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Canada without a Military?


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This is a dumb topic. We have a military; small though it is. We have always had a military and we always will. We do not have any need for an American style military;

You mean a miltary that is actually capable of fighting someone?

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Caesar:
What sacrifice?? My nephew was in the Navy; 20 years with out a day facing any military action.

Are you suggesting that todays Canadian soldier is not sacraficing anything for thier country....

May i ask what you do for a living,and what sacrafice you have made that allows you to condemn those that serve Canada today.

I think you have to acknowledge that with the enormous tail to tooth ratio in today's CAF most CAF members will never encounter any duties more dangerous than retrieving a misfeed from the innards of the office photocopier.

My brother, when he was in the 2nd RCR used to talk about the legions of clerks and administrators he met in Ottawa who were extremely contented with their positions and had no inclinatioin to ever be posted elsewhere. The senior NCOs in particular, many of whom had spent their entire military careers in office buildings in Ottawa, were adamant that if the CAF ever tried to send them somewhere else they would take their comfortable pensions and leave immediately.

In truth, most uniformed CAF members are interchangeable with clerks and administrators in any other government department. They have comfortable jobs in modern office buildings and sacrifice nothing.

That is not to say I do not have a great deal of respect for those who DO make sacrifices. But they are a small percentage of the CAF.

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Argus:

I think you have to acknowledge that with the enormous tail to tooth ratio in today's CAF most CAF members will never encounter any duties more dangerous than retrieving a misfeed from the innards of the office photocopier.

What does the tooth to tail got to do with todays CAF,( I can't believe i'm about to defend those support wieners.)

Everyone that deploys on todays operations are making great sacrafices for there country.

Yes there are those support guys in NDHQ who have not done a tour but they are far and few between in todays Military,I think there is a big misunderstanding about current military operations....the support guys are in the same combat zone as the combat arms personal...everyone is facing the same enemy....Regardless of your job or function.

In truth, most uniformed CAF members are interchangeable with clerks and administrators in any other government department. They have comfortable jobs in modern office buildings and sacrifice nothing.

Hey I'm not going to lie to you there are lots of office jobs out there Staff work must get done to allow the military to run....But i will ensure you there are alot more field postings out there than you think there is. . within the Navy ,Army, even the airforce are deploying now...

That is not to say I do not have a great deal of respect for those who DO make sacrifices. But they are a small percentage of the CAF.

I'd be just curious to know what you consider a sacrafice..Do they have to give their lives to fit into your catagories,or suffer injuries be it mental or physical..

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  • 2 weeks later...
Does Canada really need a military force? Could we be one of the first nations to exist with one? And do we as Canadians know something the rest of the world does not in regards to self protection?

I was never one to believe mounted police, and farm tools could protect a country a country, but I could be wrong.

Now to be serious, I believe Canada is one of few nations that no one has reason to attack. I can't think of one. Seems like that country America's would run to incase we get blown up by China :lol::lol:

I'm a comedian, and a bad one at that. ;)

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I'd be just curious to know what you consider a sacrafice..Do they have to give their lives to fit into your catagories,or suffer injuries be it mental or physical..

Basically, yes. It is a job that one takes knowing the problems that come with it. I really don't believe most people join the army at a time of peace for Canada with serving one's country as their prime reason. They join because they have no education; the military will pay for training. Perhaps they joined thinking that it attracts the ladies or they like playing with guns. Why did you join Army Guy???

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Hey I'm not going to lie to you there are lots of office jobs out there Staff work must get done to allow the military to run....But i will ensure you there are alot more field postings out there than you think there is. . within the Navy ,Army, even the airforce are deploying now...

Well, I think there was an article stating that a majority of our money spent on the military does go to pay for "civillian" employees.

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I certainly have enjoyed this thread especially IKNOWBEST inputs. I think the thought that Quebecors controlling the Canadian Government is understandable to the extent that any PM of Canada MUST be bilingual which probably leaves out ALOT of Canadians. Further, I think the lack of a Canadian military is understandable given Canada's proximity to the US. What I think the lack of a military doesn't give Canada though is a place at the table of current events. A go with the flow attitude does not go unrecognized by the rest of the world governments or people.

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Which means that posters who don't follow the guidelines and the 'spirit' of Maple Leaf may run the risk of being banned etc. In my view freedom of expression does exist here so long as you can support your claims.

'Support your claims' is a broad brush which runs the risk of censorship. Many a vote at election time is cast from 'a feeling' about so and so or such and such. Sometimes these feelings are crafted from personal experience, things read or seen in the media, or from pure thinking things out. I think most of Iknowbest's opinions come from all three. As far as Greg's differentiation between Quebec leaders and people is concerned, what's the difference if the leadership is elected with an overwhelming plurality?

