Acting Chief of Military Personnel on Diversity, Inclusion, and Culture Change Short-Term Initiatives

[Halifax Tar]

I think the military chaplaincy should transform into a social/mental health worker service under the umbrella of the medical service.

But I am also a person who has no interest in formed religion.

 

[Remius]

My department has had its own official uniformed chaplain for at least the last fifty years. He is also active in connecting with our retired members, and always speaks at our luncheons. And yes, he leads us in prayer.
He provides a sense of hope to our members during difficualt times.

Is this a full time tax paid for Chaplain? Or one that has an an agreement with that org to minister to those who need or want it?

 

[Ostrozac]

For a purely functional take, would be interesting to see a comparison between broadly similar militaries with and without chaplains:

Is there a military similar to Canada’s without Chaplains? Even the French, who more or less invented the modern secular state, still have Chaplains in uniform. There are a few nominally communist officially atheist states that would lack Chaplains — presumably China, North Korea, Cuba and Vietnam do without. But I can’t think of any others.

So if we were to go down that road and abandon the Chaplaincy, it would be largely unknown territory. Possibly we’d simply be ahead of the times. Possibly we’d be breaking an important part of our military.

 

[mariomike]

Is this a full time tax paid for Chaplain? Or one that has an an agreement with that org to minister to those who need or want it?

He wears the uniform, and was there for our family when my father passed. It meant a lot to me.

5.5 Toronto Paramedic Services Chaplain

118. The TPS has two chaplains that provide both ceremonial services, such as speaking at recruits' graduation, and individual support to staff and alumni. The chaplains are paid an honorarium for ceremonial work and often provide other services on a volunteer basis.

119. The position of a chaplain has been described as a "bridge" between the work of the staff psychologist and the Peer Resource Team. One of the chaplains has experience working with peer crisis teams and training in critical incident stress programs. A member of the Peer Resource Team who is also a chaplain will begin providing his services in that capacity as part of the Peer Resource Team. My investigators were also told that contact information for chaplaincy services will be listed on a new poster advertising psychological supports for members.

https://www.ombudsmantoronto.ca/OmbudsmanToronto/media/Documents/Investigative%20Report/Ombudsman-Report-TPS-November-2015.pdf?ext=.pdf

 

[Furniture]

I think the military chaplaincy should transform into a social/mental health worker service under the umbrella of the medical service.

But I am also a person who has no interest in formed religion.

I also think there should be uniformed social workers, but I would prefer to see them working alongside Chaplains. As much as you or I, may not have spiritual beliefs, there are others that do, and they deserve support.

If communion/smudging/prayers before battle helps some of the troops mentally prepare, the CAF should support it with chaplains as best it can.

 

[OldSolduer]

I think the military chaplaincy should transform into a social/mental health worker service under the umbrella of the medical service.

But I am also a person who has no interest in formed religion.

I have no interest in organized religion either - however there are a number of service people who are members of religions.

The chaplains - or at least the ones I worked with - took care of social and mental health issues as part of a team. The chaplains are the "I know a person" types.

The right one is worth their weight in gold.

 

[Halifax Tar]

I also think there should be uniformed social workers, but I would prefer to see them working alongside Chaplains. As much as you or I, may not have spiritual beliefs, there are others that do, and they deserve support.

If communion/smudging/prayers before battle helps some of the troops mentally prepare, the CAF should support it with chaplains as best it can.

I have no interest in organized religion either - however there are a number of service people who are members of religions.

The chaplains - or at least the ones I worked with - took care of social and mental health issues as part of a team. The chaplains are the "I know a person" types.

The right one is worth their weight in gold.

You may have missed my admitted bias in the last line.

 

[OldSolduer]

You may have missed my admitted bias in the last line.

In did not and I respect that view. I am not a religious guy either.....I will ask Odin's favor one day and Aphrodite's the next.....

 

[Eye In The Sky]

And here's another. "contribution" to the retention debate: Opinion: Religious bigotry won’t solve the Canadian military’s discrimination problem

So if the article is accurate and the CAF would not allow RC faith leaders in the Padre ranks because of their religious beliefs, how could Catholics be allowed to serve?

Religion is specifically mentioned as something the government is not allowed to discriminate against. This article is just ludicrous.

 

[Jarnhamar]

I don't really see or hear of church services like I used to but I constantly see padres engaged with CAF members in a pseudo social worker role.

Civilian social workers have their place but padres are familiar (more or less) with the unique military culture and environment.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

I also think there should be uniformed social workers, but I would prefer to see them working alongside Chaplains. As much as you or I, may not have spiritual beliefs, there are others that do, and they deserve support.

If communion/smudging/prayers before battle helps some of the troops mentally prepare, the CAF should support it with chaplains as best it can.

Chaplains fill many important roles; the are also advisors to COs, play an important part in the notification of NOK, and follow on steps.

As for banning some religious leaders and not others. Seriously GoC and CAF leaders. Go read the prohibited discrimination laws of Canada.

Where will this shit end with this whacked out Lib govt?

