Cadets and Junior Canadian Rangers undergoing training exercises on two different C-130 Hercules planes found themselves segregated when the unvaccinated cadets were marked with a symbol on their hands..They were then separated from their peers and denied participation..The unvaccinated cadets were isolated at the London airport on May 7..News outlet, True North, interviewed an anonymous parent of one of the cadets who told them her 15-year-old son was distraught after the experience..“His superiors, his captains all were not aware. Everybody thought that they were able to attend, including prior to leaving Saturday morning,” the boy's mother said..“They got on a bus early Saturday morning. From where I live, it’s well over two hours to get to London, so they all travelled together.”.“What he said was that when they came — I don’t know at what point — but the bus stopped, and this army person came on the bus, he asked whoever was vaccinated to put their hands up. And then he asked [those] not vaccinated, in front of everybody, to put up their hands.”.“At some point, he got a zero marked on his hand,” she said. “So did every child that wasn’t vaccinated,” the mother told True North.. Cadet's hand marked for segregationCadet's hand marked for segregation .“Once they offloaded, they weren’t allowed to go on the tarmac where you line up to go on the flight. They then moved over to the concrete area. Being in the concrete area there behind the fence, they actually had the best view of everybody all happy taking pictures and taking videos,” she said..Brigadier-General Jamie Speiser-Blanchet, Commander of Cadets and Junior Canadian Rangers, admitted to True North the cadets had been marked on the hand and apologized the situation had not been handled more appropriately..“Unfortunately, this information was not effectively communicated to cadets and parents at some squadrons. This resulted in approximately 30 cadets arriving at the aerodrome and being unable to enter the flight area and fly on the aircraft with their peers,” said Speiser-Blanchet..“To identify those cadets who could fly, cadets and Junior Canadian Ranger staff asked for a public show of hands and marked each cadet’s hand in accordance with their status — black for [those] able to fly and blue for [those] able to attend the expo only.”.The Brigadier-General said procedures would be amended to avoid similar incidents in the future..“We apologize that this was not communicated in advance and for the disappointment this caused. We also apologize for how vaccination status was inadvertently identified within a group setting as staff determined who was permitted to fly. We are taking immediate action to ensure this oversight does not happen again,” Speiser-Blanchet told True North.
