GREELY, Ontario (LifeSiteNews) — A former member of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) has revealed his story of the abuse and coercion he faced from the chain of command when he declined the COVID-19 jab.
Serge Faucher of Greely, Ontario, served the CAF honorably for over 39 years. He reached the rank of Major and was an Aerospace Engineering Officer posted to the Chief of Air Force Staff.
In an exclusive interview, Faucher told LifeSiteNews that his career met an abrupt end when Chief of Defense Staff General Wayne Eyre imposed a COVID-19 vaccine mandate on the entire CAF on October 8, 2021.
“This is not about the vaccine” he said. “In the end this is about the abuse of power and these guys used coercion to push people like me out.”
Faucher said when the order came to get the jab he was threatened with an 5(f) release, something he viewed as a stain on an otherwise spotless career.
“My grief is being pushed out before I wanted to. Not on my own terms. Denied a promotion and losing, at a minimum, three years’ salary. I was paid six figures. I lost a minimum of 360 thousand dollars.”
Faucher said this was not the first time he was ordered to take treatments by the chain of command. In 1990 he received pills that were supposed to help with the effects of nerve attacks.
“The Warrant Officer in charge would make us open our mouths and verify we actually swallowed the pills,” he told LifeSiteNews. It didn’t take long: within a day or two I started getting very itchy. To this day, 32 years later, I am still itchy.”
His past experiences, as well as “red flags” in the information sessions on the newly developed COVID vaccine, made him skeptical of blindly following orders this time.
“They said its safe for pregnant women… Anyone that’s ever been pregnant knows you shouldn’t even be drinking tea or coffee, for crying out loud.”
Faucher said the constant use of the phrase “safe and effective” without any citing any sources eventually led to him declining the shots. However, this was not a simple process, he said.
“Everybody was forced to go there and decline in person.”
READ: Canadian military members undeterred after Crown attempts to dismiss lawsuit over COVID jab mandates
Choosing to remain private, Faucher says he did not enter his vaccination status into the system the CAF was using to keep track.
“They went ahead without telling me, and they put it in anyway” he said. “Another major in the shop put my attestation in.”
Faucher is one of hundreds of plaintiffs in the lawsuit that began in June against the Crown. Having read the stories of his fellow plaintiffs, he says what happened to him is only one of the mild cases of abuse.
“I thought my fellow soldiers were better than that, and they’re not,” he said. “I’m sure there’s a lot of good people, but there’s a lot of good people who knew things weren’t on the up and up, and yet they still went along with the whole charade.”
He noted the CAF is severely understaffed, saying, “This is why so many are leaving.”
Despite seeing a need for recruitment, Faucher says the structural issues within the armed forces are too great to be ignored.
“I would never recommend a young person to join the CAF, which is a 180 degree turn from what I used to think,” he said.
Faucher expressed disappointment in the leadership of the CAF which he believes has fundamentally changed in a few short years.
“My greatest disappointment is to see so many supervisors directly abuse their subordinates when it came to the mandates and forget their humanity. We had folks that were told they deserved to be shot and killed if you don’t take the vaccine.”
This lawsuit is one of two mass tort cases against the Crown for its actions against CAF members during the pandemic. Faucher is a participant in the first case which has over 300 plaintiffs and has progressed past the statement of defence. The second case features another 128 plaitiffs and is still waiting for a statement of defence from the crown. Both trials are still “years away” according to the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Catherine Christensen.
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