the experimental mRNA COVID jabs has been denied compensation from the nation’s Veterans Affairs department.
Under the CAF’s mandate, hundreds of military members were fired, or one could say, purged for not getting the COVID shots. This is in addition to the thousands of public servants fired for not agreeing to take the COVID shots.
The CAF eventually ended its COVID mandate in October 2022, which was months after the federal mandate was lifted, but members are still “strongly encouraged” to take the experimental shot.
The federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that its federal COVID shot workplace mandate would be dropped in June 2022, as would the mandate requiring domestic travelers have the shot to board planes and trains.
In November of 2023, a CAF member who spoke to LifeSiteNews under the condition of anonymity observed that the military considers members who refuse the COVID jab “a piece of garbage.”
READ: COVID shots have 200-times higher risk of brain clots than other jabs: new report
In March, LifeSiteNews reported on large personnel losses causing the CAF to consider dropping its remaining requirements altogether.
Although Canada has a Vaccine Injury Support Program (VISP) program, active members of the CAF, as well as veterans, are not eligible for the civilian program. According to Christensen, this leaves many COVID jab-injured CAF members and veterans with no recourse other than Veterans Affairs Canada.
COVID shot mandates, which came from provincial governments with the support of Trudeau’s federal government, split Canadian society. The mRNA shots themselves have been linked to a multitude of negative and often severe side effects, such as heart diseases, stroke, and death, including in children.
The shots also have connections to cell lines derived from aborted babies. As a result, many Catholics and other Christians refused to take them.
armed forces
Canadian veterans battle invisible wounds of moral injury and addiction
Moral injury, a unique psychological trauma, drives many Canadian veterans to substance use disorders as they struggle with inadequate support
When he was stationed in Bosnia in 1994, Steve Lamrock would drive a truck loaded with food through villages full of hungry people.
As a Canadian Armed Forces platoon quartermaster, one of Lamrock’s duties was transporting food to other soldiers involved in the United Nations Protection Force’s peacekeeping mission in the war-torn country.
“I had people starving to death, children starving to death,” he recalled, his wife seated beside him for support. “I could see, weekly, the deterioration in certain people in the community and the elderly from a lack of nutrition.”
Often, there was a surplus of rations.
“The UN policy was, if you can’t give exactly equal to both sides, you don’t give anything away,” he said, adding that it could trigger violent raids if you provided food to just one faction.
“So we would throw out food when there’s people starving to death.”
Moral dilemmas like these haunted Lamrock long after he retired from the military in 2009. Tormented by nightmares, he turned to alcohol to cope. “When I drank so much I passed out, I wouldn’t dream or remember the dreams as vividly or as often,” he said.
Lamrock — whose 24-year military career included tours in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo and Iraq — was identified as suffering from psychological distress caused by the perception of having violated one’s moral or ethical beliefs. Experts are now calling this moral injury.
Moral injury is not formally recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, an authoritative manual on mental disorders. But experts and veterans say moral injury affects many individuals who serve in the military, and requires better institutional support and treatment than are currently available.
Moral injury and addiction
“[Moral injury presents as] shame, guilt and anger that occurs when someone is exposed to an event that goes against their moral values, standards or ethics,” said Dr. Don Richardson, a psychiatrist and scientific director of the MacDonald Franklin Operational Stress Injury Research Centre in London, Ont. The centre studies the impact of stress injuries on military personnel, veterans and first responders.
Moral injury can result not only from witnessing or causing harm, but also from being affected by an organization’s actions or inactions, Richardson says.
The term moral injury was first introduced in the 1990s by American psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Shay, who worked with veterans of the Vietnam War. It gained wider recognition following the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, when traditional treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) — such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy — were proving to be only partially effective.
While fear is often at the core of traditional PTSD cases, feelings of guilt, shame, anger and betrayal are more strongly linked to cases of moral injury, says Dr. Anthony Nazarov, associate director of the MacDonald Franklin Operational Stress Injury Research Centre and an expert on moral injury.
Nearly 60 per cent of Canadian Armed Forces personnel deployed in NATO operations in Afghanistan reported exposure to morally injurious events, according to a 2018 study co-authored by Nazarov. Those exposed to such events demonstrated a greater likelihood of developing PTSD and major depressive disorders.
Dr. Ronald Shore, a research scientist and assistant professor in psychiatry at Queen’s University, says individuals suffering from moral injury often develop coping strategies due to a lack of support to help them process traumatic experiences.
One common coping mechanism is substance use, he says.
“You’re constantly feeling like something is wrong with you, that you’ve done something wrong … that leads to that self-regulation with addiction,” Shore said.
Lamrock says his experiences in Bosnia — and the habits he developed afterwards — deeply affected him and his family.
He recalled promising his young daughter they would do something fun after a night’s rest. “‘No, you won’t, Daddy, you won’t get up,’” she had replied, knowing he would likely be too hungover.
“That was my motivation to quit,” he said.
Betrayal
It is common for veterans suffering from moral injury to feel angry or betrayed due to the military’s actions or lack of support.
“[A person feels] betrayed by policies, betrayed by leaders, betrayed by organizations,” said Nazarov.
This has been the case for Gordon Hurley, 37, whose 14-year career in the Canadian Armed Forces included tours in Afghanistan, Africa and Iraq.
“When you get out, there’s nothing,” Hurley said. “If you think that Veterans Affairs is going to support you … they will, but you’re gonna have to fight for it.”
