Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen, good morning.
I'm Colonel Sylvain Maurais, a member of the Royal Canadian Chaplain Service. I have served the Canadian Armed Forces as a military chaplain since 1985. Presently, I fulfill the duties of Director of Chaplaincy Services and of Chaplain Branch Advisor. In these functions, I lead the administration of Canadian Armed Forces chaplain recruiting and training, as well as the development of policy, communication, and strategy for the Chaplain Service. The Chaplain Branch is composed of over 200 Regular Force chaplains and over 150 Reserve Force chaplains coming from diverse Christian, Jewish, and Muslim faith traditions.
The Royal Canadian Chaplain Service mission is to exercise moral leadership by offering care, support, and advice for the spiritual well-being of all members of the defence team and military families, always respecting the freedom of conscience and religion of each person.
Our vision is to be a caring and compassionate interfaith chaplaincy that empowers our people morally and spiritually to be strong, resilient, and ready in their noble mission for the defence of security and the protection of freedom and peace at home and abroad. We serve those who serve and as chaplains we are with them in all stages of their military life and career. It begins at basic training where we train with them, we deploy with them, and we also have direct access to family members. We accompany them in times of joy: when they get married; when they have children; for baptisms; and also in times of grief when people are dying and offering their life for the cause of security and peace and when they are injured. We care for the spiritual well-being of all, and we also promote the moral and spiritual development of all, respecting the freedom of conscience and religion of each person.
The care of the moral and spiritual well-being of the Defence Team and families calls chaplains to exercise what we refer to as a “ministry of presence”. Chaplains have nothing to offer but to be with people. We walk with them, we journey alongside them, we accompany them, we know them, and we offer them an attentive, sympathetic, and non-judgmental ear. The more we get to know our flock, the better equipped we are to offer compassion to those who are suffering, to those who are in need, be they sick, wounded, detainees, prisoners of war, or bereaved. We have assisted all the commanding officers in every situation where loved ones needed to be notified of a death.
Chaplains are often on the front lines when dealing with cases of conflict, abuse of power, or professional misconduct in the workplace or at home. Chaplains also make recommendations concerning compassionate cases. In addition, we promote religious freedom. We facilitate the celebration of important moments in people's lives, according to their own spiritual and religious traditions. We facilitate and encourage the promotion of spiritual and religious diversity within the Forces, which includes not only diverse beliefs, but also the freedom to not believe, because that too is a spiritual dimension of human beings.
We do all this work in collaboration with all the Canadian Armed Forces specialists, including those working in health services, the Defence Ethics Program staff, and everyone in personnel support.
The promotion of the moral and spiritual development of all members of the defence community calls on our chaplains to advise the defence leadership on all moral, spiritual, and religious issues that affect the operational effectiveness of the Canadian Armed Forces, the morale of our people and their well-being.
We lean also on the great research that is done by the director general of military personnel research and analysis. We have done great research recently on what we mean by spiritual well-being, spiritual wellness, and spiritual resilience in order to have a common evidence-based definition from psychosocial research that allows us to have a spiritual fitness continuum, with indicators on how people are morally and spiritually healthy. Thank you, DGMPRA.
Also, based on this, chaplains are developing new capabilities to provide training and education on spiritual resilience and moral development. We don't want to have people come and see us just when people die or when people are in great need. We have to be stronger in being part of the prevention of the risk of moral and spiritual injury, through training and education.
Finally, spiritual wellness helps our people, and all of us, to find meaning and purpose in life. It helps us to remain hopeful in hopeless situations. It is the capacity within us to inspire faith in ourselves; in others; and for many, in a higher power, or transcendent reality. It sometimes gives us the strength to forgive ourselves and to forgive others. It is the central development aspect of our moral character, of our values and beliefs. It helps us not only to honour our own beliefs but to be open and respectful of the beliefs of others. Also, it allows us to express the joy and the sadness of life through sacred rituals that help us to believe that there are things that go beyond time and space.
I'm very proud of what we do. I love what I do. And mainly, I love the people of the defence community for what they do for our country. They deserve all the best support they can get.