Nearly 60,000 of Canada’s 68,000 troops are now in isolation in advance of COVID-19 operations, Canada’s top soldier says.
Many of them have been ordered to do so to be ready to deploy across Canada to assist civil authorities to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, said Gen. Jon Vance said in an interview Thursday with Global News.
Others are on alert for critical operations such as the NORAD mission to defend North America with fighter jets or to prepare to assist governments with natural disasters such as springtime floods.
“The vast majority of troops — about 85 per cent — are not at their usual place of work,” Gen. Vance said.
“Their orders are to stay home and to stay healthy.”
Vance likened what was happening to the military now to how armies responded when under artillery attack.
“You disperse the force,” the chief of the defence said. “That fits with what we are doing about COVID. We are taking extreme precautions.”
The general, who first came to widespread public notice during his two combat tours in Afghanistan, said he was unaware of an increase in cyberattacks on Canada’s critical military, government and civilian infrastructure during the coronavirus crisis.
“But what is out of the ordinary is an increase in the use of cyberspace to spread false information,” he said.
Without saying which country or countries might be responsible, he added: “There is a real uptick in the use of COVID information to attack the response of some countries.” The disease was being used “as an opportunity” he said, to advance certain points-of-view.
4:03 Coronavirus outbreak: Sajjan outlines role of Canadian Forces in combating COVID-19
Coronavirus outbreak: Sajjan outlines role of Canadian Forces in combating COVID-19 While most of the troops stayed home, the general said he was still going to work every day at National Defence Headquarters because he needed to have instant access to intelligence and other military communications networks.
However, as a precaution, he and the vice chief of the defence staff, Lt. Gen. Jean-Marc Lanthier, were working from different buildings. Many meetings with Lanthier and other senior commanders that normally took place face-to-face were now taking place via video conferences.
Though most of the troops are not together, the Canadian Forces’ key operations have not stopped, Vance said.
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The first priority is to assist predominately indigenous northern communities including “especially remote fly-in settlements,” the general said. Reservists were being activated and given full-time contracts to help tailor the force to do this and other tasks, he said.
Rangers, who are mostly from aboriginal communities across Canada’s north, were already in place and ready to assist.
Specific help would involve some medical personnel and would have a specific focus on logistics to provide supplies, to make clean drinking water and use the air force’s unique aero-medevac capabilities if they were required, he said.
“We can help sustain these particular communities with air support,” he said.
As for the Navy, HMCS Calgary is now making the three-week sail across the Pacific Ocean to resume the Royal Canadian Navy’s role in OP Neon. That multinational UN mission observes whether oil sanctions imposed on North Korea are being broken in the East China Sea and South China Sea.
However, the British Columbia-based warship might return home early from the usual six- or seven-month-long western Pacific patrol if it was decided that port visits in Asia might cause a risk to the crew or people in those countries, Vance said.
While some troops had returned from NATO training forces in Ukraine and Iraq, manpower for the Canadian-led NATO tripwire mission in Latvia had not changed, the general said.
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At the same time, the Royal Canadian Air Force was already helping to move supplies and military personnel around in Canada and might in some situations assist the government to repatriate Canadians who are stuck overseas, though in some cases the best medical advice “might be that they would be better protected if they stayed in place,” Vance said.
Canada is in close touch with its Five Eyes intelligence partners — the U.S., United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand — about COVID-19. The general’s planners have also been closely examining the current experiences of U.S. and Italian forces who have been called out to deal with the serious outbreak in their countries. Meanwhile, Canada’s Allies are watching how Canada’s troops were responding, Vance said.
1:45 Coronavirus outbreak: NATO members agree to speed up medical aid deliveries amid COVID-19 pandemic
Coronavirus outbreak: NATO members agree to speed up medical aid deliveries amid COVID-19 pandemic
Looking ahead, the general said that the military could not shut down its training and recruiting for long.
“We have to keep the pipeline open and that’s a challenge,” he said. “We are looking at addressing that in strategic planning, to restore training within a COVID environment.”
What is taking place in Ottawa and at regional commands at the moment is contingency planning and looking at requests for assistance to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, he said.
The general said he and his staff are in hourly contact with senior federal officials. When his troops might be called out by the government to render aid is unknown at this time and is heavily dependent, he said, on whether Canadians heeded the advice that they had been getting from governments and from and health care professionals to isolate themselves from others and to observe safe hygienic practices.
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“My hope is that Canadians will heed this advice to protect themselves and ‘flatten the curve’ so we do not have to deploy our force,” the general said.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
