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Major personnel losses force Canadian military to consider ending COVID vaccine mandate

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Defence Minister Bill Blair called for ‘outdated medical requirements’ to be abolished as the Canadian Armed Forces have lost more members than it has gained since vax mandates were enforced in 2021.

The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) may drop its vaccine mandate after losing more personnel than it gained since COVID-19 outbreak.

At the annual Ottawa Conference on Security and Defence on March 7, Defence Minister Bill Blair called for “outdated medical requirements” to be abolished as the CAF has lost more members than it has gained since COVID vaccine mandates were enforced in 2021.

“I really see no point in us spending a lot of time trying to find out how we got to this state,” Blair addressed the conference. “We must focus on what needs to be done, and we must get to work.”

“Because the bottom line is the Canadian Armed Forces must grow,” he declared, revealing that the CAF is short nearly 16,000 people in both regular forces and reserves.

“We must change the way in which we recruit and retain the people of our forces,” he declared.

“And therefore, I’ve asked our military leaders to take a hard look at expanding eligibility for recruitment, to abolish outdated medical requirements where they are not meaningful and relevant,” Blair said, perhaps alluding to COVID vaccine mandates.

Indeed, the CAF has seen a drastic decline in numbers since COVID vaccines were mandated in 2021. According to information obtained last month by Blacklock’s Reporteronly 12,793 Canadians have joined the CAF in the past three years and 15,176 were released.

Beginning in November 2021, the Liberal government under the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau mandated that 275,983 employees from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, military and main federal departments provide proof of vaccination.

Those who failed to do so risked dismissal or suspension without pay. While there were provisions for medical and religious exemptions, these were rarely granted.

However, the vaccine is mandated for members supporting “operational readiness,” including members assigned “to units/elements expected to perform core functions/critical capabilities with short notice-to-move, such as SOF High Readiness Forces/Task Forces, (Standby) Ready-Duty Ships, DART, NEO, and contributions to NATO, the UN, or other partners.”

The shots are also required for members “placed on less than 45 days-notice-to-move with a potential to be deployed at a location with limited/no access to medical care, or locations or nations where vaccination is a prerequisite for entry/operations.”

Additionally, in November, Blair revealed that more soldiers are leaving CAF than can be replaced by recruits, a trend that started after COVID vaccines were mandated for all military members.

Also in November, a CAF member who spoke to LifeSiteNews under the condition of anonymity revealed that there is no “one root cause” for the army’s decreasing numbers but rather a number of factors that have caused military members to lose trust. He added that COVID vaccine mandates were likely the tipping point that put soldiers over the edge.

He explained that the military lost hundreds of soldiers for “no good reason” over COVID vaccine mandates. The military member further revealed that the military had no deaths from COVID despite working at the front lines in nursing homes.

“And when you think of those hundreds and hundreds of people, you have to think in the corporate knowledge we lost, the trainers, the institutional knowledge, the corporate knowledge,” the source lamented. “We’re talking about hundreds and hundreds of years of collective corporate knowledge has gone in months.”

He further explained that the military “rewrote the rulebook” when it came to COVID vaccines, allowing for very few religious exemptions and forcing the vaccine on all members.

He revealed that while army veterans have “given 20 years of their lives to the military,” “served in combat,” and have “a chest for medals,” the Canadians military considers them “a piece of garbage overnight because you refuse it (COVID vaccine).”

According to the military member, another reason for many leaving the military is “radical agendas that are being pushed left, right and center.”

“And it’s not stopping with the gender ideology, it’s going to include medical assistance in dying,” he added. “There’s something fundamentally changing. And for most people, it doesn’t sit well with them.”

He explained that the new ideologies are driving away new recruits. The primary source of recruitment for the military is Saskatchewan farm boys who want to serve Canada and not radical ideologies.

“That farm boy looks at the army and with the blue hair and the face, piercings and ideologies and all that stuff,” he said. “And it doesn’t have the same pull because it doesn’t represent the farm boy’s values.”

“This is not the Canada that we signed up to defend. It’s an alien ideology that people don’t resonate with,” he continued. “These are not Canadian values of freedom and democracy. These are cancel-culture values of censorship, of authoritarianism, of radical ideologies that are alien to our culture.”

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Canadian military deployed ‘gender advisors’ to Ukraine, Haiti  at taxpayers’ expense

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The Canadian Armed Forces has been pushing a radical LGBT agenda under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, with the latest example being ‘Task Force Gender Advisors’ deployed in war-hit nations, such as Haiti and Ukraine.

Canada’s military has been actively pushing a woke pro-LGBT agenda on the world stage, with the latest example being its deployment of “task force gender advisors” internationally in war-hit nations, such as Haiti and Ukraine.

The “gender advisors” initiative is noted in the 2024 Departmental Report of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). This has resulted in it drawing a sharp rebuke from veterans who wonder why the military is spending money on pushing the LGBT agenda abroad.

The CAF report notes how in Poland, for instance, the “Task Force Gender Advisor was involved in all aspects of this training mission and supported the local Defence Attaché in connecting with local and Ukraine-based non-governmental organizations and interested parties.”

The report noted how the “gender advisor” as well as “gender focal points” were sent to military missions in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, Poland, and Latvia throughout 2023.

In war-torn Haiti, “intersectional factors (were) being applied towards stabilization and humanitarian efforts,” via an “Operations HORIZON and PROJECTION” initiative.