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Many a vote at election time is cast from 'a feeling' about so and so or such and such.

Making posts on this discussion forum is not analagous to casting a vote since this is not a democracy. Some forums are run that way and that is fine. However this forum is not. Therefore I hold to what I said - if you don't follow the rules and guidelines of the forum then you do risk being banned and a part of those rules are to back up factual claims with reference to sources. This is not in the nature of a personal attack so don't misunderstand what I was saying the first instance.

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Quebecors controlling the Canadian Government is understandable to the extent that any PM of Canada MUST be bilingual which probably leaves out ALOT of Canadians. Further, I think the lack of a Canadian military is understandable given Canada's proximity to the US.

Our primeminister does NOT legally have to be bilingual; it is just advisable if he wants to get the votes from both.

We do have a military; we don't need a large military as we are not an aggressive nation; nor do we go around angering other nations. Our close proximity to the USA is the reason why we must now beef up our military to protect ourselves from enemies of the USA.

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Everyone that deploys on todays operations are making great sacrafices for there country.

Yes there are those support guys in NDHQ who have not done a tour but they are far and few between in todays Military,I think there is a big misunderstanding about current military operations....the support guys are in the same combat zone as the combat arms personal...everyone is facing the same enemy....Regardless of your job or function.

I admit I don't have the facts at my fingertips, but total infantry is something under 7k, is it not? I believe I once read that the CAF had more people human resources people than it had infantry. And more officers than enlisted personnel. The military has also been outsourcing its field supply functions as much as possible, which has raised concern from CAF officers that if a real war came around all the civilians hired to do the support jobs will stay home.

I don't know what percentage of CAF members ever wind up leaving Canada except on holidays, but my perception is they're by far the majority. And that most of those deployed within Canada are in office positions. Now I know that this is neccessary. You have to have clerks and administrators or your soldiers wind up without pay or food. But in the empire building which goes on in the CAF (in any large bureacracy, really) I believe the support functions have grown to take up far too much of a share of the military's budget and manpower.

Hey I'm not going to lie to you there are lots of office jobs out there Staff work must get done to allow the military to run....But i will ensure you there are alot more field postings out there than you think there is. . within the Navy ,Army, even the airforce are deploying now...
I would be pleasantly suprised to see some figures on this. as I said, I haven't seen anything current. We have a number of (largely unneeded) bases within Canada and large deployments to Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia. But by far the largest deployment has always been to NDHQ, and I see no sacrifices among that crowd.
That is not to say I do not have a great deal of respect for those who DO make sacrifices. But they are a small percentage of the CAF.

I'd be just curious to know what you consider a sacrafice..Do they have to give their lives to fit into your catagories,or suffer injuries be it mental or physical..

Let's just say that if your job is in Canada and interchangeable with that of a civilian in Public Works or HRDC and no one is likely to ever stick a gun in your hands you ain't making a big sacrifice. Now if you're in Kosovo, even if you're job is washing down German jeeps, that's something else again.
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I'd be just curious to know what you consider a sacrafice..Do they have to give their lives to fit into your catagories,or suffer injuries be it mental or physical..

Basically, yes. It is a job that one takes knowing the problems that come with it. I really don't believe most people join the army at a time of peace for Canada with serving one's country as their prime reason. They join because they have no education; the military will pay for training. Perhaps they joined thinking that it attracts the ladies or they like playing with guns. Why did you join Army Guy???

I disagree. The military life, and by that I mean those jobs at the pointy end, has a certain appeal to some people, most particularly young men. It's the same kind of appeal jobs like police and firefighters have. Many of those who join do so out of a desire to serve their country, to do good, and, let's admit it, to have a job which doesn't involve moving paperwork from the in-box to the out-box.

It is a regimented life, and some like that It is a life where you may get to travel and see strange places. It is a job where you will almost certainly, depending on your personality, make far more friends, and closer ones, than you ever would at Nortel or Revenue Canada. It is a job where you can obtain a skill set which makes you self-reliant and capable. It is a job (or shold be) which can give you a sense of pride.

There are a lot of intangibles to the desire to join the military, many of which come from the culture in which we grew up.

You really don't get the kind of lazy, uneducated losers you seem to be imagining. It's too hard to get in, and there's too much work involved. It's far easier for such people to sit at home on pogey.

