It is no secret that security conditions in the world as a whole are changing. Two major conflicts are underway in both the Ukraine and Gaza. Authoritarian regimes are expanding both their influence and arms capabilities and NATO has had to increase its European participation as a result.
Canada on the other hand is both shirking its responsibilities to NATO and at the same time downsizing its military capabilities at home and abroad and then complaining that nobody wants to volunteer to serve, as manpower drops to disastrous levels. According to David Pugliese in the National Post of 28 May, 2024:
“Canada’s soldiers are leaving the ranks because of toxic military leadership, a top adviser to the chief of the defence staff has warned”.
Yeah, and look at how our government treats our veterans.
But guess what, we are only a short snowmobile ride across the Arctic and a couple of forty-ouncers of Smirnoff’s from one of the bad guys!
Tasha Kheiriddin is now voicing a concern that I have had for many months now. In an article in the National Post of 28 May, 2024 we find the following which states in part:
“If Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party wins his national election on July 4, all 18-year-olds in the U.K, will be required to complete a year of national service, either military or civilian… The plan, costing 2.5 billion pounds annually, is intended to foster “a society where people mix with people outside their own communities, mix with people from different backgrounds, different religions, different income levels”… Canada should do the same… Why? Because like the U.K., Canada has become a society of silos… Instead of diversity being our strength it has become our Achilles heel — and a weakness for malign foreign states to exploit”.
A sound argument from the British perspective. But diversity is not the only issue facing us here in Canada.
When my grandsons went to public school some years ago, they received academic assistance from someone called an “educational assistant”. These dedicated helpers worked in such areas as reading, study habits, time management and so on. Now, they are gone.
Our educational system here at home is also a disaster. I have a source inside the system who has seen the system deteriorate to the point of imploding. Kids have no discipline, work ethic, concentration, manners, respect for teachers or each other and the average classroom operates along the lines of a Buffalo stampede for most of the day. Teachers have no way to control their class as this authority has been stripped from them by an educational system gone too far left and woke in its application. The only time our Minister of Education has ever been near a real, non-staged classroom, is when shots were fired at a Jewish school and he finally saw fit to show up for another photo opportunity. Put him in a real classroom and that ever white shirt he shows up in would be wrinkled and soaked in sweat by noon of his first day!
I have often voiced the opinion that to restore respect and discipline, along with some much needed work skills, Canada should consider a system of national service (or, Draft, Conscription or whatever label you give it), because those kids, when they finish in a school system in which you can never fail, will never work. They will all have their graduate degrees in unemployment and many will fill the ever growing ranks of those living on the streets of our urban landscapes.
Besides, those coming out of our schools these days (you only need grade ten folks) would not like any military vehicle that didn’t have heated seats and as most can’t tell time unless it is digital, God forbid a Drill Sergeant should yell at them to get our of bed at 0-six-hundred hours!
However, when a society like Canada starts to do things like banning “military style” firearms and attempting to disarm legal gun owners, people take a jaundiced view of military service at best and run like cock-roaches in a well lit room from recruiting offices throughout the country.
Canada has always called on volunteers to join the military in times of peril and the people of Canada have always stepped forward. But, we live in a different world now, so don’t expect the same enthusiastic response any time soon.
Yes, the world has changed, indeed.