Canadian Military Suggests Standing On Guard For Free

Be all that you can be in the kinda sorta army!

The term “five for fighting” is commonly known in Canada as a five-minute major hockey penalty for dropping the gloves, but it could also work as a recruitment slogan for a new concept of a plan from top military brass to build a standing army of volunteer soldiers with as little as five days of basic training under their belts.

The Ottawa Citizen recently broke the news of an internal “tiger team” tasked not only with boosting the number of part-time weekend warriors in the Canadian Armed Forces reserves by a whopping 400 percent, but ALSO with somehow getting the list of names on the Supplementary Reserve — currently just a few thousand inactive or retired soldiers — up to a new civic fighting force 300,000 strong. Stat.

Age restrictions and fitness standards would be loosened in the hope average people could learn to effectively shoot guns, fly drones or drive trucks in the course of a single work week — although annual refreshers would be required — and semi-soldiers would ideally be made up of current public servants to begin with. Which came as news to them.

No details on how exactly an influx of 300,000 new recruits would be managed were provided in the nine-page leaked document, and the mobilization plan was widely mocked online coming from a military that’s currently short 15,000 souls from its ideal weight of 71,500 soldiers and 30,000 reservists. And its massive sexual misconduct problem isn’t exactly helping with enlistment.

Chief of Defence Staff Jennie Carignan, the country’s top soldier, seemed defensive in a Remembrance Day interview with CTV, saying stories “are not quite correct” and that the plan “is not focused directly to public servants. Our public servants are already contributing extensively to the work we are doing in defence.”

[A reminder Canadians cling tenaciously to the correct British spelling instead of using the American “defense,” which is another hill we’re prepared to die on.]

Reporter David Pugliese responded with a followup story showing the receipts after she or staff wouldn’t elaborate:

The Supplementary or other Reserve should accommodate skilled and unskilled contributors while still differentiating those with previous CAF service from new members. It should initially prioritize volunteer public servants at the federal and provincial/territorial level.

You can see why any army would prefer to start with pre-screened government workers with proven abilities rather than randos off the street but there’s no reason to think they’d be more likely to remember anything useful if wildfires or warfighters were on the horizon. Teaching federal postal workers how to use firearms, for example, doesn’t seem a better idea than someone from literally any other profession.

The plan was signed back in May with preparedness for climate chaos along with war with Russia or China the reasons given for the sudden urgent push without mentioning the elephant in the room, but I’m betting there’d be considerable public interest in volunteering now that it’s becoming clear the mad king may suddenly decide to bomb our fishing fentanyl boats too. Especially now that Piggy says it’s a death sentence to even suggest soldiers should follow the law.

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A problem is that not a lot of youngish people can afford to take a week off work anymore to help defend a country they’ll never afford to buy a home in, but some sort of CERB equivalent for fighting fascism instead of a virus could be a solution. PM Mark Carney’s new budget has pledged $81 billion CAD in military funding over the next five years, and a week’s wages for citizens to play Wolverines once a year seems fair.

But some people may be forced to consider joining the military either way because a lot of their jobs are about to be lost to offset the new budget’s boner for national security. Roughly 30,000 public service gigs are expected to disappear by the end of the 2028-29 fiscal year, but fortunately the Department of National Defence has some good news for them!

Last week the DND announced plans to hire 3,000 workers away from other federal departments in something its calling the Pathway to Mobility initiative. The military is now offering voluntary transfers in fields such as administration, science, healthcare, engineering, IT, and so much more! Jobs may even come with a cool uniform but there’s still no word yet on how many pushups new hires will need to be able to do.

[Ottawa Citizen / CBC / CTV / Wonkette Bluesky]

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