Recently there was a “take your kids to work” day which I believe is done each year to give kids a look a what Mom and Pop actually do at work. It seems the Government has a better idea.
A post media opinion editorial found in the Toronto Sun on 12 November, 2025 had the following to say:
“Postmedia reported this week that, on a voluntary basis, federal and provincial employees would be given a one-week training course a year in how to handle firearms, drive trucks and fly drones, according to the directive signed by Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan and deputy defence minister Stefanie Beck on May 30. That seems like a short training period to learn such vital skills. Civilians would not be issued uniforms, and fitness requirements would be relaxed.
In an ironic twist, the government that’s actively trying to buy back now-prohibited guns from law-abiding citizens who actually know how to shoot is going to pay to train civil servants overseeing those confiscations to use those weapons”.
The line I read carefully is; “that seems like a short training period to learn such vital skills”. No kidding!
Now having had somewhat extensive experience in both the civil service world and the shooting world, a couple of things come to mind.
First, most civil servants seem to be female. I don’t want to get into the ideology behind that but it just seems to be true in most instances. Most functions of the civil service are administrative in nature. That is just the way it is.
During the first civil service strike here in Ontario under the watchful eye of Mr. Harris I was a union local president with some two hundred workers on the picket lines. Of those workers only about ten percent were male workers.
Of the female workers, a majority of them were originally from countries other than Canada with little or no knowledge of Canadian labour relations, the right to strike or picketing. It took the entire eight weeks of the strike to come to grips with what they were expected to do. The military, it seems wants it done in one week.
Teaching an audience such as this, the skills mentioned above in a week, seems a bit optimistic in my view. However, the two ladies that put forth this idea above seem to think it is priceless!
The second thing that comes to mind is a week to train civil servants how to shoot, drive a truck and fly drones? My experience in handling firearms goes back to the late nineteen sixties, and recreational shooting, to the turn of this current century. I feel I am still learning.
Yes, I have driven a truck along the way and it does take time to get used to it. I know, women did it during WW2 and I am sure they could again, but in a week? Of drones, I am ignorant.
Now, the bright lights from the military have been thinking about how to increase our military presence from back in the late spring according to the article and this is what they come up with? Sounds like a numbers game.
Other countries have wrestled with how to augment their standing military strength and have come up with some pretty innovative ideas. Finland and Switzerland come to mind. Makes interesting reading.
Now, I would like to hear from our military minds how quickly these people are expected to respond if called up in an emergency. It seems that most civil servants want to work at home now after Covid to look after the kids so they don’t have to “take your kids to work”!