 

[Fabius]

Well MND says Chaplains are staying, some sanity at least and a good idea I think, as much as some of them frustrate me on occasion.
Sets the stage as well for the next report to say the CAF ignored recommendations so wins all around.

Really calls into question the competence of the drafters of the report though in my opinion.

 

[Jarnhamar]

As for banning some religious leaders and not others. Seriously GoC and CAF leaders. Go read the prohibited discrimination laws of Canada.

Who did they want to ban and who did they want to keep?

 

[Furniture]

Who did they want to ban and who did they want to keep?

The report authors were smart enough to not write that...

The report read to me like a brainstorming session typed up as a document.

 

[OldSolduer]

Chaplains fill many important roles; the are also advisors to COs, play an important part in the notification of NOK, and follow on steps.

As for banning some religious leaders and not others. Seriously GoC and CAF leaders. Go read the prohibited discrimination laws of Canada.

Where will this shit end with this whacked out Lib govt?

Its not just the GoC - there is a segment of society that wants to see the end of the CAF. This is the means to an end.

When will it end? When we start writing our elected officials telling them to tell the authors of this report "you have one hour to clean your desk out and we are escorting you from the property"

Edmund Burke said it best "In order for evil to succeed all that is required is for good people to do nothing" or words to that effect.

 

[Weinie]

I agree we have other big issues but it doesn’t absolve our institutional responsibility to address discrimination. I don’t know whether religious bigotry has an effect on retention (though I suspect it does have an effect, perhaps not as visible as housing, equipment, pay, etc), but it certainly has an impact on recruitment. If we can’t attract a portion of the population because they don’t feel welcome, we are shortchanging ourselves from people with skills, talent, ideas, etc. Diversity, in today’s inter-connected world, is a must if we want to thrive.

So to collate, the CAF has been accused/indicted on this platform and in public for the following:

Toxic Leaders
Sexual Assault
Sexual Misconduct
Sexual Harassment
Discrimination
Non-inclusion
Misogyny
Nepotism
Multiple LGBTQ+ transgressions
Disinformation
Shoddy procurement processes
Shoddy financial practices
Shoddy pay
Shoddy housing
Shoddy equipment
Shoddy support to troops
Religious bigotry
Not being diverse
Non-adherence to Geneva conventions
Non-adherence to various Acts (ATI for example)
Not being adequately equipped/trained
Non support to NATO
Non support to Ops
Non support to the Res F
Not being forward thinking
Not being "now" thinking
Miscellanea etc etc

So pick a topic from the above list, which is nowhere close to exhaustive, and try to make changes under the existing environment/spotlights/constraints. Couple that with the leaderships supposed "real job" which is supposed to provide leadership and/or sp to CAF operations. Not easy, when every day your supposed priority changes.

Or, just leave the CAF. Or bitch. Or just get on with the job. Pick one.

 

[btrudy]

I don't really see or hear of church services like I used to but I constantly see padres engaged with CAF members in a pseudo social worker role.

Civilian social workers have their place but padres are familiar (more or less) with the unique military culture and environment.

We do have Social Work Officers.. Hiring more of those and using them to fill the roles performed by the Chaplains would be totally doable.

It indeed might be more useful for a lot of members who might be hesitant to approach the chaplains due to a distaste or distrust of organized religion.

Its not just the GoC - there is a segment of society that wants to see the end of the CAF. This is the means to an end.

When will it end? When we start writing our elected officials telling them to tell the authors of this report "you have one hour to clean your desk out and we are escorting you from the property"

Edmund Burke said it best "In order for evil to succeed all that is required is for good people to do nothing" or words to that effect.

Seriously? The people who were on the commission that wrote the report were all veterans: a former Maj, Capt, MGen and Sgt.

You're getting into insane-conspiracy theory territory to be accusing those people of being part of the segment of society that wants to see the end of the CAF.

Maybe, just maybe, they were all sick and tired of constantly having to deal with racism while in the CAF and wanted to fix a massive problem. .

 

[Weinie]

We do have Social Work Officers.. Hiring more of those and using them to fill the roles performed by the Chaplains would be totally doable.

It indeed might be more useful for a lot of members who might be hesitant to approach the chaplains due to a distaste or distrust of organized religion.



Seriously? The people who were on the commission that wrote the report were all veterans: a former Maj, Capt, MGen and Sgt.

You're getting into insane-conspiracy theory territory to be accusing those people of being part of the segment of society that wants to see the end of the CAF.

Maybe, just maybe, they were all sick and tired of constantly having to deal with racism while in the CAF and wanted to fix a massive problem. .

It wasn't racism that was decried, rather it was religious bigotry that they described as the problem.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Chaplains in peace and in war are two different things. The requirements of peace can't be used to degrade functions necessary in war.

People who seem indifferent about religion might behave differently if they believe, for example, that they stand a 10% chance of being killed in the next week.

 

[btrudy]

It wasn't racism that was decried, rather it was religious bigotry that they described as the problem.

Let's not pretend like various forms of bigotry don't go hand in hand.