The Canadian military is preparing for possible deployment of troops in the Prairie provinces, potentially as early as Saturday in Alberta, to assist with their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, CBC News has learned.
All of the army divisions and joint task forces across the country were asked earlier this fall to check how many part-time soldiers would be available for duty so as to have 300 reserve soldiers in each area, a senior defence source said.
Late last week, the military expanded the call in anticipation of troops helping out with vaccine distribution, although no numbers have yet been attached to the new round, the source said.
There has been a special focus on calling up reservists in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba in case there is a call for assistance from those provinces, which now have among the worst COVID-19 infection rates in Canada.
Provincial requests for pandemic assistance from the military must be routed through the office of Public Safety Minister Bill Blair. A spokesperson for Blair on Monday said he has not received a request for help from the Alberta government, but did not respond to a follow-up question about any such requests from Saskatchewan or Manitoba.
Late Monday night, Blair tweeted that the ministry had approved a request for military help to contain rising COVID-19 numbers in the Fond du Lac First Nation in northern Saskatchewan.
A spokesperson for Alberta Health Minister Tyler Shandro said the provincial government has made no request for military assistance and is unaware of any such planning.
The military is calling out reservists now because it anticipates it may have difficulty finding enough part-time soldiers to staff long-term care facilities and perform other pandemic-related missions, said the defence source, who spoke on condition of confidentiality.
A National Defence spokesperson did not respond to an interview request from CBC News.
Earlier this year the military mobilized 8,000 reservists as part of its coronavirus response. Here, members of the Canadian Armed Forces take part in a training session before deploying to seniors’ residences in Montreal on April 29. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press)
Last spring, the military mobilized 8,000 reservists as part of its coronavirus response, known as Operation Laser. They were part of a 25,000-strong task force of soldiers, sailors and aircrew who were prepared to respond to requests for help, including working at long-term care facilities.
CBC News has learned members of the 41 Canadian Brigade Group, Alberta’s army reserve, have been ordered to complete their pandemic-response training by Saturday, although there is no indication if, or when, the soldiers will be deployed, or how many will be deployed.
“We have been told that we need to be prepared for [an order] to come in at any moment,” said a reservist who spoke on condition of confidentiality.
“The one thing that really kind of struck myself and a lot of other troops is how insistent they were about it and the timelines.”
It is not known whether active service members are also being trained for mobilization.
The Ottawa defence source said once reservists have been signed up, they will be tested for COVID-19 and go into a two-week quarantine to ensure they pose no infection threat.
‘No hard plan’ yet for deployment: source
The training for the Alberta reservists includes instruction on everything from how to don personal protective equipment to how to interact with dying patients.
Two Alberta reservists told CBC News the order to complete the training by Dec. 12 came down suddenly in late November, and their understanding is that troops could subsequently be deployed any time.
“It is an option that they are looking at in case [things] get truly bad, but there is no hard plan yet,” said one of the reservists, who also spoke on condition of confidentiality.
The number of Alberta continuing care facilities with COVID-19 outbreaks of two or more cases has more than tripled in the past few weeks. So far, 63 per cent of the province’s 631 deaths have been in long-term care facilities or supportive/home living sites.
WATCH | Military commander heading up COVID-19 vaccine distribution in Canada:
The Canadian Forces general in charge of planning and logistics for Canada’s vaccine rollout was announced Friday. But it raises questions about why military officers are needed at all. 2:09
Alberta continues to shatter its COVID-19 case records, recording a new high of 1,879 new cases on Saturday. On Friday, Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw said the province had reached a “grim milestone” as the positivity rate reached 10.5 per cent.
Long-time Edmonton critical care physician Dr. Noel Gibney said the military recognizes the urgency of the situation.
“I think that clearly the military, looking at the statistics and the numbers from Alberta, realize that within the next two-to-four weeks the situation is going to be very much a crisis in Alberta, and particularly in the long-term care homes,” Gibney said.
“The military recognizes something that the provincial government doesn’t — or maybe they recognize it, but they are not ready to actually admit that yet.”
In an interview Tuesday, Opposition NDP Leader Rachel Notley called the news of the military’s preparations a “significant indictment” of the Kenney government’s pandemic response.
“The reason that we are in this position is because of this government’s refusal to take responsible action to reduce the spread, and control the spread, of COVID-19 throughout our communities,” she said.
Premier alleges ‘voices of panic and hysteria’
The revelation that military reservists across the province are preparing to assist with the province’s pandemic response comes less than a week after Kenney, in a Facebook Live video he later posted on Twitter, accused the media of torquing pandemic coverage.
“I do regret that in so much of the COVID coverage and debate, there has been, pretty consistently, a kind of drive towards hysteria,” Kenney said.
“We need to take this very, very seriously — all of us. And Lord knows the government of Alberta is. At the same time, we should not allow voices of panic and hysteria to drive people into a sense of despair.”
“Keep calm and carry on,” Kenney said, referencing a motivational phrase of the British government during the Second World War.
On Thursday, CBC News revealed that the Alberta government has been planning field hospitals in Edmonton and Calgary, at large university sports facilities, to treat 750 COVID-19 patients.
A draft plan, dated Nov. 28, said the greatest challenge to getting the field hospitals operational would be staffing and that, “further exploration of staffing options (including military) is in progress.”
In the spring, Canadian troops were deployed to long-term care homes in Ontario and Quebec to aid facilities overrun by COVID-19 outbreaks. The mission cost taxpayers about $53 million.
WATCH | Military mission to Quebec and Ontario long-term care homes cost $53 million:
The military mission to long-term care homes hit by COVID-19 in Ontario and Quebec cost the federal government approximately $53 million, according to figures obtained by CBC News from the Department of National Defence. Senior military officers told a House of Commons committee on Monday that a number of lessons were learned from the deployment, lessons that will come in handy should further missions be necessary during the second wave. 2:34
“Because we are non-health-care practitioners, we would be helping with supportive care,” one of the reservists said last week. “So feeding, moving patients, assisting patients with daily activities.”
The reservist added that “one thing that really stood out to me was basically how they implied that we are going to be dealing with bodies and people at end of life.”
Soldiers trained to deal with end of life, bodies
CBC News has viewed slides that formed a training module for the Alberta reservists
A slide titled “Palliative Care” says, “Caring for the body of the deceased is something that we may experience during Op LASER. It is an occasion to pay our last respects to the person.
“The current circumstances may require us to place their corpse in a body bag and/or vehicle,” it said, emphasizing the need to do so in a respectful way.
Another slide warned soldiers that they may suffer what is referred to as a “moral injury.”
“A moral injury is harm caused by ‘perpetrating, failing to prevent, witnessing, or learning about actions that violate deeply held moral beliefs and expectation,'” it said.
“Because of COVID-19, many people will die earlier than they would have otherwise, and with fewer resources than would normally be available to them. We may sometimes witness situations that seem ‘inhuman’ to us.
“This injustice may cause us to feel powerless and hurt.”
The slide encouraged soldiers to seek support if needed.
“Most of us probably didn’t picture ourselves serving in a long-term care facility when we joined, but it is an honour to be able to assist our fellow Canadians in their time of need,” another slide said.
“One of the CAF principles is ‘respect the dignity of all persons,'” it continued. “Long-term care facility residents currently need our support to allow them to continue living in conditions that respect their dignity.
“Although this may pose a risk to ourselves, there is also another CAF principle by which we serve: ‘Serve Canada before self,’ which reminds us that this is our duty.”
If you have information for this story, or information for another story, please contact us in confidence at cbcinvestigates@cbc.ca.
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.