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Making posts on this discussion forum is not analagous to casting a vote since this is not a democracy. Some forums are run that way and that is fine. However this forum is not. Therefore I hold to what I said - if you don't follow the rules and guidelines of the forum then you do risk being banned and a part of those rules are to back up factual claims with reference to sources.

With the advent of Rathergate, what constitutes factual claims? Is not one persons personal experiences factual? Look at Mr. anticlimates postings and call them factual, or some of the others. It seems like some use the coat of 'forum rules' to protect them from the harsh wind of truth, when it suits them.

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Quebecors controlling the Canadian Government is understandable to the extent that any PM of Canada MUST be bilingual which probably leaves out ALOT of Canadians.

Our primeminister does NOT legally have to be bilingual; it is just advisable if he wants to get the votes from both.

That's the point. There are more English speaking than French speaking in Canada, and probably even fewer bilingual speaking. There would be a greater probability that a French speaking Canadian would be bilingual, and guess what: French speaking control of the Canadian Federal Government.

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French speaking control of the Canadian Federal Government.

Just where did you get that little tidbit of information. To work for the federal government most position require one to be bilingual.

Treasury Board figures show that 78% of bilingual positions go to Francophones.

There are a variety of *very* obvious sociological and linguistic reasons why virtually all the bilinguals in his country are Francophones. They have to do with the complexity of French, the foreigness of a number of French linguistic concepts to Anglos, and the dominance of English (american) culture which causes so many young Francophones to learn and keep English and so few Anglophones, comparatively speaking, to learn and retain French.

Now with the recent crackdown in bilingualism in the civil service (an absolute requirement that all management and executive positions in Ottawa be not merely bilingual but at the highest level of fluency (CCC), and the again recent elimination of the "bilingual non-imperative" job designation which allowed people to win a job and then be trained in the second language, that number (78% Francophone) will unquestionably grow higher.

It takes no great leap of the imagination to see 78% becoming 85-90% because of this.

Furthermore, a large proportion of the Anglos in these bilingual positions are, in my experience (a civil servant in Ottawa), Quebecers. Only in the French mileau of Quebec do Anglos seem to learn French to the degree neccesary to pass the stringent federal language tests.

Now add in the fact the prime minister has been a Quebecer for all but brief periods of time since the sixties, and the lavish attention spent on Quebec in a desperate effort at appeasing its nationalists, and you have both political and bureacratic arms of government largely focused on the needs and wants of Quebec - to the detriment of the rest of us.

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Guest eureka
  1965  1971  1975  1980  1985  1990  1997

Percentage  21  18  25.6  26.7  27.8  28.3  29.2

(Source: Office of the Commission of Official Languages, Annual Report, 1974 – 1997, found in Language Legislation and Official Bilingualism: The Uneasy Coexistence of Canada’s Language Communities)

These are percentages of civil servants who are Francophones - and by no means were all of them Quebeckers. Further, by no means are virtually all the bilinguals in Canada, Francophone. In the same year (1997) 14% of Anglophones outside of Quebec were objectively bilingual,

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Now add in the fact the prime minister has been a Quebecer for all but brief periods of time since the sixties, and the lavish attention spent on Quebec in a desperate effort at appeasing its nationalists, and you have both political and bureacratic arms of government largely focused on the needs and wants of Quebec - to the detriment of the rest of us.

Kind of like the tail wagging the dog, I would say. In my humble opinion, I think separation might be a good thing. In Canada affirmative action is not built on race, but language. You just do not call it affirmative action. In the end, the issue is more than DISCRIMINATION, it is control of the destiny of the country.

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Now with the recent crackdown in bilingualism in the civil service (an absolute requirement that all management and executive positions in Ottawa be not merely bilingual but at the highest level of fluency (CCC), and the again recent elimination of the "bilingual non-imperative" job designation which allowed people to win a job and then be trained in the second language, that number (78% Francophone) will unquestionably grow higher.

Crackdowns. I had no idea that there was such stuff going on in Canada. I would think that as with affirmative action, if a percentage of the population was such and such, that percentage should be reflected in the jobs available. If 80% of the people were english speaking, 80% of the jobs should go to them, but I guess that is not how it works in Canada.

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  1965   1971   1975   1980   1985   1990   1997

Percentage  21  18  25.6  26.7  27.8  28.3  29.2

(Source: Office of the Commission of Official Languages, Annual Report, 1974 – 1997, found in Language Legislation and Official Bilingualism: The Uneasy Coexistence of Canada’s Language Communities)

These are percentages of civil servants who are Francophones - and by no means were all of them Quebeckers. Further, by no means are virtually all the bilinguals in Canada, Francophone. In the same year (1997) 14% of Anglophones outside of Quebec were objectively bilingual,

The numbers are old, but accurate in that they show a steady upward increase in Francophone numbers. They also count all civil servants spread across the country. The numbers in Ottawa, where all the decisions are made, where program are designed, budgets are set, priorities are decided, are much more heavily weighted with Francophones. Two thirds of all jobs in Ottawa, and 100% of all management and executive jobs, require fluency in both languages.

