'He's in our hearts': Family and friends still seek answers one year after Nathan Wise’s disappearance
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
A senior military commander in Western Canada says he doesn't expect much opposition from Canadian Forces personnel over mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations.
Ottawa is requiring federal employees, including members of the military, be fully vaccinated by the end of this month. The government also expects employers in federally regulated industries, including banks and airlines, to do the same.
Brig.-Gen. Bill Fletcher, who's responsible for Western Canada's 3rd Canadian Division, oversees the training of Canadian soldiers and operations from the Pacific Ocean to Thunder Bay, Ont.
There are almost 12,000 regular and reserve forces under his control.
"It's been made very clear by the government that we will follow the same direction that the government has given the public service and we will enforce mandatory vaccines across the Canadian military," Fletcher said in an interview from his office in Edmonton.
He said more than 90 per cent of Canadian military personnel are already double vaccinated and he's not worried about any pushback from what he calls a small percentage.
"We'd already been dealing with the implication for deployments ... of non-vaccinated folks going into a COVID-hot environment or going into an international setting where the host country has said, 'you will be double vaccinated,"' he said.
"Those folks ultimately have to make a decision on whether they'll be vaccinated."
He said he couldn't comment on what would happen to personnel who are not vaccinated. But the federal government has said public servants will be put on unpaid administrative leave if they aren't vaccinated by Oct. 29.
Fletcher said responding to COVID-19 has been a learning process for the Canadian Forces, because it was "nothing that anybody had ever talked about in any of my army training."
Members of the military, he added, have helped with both pandemic assistance and vaccine distribution across the country.
Some calls for assistance included COVID-19 outbreaks in remote northern communities such as Shamattawa First Nation in Manitoba, Fond du Lac Denesuline First Nation in Saskatchewan and Fort Nelson First Nation in British Columbia.
Fletcher said it's been positive for the mental health of army personnel to be able to help out during the pandemic, because sitting around home with their families during the early stages "grew old pretty quickly."
"They're women and men who didn't join to sit at home. It started taking a toll, I think, from a mental-health perspective, certainly from a training perspective," Fletcher said.
"We had soldiers who were considering releasing actually pull their releases to be able to respond on behalf of Canadians. So I think it was very cathartic. We got back into doing what soldiers wanted to do."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2021.
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
The fire burning near Fort McMurray grew from 25 hectares to 5,500 hectares over the weekend.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin began a Cabinet shakeup on Sunday, proposing the replacement of Sergei Shoigu as defence minister as he begins his fifth term in office.
Police are searching for a male suspect after a man was “slashed in neck” on Sunday morning in downtown Toronto and died.
There were some scary moments for several people on a northern Ontario highway caught on video Thursday after a chain reaction following a truck fire.
Health Canada announced various product recalls this week, including electric adapters, armchairs, cannabis edibles and vehicle components.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.