(Ottawa) The Chief of the Defense Staff wants to modify the requirements for vaccinations within the Canadian Armed Forces in the coming weeks.
Posted at 6:30 p.m.
But General Wayne Eyre also defends the use of compulsory vaccination, a measure which he believes is necessary to ensure that the army is ready to respond to any emergency.
Mr. Eyre made the comments in an interview with The Canadian Press, as hundreds of service members still have not been vaccinated against COVID-19, even though the general staff ordered it at the end of 2021 .
That order is still in effect, although a similar directive for most other federal public servants was suspended by Ottawa last June.
General Eyre explains that the military is different from other government departments and agencies because of the way it operates and its importance as the nation’s “insurance policy”. “We have to be operationally ready,” he said.
“We have to go to dangerous places and cordon off confined quarters, we have to deploy overseas, where there is potentially an increased threat with the pandemic. We also don’t know the trajectory of this pandemic, where it will go in the future. »
When General Eyre ordered all military personnel to be vaccinated against COVID-19 last October, he explained that it was both to protect the army and “to show leadership”, while the Liberal government adopted a mandatory vaccination directive throughout the federal public service.
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The Department of National Defense said that more than 98% of Canadian soldiers complied with the order from the general staff. Last June, Defense Minister Anita Anand was informed that 1,137 military personnel were still unvaccinated.
Those who refuse vaccination run the risk of being expelled from the army. The ministry says 241 unvaccinated soldiers were ousted, and disciplinary action was initiated against hundreds more.
General Eyre did not want to specify if soldiers are still being expelled or if these measures have been suspended pending the results of his review.
The chief of staff said he was trying to find the fine compromise between the legal, medical, operational and ethical aspects of the matter.
“Over the next few weeks, we will be fine-tuning the policy, we will publish something modified. But we also have to realize that this is a dynamic environment, and things can change, the trajectory of the pandemic can change. We must therefore also maintain this flexibility. »
He added that not only have the military been called upon to assist pandemic-affected communities at home, vaccine requirements still exist in many allied nations and militaries.
The US military still requires all service members to be vaccinated, as do some NATO installations and bases. “There are going to be operational requirements where (vaccination) is going to be essential if you’re operating with allies,” General Eyre said.
The chief of staff’s comments appear to contradict a draft of a revised vaccine policy, obtained by the Ottawa Citizen last month, which suggested vaccine requirements for military personnel would be lifted. The draft document had not been approved by General Eyre, officials said.
Mandatory vaccinations in the military have been unsuccessfully challenged several times in Federal Court — most recently again last month.
The Department of Defense says there have been more than 9,500 cases of COVID-19 among military personnel, including 113 active cases as of 1er august. He did not say whether there have been any deaths associated with the disease.