OTTAWA, Ontario (LifeSiteNews) — Leader of the People’s Party of Canada, Maxime Bernier, has warned that the newly appointed head of the Canadian Armed Forces, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Lieut.-Gen. Jennie Carignan, is a “woke apparatchik” known for “promoting gender identity nonsense.” 

In a July 4 post on X, Bernier condemned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent appointment of Carignan as the military’s CDS, pointing to her long-stranding record of pushing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and the LGBT agenda. 

“The new boss of the Canadian Armed Forces appointed by Trudeau yesterday is the woke apparatchik who brought DEI rules and diversity hiring quotas, turned the CAF into an organization promoting gender identity nonsense, and introduced an ‘inclusive’ dress code so ridiculous it just had to be made more restrictive again,” stated Bernier.  

The new boss of the Canadian Armed Forces appointed by Trudeau yesterday is the woke apparatchik who brought DEI rules and diversity hiring quotas, turned the CAF into an organization promoting gender identity nonsense, and introduced an ‘inclusive” dress code so ridiculous it… pic.twitter.com/j1oOw40X60

— Maxime Bernier (@MaximeBernier) July 4, 2024

“Now she’ll have full power to make sure we have an army of sissies and minority hires with outdated equipment who couldn’t even repel an invasion from Iceland,” he warned.   

Carignan was appointed to her new position on July 3, according to a press release from Trudeau’s office. She became the first woman to lead the Canadian Armed Forces. 

In the press release, Carignan is celebrated for “leading efforts to transform the culture of the CAF.” 

Since Trudeau took office, the Canadian military has become increasingly woke and has been forcing LGBT ideology on its personnel.  Interestingly, at the same time, military recruitment has plummeted.     

In April, Canada’s first “transgender” military chaplain was suspended for alleged sexual harassment, after he reportedly sought to grope a male soldier at the Royal Military College while drunk.  

As LifeSiteNews previously reported, the military spent Canadians’ tax dollars on polls, guest speakers, presentations, workshops, and LGBT flags. The workshops covered topics including “the gendered nature of security,” while one talk discussed “integrating gender and diversity perspectives.”   

In 2021, the defence department revealed that they have two separate committees and eight programs which worked to appoint homosexual advisors to “innovate” religious instruction and gender-neutral uniforms.     

In June of 2023, the Canadian military was criticized for “raising the pride flag” in honor of the “2SLGBTQI+ communities.”       

That same month, Canadian troops in Latvia were forced to purchase their own helmets and food when the Trudeau government failed to provide proper supplies. Weeks later, Trudeau lectured the same troops on “climate change” and disinformation.        

Last November, officials admitted that the nation’s military is shrinking to dangerously low numbers as Trudeau continues to push the LGBT agenda on Canadian soldiers. In addition to low recruitment, the military is struggling to retain soldiers.       

A Canadian Armed Force member previously told LifeSiteNews that between the COVID vaccine mandates and pushing the LGBT agenda, Canadians soldiers have lost confidence in the military.       

“And it’s not stopping with the gender ideology; it’s going to include medical assistance in dying,” he added. “There’s something fundamentally changing. And for most people, it doesn’t sit well with them.”     

He explained that ideological agendas are driving away new recruits, as the primary source of recruitment for the military is “Saskatchewan farm boys” who want to serve Canada – not radical left-wing ideologues.     

“That farm boy looks at the army and with the blue hair and the face, piercings and ideologies and all that stuff,” he said. “And it doesn’t have the same pull because it doesn’t represent the farm boy’s values.”      

“This is not the Canada that we signed up to defend. It’s an alien ideology that people don’t resonate with,” he continued. “These are not Canadian values of freedom and democracy. These are cancel culture values of censorship, of authoritarianism, of radical ideologies that are alien to our culture.”     

In one such example of how this ideological mandate has impacted soldiers, in January, a Commanding Officer of the 4th Canadian Division Support Group (CDSG) of the Greater Toronto Area Detachment threatened personnel who dared to throw out tampon dispensers which had been placed in men’s bathrooms as part of the military’s new “inclusion” policy.