Christie Blatchford on the oddly partial actions of the officer in charge of more than a dozen Ontario militia regiments as far as religion is concerned:
The Lorne Scots (Peel, Dufferin and Halton Regiment) on parade in Brampton, Ontario on 24 September, 2016.
Photo by Nicholas Russon.
An army brigade commander has told the 14 Ontario reserve regiments under his charge that they must cancel any “church parade” they have planned.
Despite a lack of complaints about the parades, which see soldiers march to their regimental church, Col. Daniel Stepaniuk urged his commanding officers to stop participating in “any event where the primary purpose is liturgical, spiritual or religious … even if the service is non-denominational.”
A custom in the Canadian Army since the time of Confederation, the parades aren’t as common as they once were, though many units still have at least one a year, often tied to Remembrance Day ceremonies.
[…]
First of all, there is the glaring contradiction with Stepaniuk’s harsh stand on church parades and a parade that happened in Toronto last April.
A group of soldiers — I counted between 15 and 20 — were issued weapons, allowed to march in their military uniforms and were escorted by an armoured vehicle in the annual Khalsa parade for Canada’s Sikh community. It is considered a holy day.
The soldiers were from the Lorne Scots, one of Stepaniuk’s reserve units based in Brampton. The CO of the unit said at the time that he signed off on the weapons only after his commander (that would presumably be Stepaniuk, or perhaps the brigadier-general above him) approved the soldiers’ participation.
So weapons worn at a Khalsa Day parade good, though against the rules (The Canadian Armed Forces Manual of Drill and Ceremonial), according to army spokeswoman Karla Gimby.
But soldiers going anywhere near a church, bad, and against rules five years old that no one cared to enforce until now.
But most of all, in such small incremental strikes, does Canadian history and tradition lose strength.