This initiative is part of the third “National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security for 2023-2029.” This is a program that looks to advance pro-LGBT ideology, such as concepts of different “genders,” in all military operations.

Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the CAF, as well as all government departments, have pushed an ever-increasing woke agenda, as well as a host of so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies in place.

The military’s action plan notes how there are no less than three full-time “gender advisors” who are in the CAF at all levels.

The president of Veterans for Freedom, Andrew MacGillivray, blasted the woke DEI policies, saying the program has morphed into a “useless overbearing policy that has infiltrated every aspect of the Canadian Armed Forces.”

He noted that war-torn nations most likely don’t care “about gender nonsense being pushed by Canada when they are struggling to keep people alive.”

Since Trudeau became PM, the CAF has become increasingly woke and has been forcing LGBT ideology on many of its personnel. It has also seen recruitment plummet to all-time lows.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, earlier this year, Canada’s first “transgender” military chaplain was suspended for alleged sexual harassment, after he reportedly sought to grope a male soldier at the Royal Military College while drunk.

Canada’s military has spent millions of taxpayer dollars on pro-DEI polls, along with guest speakers, presentations, and workshops, as well as LGBT flags. The workshops covered topics including “the gendered nature of security,” while one talk discussed “integrating gender and diversity perspectives.”

In 2021, the defence department revealed that it has two separate committees and eight programs that worked to appoint homosexual advisors to “innovate” religious instruction and gender-neutral uniforms.

In June of 2023, the Canadian military was criticized for “raising the pride flag” in honor of the so-called “2SLGBTQI+ communities.”

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Top Brass Is On The Run Ahead Of Trump’s Return

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Morgan Murphy

With less than a month to go before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, the top brass are already running for cover. This week the Army’s chief of staff, Gen. Randy George, pledged to cut approximately a dozen general officers from the U.S. Army.

It is a start.

But given the Army is authorized 219 general officers, cutting just 12 is using a scalpel when a machete is in order. At present, the ratio of officers to enlisted personnel stands at an all-time high. During World War II, we had one general for every 6,000 troops. Today, we have one for every 1,600.

Right now, the United States has 1.3 million active-duty service members according to the Defense Manpower Data Center. Of those, 885 are flag officers (fun fact: you get your own flag when you make general or admiral, hence the term “flag officer” and “flagship”). In the reserve world, the ratio is even worse. There are 925 general and flag officers and a total reserve force of just 760,499 personnel. That is a flag for every 674 enlisted troops.

The hallways at the Pentagon are filled with a constellation of stars and the legions of staffers who support them. I’ve worked in both the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Starting around 2011, the Joint Staff began to surge in scope and power. Though the chairman of the Joint Chiefs is not in the chain of command and simply serves as an advisor to the president, there are a staggering 4,409 people working for the Joint Staff, including 1,400 civilians with an average salary of $196,800 (yes, you read that correctly). The Joint Staff budget for 2025 is estimated by the Department of Defense’s comptroller to be $1.3 billion.

In contrast, the Secretary of Defense — the civilian in charge of running our nation’s military — has a staff of 2,646 civilians and uniformed personnel. The disparity between the two staffs threatens the longstanding American principle of civilian control of the military.

Just look at what happens when civilians in the White House or the Senate dare question the ranks of America’s general class. “Politicizing the military!” critics cry, as if the Commander-in-Chief has no right to question the judgement of generals who botched the withdrawal from Afghanistan, bought into the woke ideology of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) or oversaw over-budget and behind-schedule weapons systems. Introducing accountability to the general class is not politicizing our nation’s military — it is called leadership.

What most Americans don’t understand is that our top brass is already very political. On any given day in our nation’s Capitol, a casual visitor is likely to run into multiple generals and admirals visiting our elected representatives and their staff. Ostensibly, these “briefs” are about various strategic threats and weapons systems — but everyone on the Hill knows our military leaders are also jockeying for their next assignment or promotion. It’s classic politics

The country witnessed this firsthand with now-retired Gen. Mark Milley. Most Americans were put off by what they saw. Milley brazenly played the Washington spin game, bragging in a Senate Armed Services hearing that he had interviewed with Bob Woodward and a host of other Washington, D.C. reporters.

Woodward later admitted in an interview with CNN that he was flabbergasted by Milley, recalling the chairman hadn’t just said “[Trump] is a problem or we can’t trust him,” but took it to the point of saying, “he is a danger to the country. He is the most dangerous person I know.” Woodward said that Milley’s attitude felt like an assignment editor ordering him, “Do something about this.”

Think on that a moment — an active-duty four star general spoke on the record, disparaging the Commander-in-Chief. Not only did it show rank insubordination and a breach of Uniform Code of Military Justice Article 88, but Milley’s actions represented a grave threat against the Constitution and civilian oversight of the military.

How will it play out now that Trump has returned? Old political hands know that what goes around comes around. Milley’s ham-handed political meddling may very well pave the way for a massive reorganization of flag officers similar to Gen. George C. Marshall’s “plucking board” of 1940. Marshall forced 500 colonels into retirement saying, “You give a good leader very little and he will succeed; you give mediocrity a great deal and they will fail.”

Marshall’s efforts to reorient the War Department to a meritocracy proved prescient when the United States entered World War II less than two years later.

Perhaps it’s time for another plucking board to remind the military brass that it is their civilian bosses who sit at the top of the U.S. chain of command.

Morgan Murphy is military thought leader, former press secretary to the Secretary of Defense and national security advisor in the U.S. Senate.

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