Canadian Armed Forces | Sanctions for chaplains who fail to help LGBTQ + soldiers

(Ottawa) The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) want to clean up the chaplaincy service: those who refuse to support members of the LGBTQ + community who serve in the military are warned that it is the door that awaits them.

Melanie Marquis
Press

The “culture of sexualization” and discrimination in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) described in the damning report published in 2015 by Justice Marie Deschamps does not only target women: it also affects members of the LGBTQ + community. The chaplaincy service recently issued a warning about this.

“If one learns, either through self-disclosure or as a result of a complaint, that a chaplain is or has been unable or unwilling to assist a member of the Canadian Armed Forces or his or her family, including LGBTQ2 + members, the mandate of this chaplain would be suspended immediately pending the results of an investigation, ”he wrote in a briefing note prepared on August 5.

At the end of the process, if it is determined that a chaplain “is unable for any reason” to provide support to members of the community who are part of the community, “the chaplain’s mandate will be revoked by the chaplain general, and the chaplain will no longer be able to serve in the Forces as chaplain ”, we continue in this document obtained by Press thanks to the Access to Information Act.

Diversity

The briefing note was prepared after the Assistant Deputy Minister of the Department of National Defense found in a review that there was “room for improvement”.

The chaplain general appointed in May 2021, Brigadier-General Guy Bélisle, therefore met with “the majority of faith-based caucuses” to clarify that the chaplaincy must “take care of everyone”, it reads.

There are approximately 400 chaplains in the CAF. They are Catholics, Jews, Sikhs, Muslims, Buddhists.

“And currently, we are in the process of recruiting for humanist chaplains, and we are having discussions to have native chaplains. It gives a portrait of the diversity that we have, ”explains the soldier in a telephone interview.

He himself has an adviser for LGBTQ + issues, whose hiring was announced in March 2020. He insists, however, that no incident of this nature has been recorded. “There was no complaint about a chaplain who did not take adequate care of a member of the community,” assures Brigadier-General Bélisle.

Is the explosive report by retired Supreme Court judge Marie Deschamps on the scourge of sexual misconduct in the military at the origin of this update, which began in November 2020, under the crook of its predecessor?

No, answers the chaplain general.

“The message has always been the same,” but “it was done verbally,” argues the one who has served in the CAF for 35 years. “There, the message is even clearer, and it is on paper: if a chaplain has personal convictions” preventing him from taking care of a soldier or his family who is part of this community, he is no longer. welcome, he says.

“Still surprising”

The language “is very clear, and it is rather strong,” notes Charlotte Duval-Lantoine, director of the Ottawa office of the Canadian Institute of Global Affairs. “Still, it’s surprising on the part of a group that is relatively religious to go towards something like this […] which precedes any religious belief, ”she continues in an interview.

However, the specialist in military issues has a downside. “The revocation of the mandate is not automatic. How do we investigate this? The problem is that what we have seen in the past is that it may be that there are policies, they are not necessarily put in place ”, raises Mr.^me Duval-Lantoine. However, the chaplaincy service policy “should serve as an example on a larger scale,” she believes.

The government’s apologies

This Monday at 1 p.m. Brigadier-General Bélisle will listen to an apology from Defense Minister Anita Anand, Chief of the Defense Staff Wayne Eyre and Deputy Minister of Defense Jody Thomas, to those who have been “affected by incidents of sexual assault, sexual harassment, or discrimination based on sex, gender, gender identity or sexual orientation” in the CAF.

“I am not in the shoes of the victims, and I think that each of the victims will experience it in a different way, but I think it is a step forward,” he said, stressing in passing that the chaplains will be even more vigilant that day.

The apologies will be made virtually. The governmental and military act of contrition comes just over two weeks after the deadline for registering for the class action that has been brought against the Forces and the Ministry in connection with sexual misconduct.