Hurley was medically discharged from the military in 2021 due to various physical and mental health challenges, including PTSD. He says Veterans Affairs requires him to continually prove the severity of his injuries to maintain disability support and benefits, such as reimbursements for retinal surgery and rehabilitation.
Hurley says that having to repeatedly prove his injuries to Veterans Affairs has been frustrating. “You were the ones who released me from the military … for these injuries, but now you are asking me to prove them back to you?” he said.
The Canadian Armed Forces redirected inquiries about support for veterans with moral injury and substance use disorder to Veterans Affairs Canada.
In an emailed statement to Canadian Affairs, Veterans Affairs spokesperson Josh Bueckert said mental health-care practitioners who work with veterans are “well aware of moral injury” and recognize the condition is often associated with operational stress injuries.
Bueckert said the department provides funding to organizations such as the Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families, which has a moral injury toolkit for veterans.
He also noted the department offers veterans a range of mental health resources, including access to 11 operational stress injury clinics and a network of 12,000 mental health professionals. Bueckert said veterans also have access to treatments for substance use disorder and for conditions such as “trauma-and-stressor-related disorders.”
Hurley acknowledges all these benefits are available, but says they are hard-won.
“All those benefits listed you get, but unless your condition has been [approved by the department], you do not receive those benefits,” he said.
‘Never-ending battle’
Josh Muir, 49, served nearly 14 years in the military and was deployed twice to Afghanistan. After sustaining soft tissue damage, hearing damage and spinal injuries in a 2010 improvised explosive device attack, he was medically discharged from the military — something he says he opposed because the military had become his entire identity.
“As soon as I’ve crossed this threshold, I no longer really have a clear picture of who I am, what I am, what use I might play in the future, and where to go from here,” he said.
He described feeling discarded by the military. “I was very quickly turned from a valuable asset into a liability that needed to be rid of as quickly and as expeditiously as possible,” said Muir, who turned to alcohol as a crutch.
Canadian Forces veteran Josh Muir and his son Max at a beach in Vancouver, April 2024. [Photo Credit: Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families]
Shore, of Queen’s University, says recovering from moral injury and substance use disorder can require rebuilding one’s identity as the sense of purpose and belonging one gets from being part of the military fades.
Therapies such as acceptance and commitment therapy help veterans accept difficult emotions and commit to taking actions that align with their values. Another treatment called narrative therapy helps veterans separate their problems from their identity. These therapies can be effective at helping veterans recover, says Richardson, of the MacDonald Franklin Operational Stress Injury Research Centre.
Richardson also encourages veterans to seek peer support through groups like Operational Stress Injury Social Support or True Patriot Love Foundation.
David Fascinato joined the military in 2005 and served in psychological operations, including a deployment to Afghanistan in 2010.
Fascinato, who has since left the military, has struggled with mental health issues and moral injury. He says he has come to realize that veterans need organizations that offer community, purpose and tools to rebuild their sense of self.
This realization led him to co-found Team Rubicon Canada, a volunteer disaster relief organization that conducts missions in Canada and abroad. “Doing things with others for others, that’s where it helps reduce substance misuse and provides an off-ramp,” he said.
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Fascinato has also found purpose by serving as executive director of Heroic Hearts Project Canada, an organization that supports veterans and first responders with alternative mental health treatments such as psychedelics.
Richardson and Shore view psychedelic-assisted therapy — which uses psychedelics to disrupt ingrained neural patterns — as a promising treatment for moral injury and substance use disorder..
Shore says support for psychedelic trials with veterans is still limited due to safety concerns and insufficient research. However, Canadian veterans are seeking psychedelic therapy in overseas retreats in places like Mexico and Peru.
Hurley says he was only able to recover from his alcoholism after seeking treatment at a psychedelic retreat in Tijuana, Mexico in 2022. “Only after I did ibogaine did I get released from [alcohol addiction],” he said, referring to a type of psychedelic drug.
While the production, sale and possession of psychedelics remain illegal in Canada, Health Canada in 2023 amended its Special Access Program, which allows health-care providers to request psychedelic medications for patients with life-threatening or treatment-resistant conditions.
In Muir’s case, he was able to gain control of his addiction and mental health issues after completing a two-month residential program at a treatment centre on Vancouver Island. The cost of the program was covered by Veterans Affairs.
While Muir is grateful to have his treatment costs covered, he says he would like to see Veterans Affairs generally improve the support it offers veterans, including offering more personalized assistance in the transition to civilian life.
He describes his experience with the Canadian Armed Forces’ transition program as taking in “information via fire hose,” with overwhelming seminars and a lack of personal guidance to navigate the process.
“There’s little services and ceremonies,” said Muir. “But ultimately you have to go back to you being a small cog in a large machine.”
“I felt like I was going to become Army Surplus, just like the items in the store that sit there after their function has been superseded by newer models.”
“I think it’s absurd,” said Fascinato. “We have to pick up the proverbial sword and shield, or in this case pen and pad of paper, and seemingly wage this never-ending battle for access to care that shouldn’t be this difficult to get.”
This article was produced through the Breaking Needles Fellowship Program, which provided a grant to Canadian Affairs, a digital media outlet, to fund journalism exploring addiction and crime in Canada. Articles produced through the Fellowship are co-published by Break The Needle and Canadian Affairs.
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