Further, the ranks of Anglos, especially in the senior ranks, are old. A huge chunk are boomers who came in before the bilingual requirements were really clamped down hard. They are retiring in droves now. The new people coming in are Francophones. The last two external competitions my branch held, both for entry level clerks, and entry level officers, required the candidates pass bilingualism tests before they could even write the tests.

I was among those looking at the resulting pool established for clerks in order to hire some. We looked at the entire pool of available CR-03s and CR-04s, about forty peple. Not one was an Anglophone. The closest I saw was one girl whose father was English (mother was French). That was at the BBB level. The fluency required of managers is "CCC" - much higher.

Now as to the suggestion 14% of Anglos outside Quebec were bilingual. That's incorrect. According to the 2001 census 9% of Anglophones responded that they were bilingual - nationwide. What you are probably referring to is the finding that in the 15-19 age group the bilingualism rate (self described) among Anglos outside Quebec was 14.7%, which was "twice that of the Anglo population as a whole". However, as the report goes on to note, most of them lose that ability after they graduate from high school due to lack of use or need.

So about 7% of anglos outside Quebec describe themselves to Census as bilingual. However, a huge number of them are NOT bilingual enough to pass government tests. I have known people who were easily able to communicate in French but who could not pass the reading, writing, and oral comprehension tests. Your remembered high school French will NOT cut it. People have gone through French immersion programs from kindergarten through high school and been unable to pass these tests.

A recently released study obtained and printed in the Ottawa Citzen found that even senior anglo civil servants granted full-time language training for an extended period of time (most public servants can no longer obtain such training) failed their subsequent French language tests two thirds of the time. The pass rate for Francophones in English is just over 80%.

Within Quebec, btw, according to 2001 census figures, 66% of Anglophones described themselves as bilingual.

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Now with the recent crackdown in bilingualism in the civil service (an absolute requirement that all management and executive positions in Ottawa be not merely bilingual but at the highest level of fluency (CCC), and the again recent elimination of the "bilingual non-imperative" job designation which allowed people to win a job and then be trained in the second language, that number (78% Francophone) will unquestionably grow higher.

Crackdowns. I had no idea that there was such stuff going on in Canada. I would think that as with affirmative action, if a percentage of the population was such and such, that percentage should be reflected in the jobs available. If 80% of the people were english speaking, 80% of the jobs should go to them, but I guess that is not how it works in Canada.

Most Canadians tell the pollsters they support bilingualism. That is because most are not aware of what it means. They believe it means that those serving the public must be bilingual, or at least, someone at the counter, so to speak, must be bilingual. And that if a Francophone calls a government number they can get service in French. That is the original idea. It has been greatly expanded since then.

The principal source of the expansion was the decision that all public servants had the right to work in the language of their choice. That means that if you have fifty Anglo employees, and one Francophone employee, the manager must be bilingual. Furthermore, his manager must now be bilingual, and HIS. Also, all the internal staff who serve the employees, from messengers, to security guards, from HR clerks to IT people, must also be bilingual - and, of course, now all THEIR managers must be bilingual too.

And no, it doesn't matter if that one French employee was specifically hired because he was fluent in both languages.

The number of public service jobs which require bilingualism has jumped from 28% to 38% in the last two decades. And the fluency level has risen from "AAA" or therabouts for clerks, to "BBB". Managers have gone up from "BBB" to "CCC", again, a higher designation requiring perfect fluency.

At the same time funding for internal language training has been curtailed, the opportunity to apply for a job and be hired based on qualifications - and THEN be trained in the second language is being eliminated.

I can tell you that of the managers on my floor who are English, ALL of them got their jobs due to their knowledge and experience, and THEN benefited from language training. That will soon no longer be possible.

All of them are getting on in years, though, nearing retirement. Of the last five newly promoted managers in my directorate four were Francophones and one was an Anglo from Quebec.

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This is worse than affirmative action. You can not change your race, but you can THEORITICALLY change your language skill, so you can use it as a basis for discrimination. Actually, Canada is not the only country in the world with two official languages. Switzerland is one. It would be interesting to discover how they handle their language problem. They have three official languages. I am sure they do not have trilingualists in every position.

