Canadian military orders podcaster to delete episodes with sniper who criticized vaccine mandates

The Canadian military has demanded that a US podcaster delete episodes of his podcast in which a former Canadian sniper reveals sensitive information and speaks out against the country’s COVID vaccine mandate.

Shawn Ryan, an ex-Navy SEAL, was sent a cease and desist letter last week after airing an interview with former Canadian counterterrorism sniper Dallas Alexander disclosing that he made the 2.2-mile record-breaking shot that killed an ISIS fighter in 2017.

The podcaster also published a classified video of the killing, which the military said was never authorized for public release.

The Canadian military demanded that the two-episode interview be taken down across all social media platforms in the interest of national security.

“[Y]our podcast series contained information or material that has been properly classified and protected, and which is sensitive information such that its public release is injurious to Canadian national security, national deference, and international relations,” the letter, shared by Ryan on social media, stated.

Ryan complied with the demand but claimed that the Canadian military was only interested in censoring the interview over Alexander’s claims he left the armed forces for refusing to get vaccinated against Covid-19.

In one of the episodes, Alexander also speaks out against Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

The episodes were either taken down completely or partially redacted. One episode titled “Canadian Gov does NOT want you to see this / Special Ops Sniper Refuses COVID Vaccine Gets Fired” was still up on Ryan’s YouTube channel Thursday, but was “censored at the request” of the Canadian military.

“However, it was ultimately my decision to pull the video. I do not want to be on the wrong side of this if there was, in fact, some kind of sensitive or “classified” information that would jeopardize or compromise the unit or any operators currently serving,” Ryan said Tuesday.

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Though Alexander does tell Ryan why he left the elite Joint Task Force-2, the Canadian defense department was more concerned with Alexander’s revelation that he was a central player in a top-secret and sensitive operation.

Another JTF2 member named Josh also shared details of the mission in the interview, telling Ryan that the bullet traveled around 10 seconds before it struck the gunman

In the background of the video, commandos could be heard cheering when the man dropped dead, Ottawa Citizen reported.

Alexander told the Epoch Times he decided to share the video after consulting with “a lot of current members of the unit to get arcs and have had an amazing response from the community, saying I represented the unit well and they are proud. Many, many.”

Though he took down the videos, Ryan said he would re-post them in their entirety unless they were thoroughly reviewed and proved to contain national security risks.

A lawyer representing Ryan submitted a response letter to the military calling their cease and desist “misplaced” and that it contains “legally insufficient claims.”