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Ceasar:

Basically, yes. It is a job that one takes knowing the problems that come with it. I really don't believe most people join the army at a time of peace for Canada with serving one's country as their prime reason. They join because they have no education; the military will pay for training. Perhaps they joined thinking that it attracts the ladies or they like playing with guns. Why did you join Army Guy???

Again, you are posting misinformation, during the recruitment phase everyone must take a seris of IQ tests, phyiscal tests, and a full medical...Because of DND's low recruitment numbers they are able to pick the cream of the crop....Todays Non commisioned members have at a min grade 12 or 1 year collage or univeristy...officer requirements are to have one or more degrees eithier earned before hand or earned through the officer training program.

I assure you that during the recruitment phase and the Basic training phase all those not mentally stable or have other asperations are weeded out.

I joined the military because it was what my father did and his father before him, that and i wanted the adventure to see the world....but after joining it was about joining a very small group of men and women who do have the honour of serving this country....

Well, I think there was an article stating that a majority of our money spent on the military does go to pay for "civillian" employees.

Not true, current military members number around 53,000 while civilian employees number in around 38,000 that are directly employed by DND. Civilian employee numbers are dropping rapidily, as funding dries up, DND has to make cuts some where.

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Argus:

I admit I don't have the facts at my fingertips, but total infantry is something under 7k, is it not?

Total numbers for just the Infantry would be around 4800 pers, keep in mind they are not the only Combat Arms ( fighting forces) in the Army there is Armoured Corps,Arty corps, Combat Engs, Combat Service Support. whose numbers round off at just above 16,000 personal.

I believe I once read that the CAF had more people human resources people than it had infantry. And more officers than enlisted personnel.

Yes you are right, an effective modern army requires 10 support pers for every combat arms pers deployed. However Canada does not have those numbers maybe a 6 to 1 ratio.

And there are 2 soldiers for every officer in the CAF, but this has been a problem for years, to many senior Officer ranks...it is both a polictical and DND problem.

The military has also been outsourcing its field supply functions as much as possible, which has raised concern from CAF officers that if a real war came around all the civilians hired to do the support jobs will stay home.

Yes they are outsourcing some of support functions to civilain companies, this was orginally done to give the support side a break in the amount of deployments they had to do, at present i believe only 30 to 40 % of the postions are held by these companys, to include supply, cooks,maint ,even some transport postions. DND still maintains a healthy military presence to assist with camp security, and other military duties.

I don't know what percentage of CAF members ever wind up leaving Canada except on holidays, but my perception is they're by far the majority.

The army has approx 16,000 pers in total about 11 to 12,000 are deployablethe rest are unfit,medically or in a non deployable postion, such as the top command element...

those pers are divided amongst 3 Brigade groups approx 4 to 5,000 pers each...each brigade group is then divided into 2 battle groups of about 1200 to 1500 personal....

the remainder are used as training cadra...

Each battle group trains for 6 months, deploys on operations for 6 months then is supposed to have 1 year to reorganise and get it's people updated on trades courses...

that works if Canada only has one mission,but we have serveral ongoing at the same time Bosina ,Haitia and Afgan all draw off the same number of troops to the piont were an army person can almost garentee an operation once a year.

And that most of those deployed within Canada are in office positions. Now I know that this is neccessary. You have to have clerks and administrators or your soldiers wind up without pay or food. But in the empire building which goes on in the CAF (in any large bureacracy, really) I believe the support functions have grown to take up far too much of a share of the military's budget and manpower.

Like i have said before you need a good 10 to 1 ratio to maintain the combat arms branch..All those clerks, you talk about take thier turns manning the defensive postions around each camp, do thier share of patrols, veh convoys,etc,etc,they are just as exposed to the bad guys as us Infantry guys.

I

I would be pleasantly suprised to see some figures on this. as I said, I haven't seen anything current. We have a number of (largely unneeded) bases within Canada and large deployments to Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia But by far the largest deployment has always been to NDHQ, and I see no sacrifices among that crowd.

The Navy was so over tasked it was robbing trained crew from some of the few ships doing refit to go back on operations ....patrolling the gulf in support of operations in Afgan and the current Iraq war....

the Airforce well not so hard hit, but does have a few deployments as well for maritime patrol aircraft, CF-18's for Bosina, and a believe a herc detactment in support of Afgan.

So although NDHQ is a large organization, it does contribute to each mission with some of the command element both deployed and in Canada to ensure when the poop hits the fan we that are deployed can get out...

My piont is that regardless of your element or job odd's are you are going to be deployed on operations on a regular basis. and until DND really increases thier numbers this will always be a major problem.

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