Maybe if the mandatory service were installing fiber to rural areas the way we managed to get copper out there or dealing with infrastructure (especially water and schools) in Indigenous and remote communities. Maybe health care or emergency response.
But guns and bombs? No thanks.
Also, I’m old enough to be exempt by any rational measure. If it came to a vote, my vote shouldn’t be counted.
Or building socialized housing 🏘️🛠️
Yes, that too!
I’m glad I’m starting to get to be old enough to be exempt for any mandatory national service but damn if that wouldn’t make this country worse overall.
I agree. I’m also not a huge fan of rebranding “military conscription” as “national service”. There have been people talking about “national service” in ways that specifically excluded military service. This feels like yet another case of the right stealing a term from the left and redefining it to suit themselves. It’s something they have been doing with national and religious symbols and slogans forever as a way to hide their true intentions.
One thing I find particularly concerning is that military conscription has generally been reserved for invasion or active defense. What are they not telling us?
Decent article but senseless headline. Nobody ever positioned mandatory service as a method to make Canadians love their country…
A conservative columnist, this is a reply to them but the first one’s opinion might influence people’s opinion and conservative programs.
Probably not nobody, but that shouldn’t be the main point. We don’t want to be defenceless anymore.
That being said, I don’t look forward to being drafted into such a shitty military culture.
Nobody is seriously talking about mandatory service in Canada are they? The draft and conscription have been political suicide in Canada for basically the country’s entire history as an independent nation. To my knowledge, the only countries where national service has any political traction are countries with a threatening neighbour right on their doorstep like Korea and Israel
1st world countries like Singapore and Norway have mandatory service too
The incumbent (Tory) party in the UK has included national service in their campaign leading up to next month’s
federal[edit: national] election.https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c988jdxl02vo
The proposed new scheme would not be conscription, where people are legally required to join the armed forces for a period. But it would compel people by law to complete a community programme over a 12-month period, or enrol in a year-long military training scheme, when they turn 18.
Yeah the article mentions that. And it mentions some conservative newspapers here are supporting the UK tories. But is anybody seriously talking about it for here?
I hope not, but conservative bad ideas do seem highly contagious.
Sorry to be that guy but it’s just too jarring to me
We don’t have federal elections it’s a general election.
Apologies, corrected to national. More importantly, how do you feel about the incumbent party in your country planning to introduce soft conscription?
I don’t think conscription is really the way to go. Make people do a thing they don’t want to do then hand them a gun makes me nervous.
Besides how is he paying for it pretty sure the military is one of those things they constantly want to make more “efficient”
Poilievre is I think.
Then he can be the first one to be conscripted.
What a waste of skin.
Source? I’m no fan of PP, but I haven’t heard that he would actually support this.
Switzerland does have a mandatory service for all men, and doesn’t have belligerent neighbours… But the Swiss army is still very much stuck in the cold war mindset of being afraid of an invasion. Last time there was a vote, the people refused to abolish the militia system.
Tbh I don’t think military service is a problem as long as it’s only used for defence and is properly setup, instead of have nutjobs running the small professional army and wanting war because they trained their whole life for it…
I mean it’s worth it for the cool knives alone.
Nobody is seriously talking about mandatory service in Canada are they?
The NatPo article that this article is responding to is the first time I’ve heard about it in recent years.
Rest the opinion piece and you’ll know who suggested it.
Yeah a journalist. I’m asking if anyone who matters is suggesting it.
Columnist, not a journalist, people need to start understanding the difference
I thought it was the UK Conservative party suggesting that, it’s happening at the same time in Canada too?
According to the article the conservative party in Canada has also suggested it, in order to fix the “hate” young Canadians are starting to have for Canada.
Young Canadians don’t hate Canada; they hate the boneheaded ideas thought up in Parliament and they hate that they’ve been priced out of owning a part of Canada.
If you don’t have a voice or land, and see no hope that you ever will, why would you be happy with how things are?
they hate the boneheaded ideas thought up in Parliament
Such as this bonehead “national service” idea that a few conservative parliamentarians are suggesting?
This idea isn’t one coming from the NDP or Liberals.
This is the first I’ve heard of it, but apparently Canada’s Conservatives are interested. Conservatives always seem to have an ear out for the worst ideas from each other.
According to the article it’s the UK but Nat Post has jumped on it
How about we just tax the hell out of the rich people and billionaires in the country and use their money to pay for all our problems?
Then we can talk about national service after if that doesn’t work
Could take back the 18B of tax credits, interest free loans and grants given to the oil and gas sector last year?
As an American this is depressing, Canada was always me mental escape hatch. “Well I’ll just move to Canada if shit gets to bad here”
Which I know is hella reductive and not nearly as simple as it sounds, but who needs logic
Outside of gun control and health care, Canada is USA minus a few years. The same stupid cultural shit happens here too just a bit later
Moved from the USA over 25 years ago. Never moving back, though I visit. I sum it up like this: “Canada: better than the States—and no better than that.”
We sadly keep using the wrong yardstick. Or metre. I do like that we have metric.
Especially in Alberta
it’s not all bad. soon they’ll get cellphones and flat screen tvs!
Don’t fret - yet. At this point this is just some asshole at the National Post stating a dumbass opinion in light of discussions in the UK.
Let’s see what happens after 2025, though…I do know the CF has a very real recruitment problem right now. I have mixed feelings about the military, but I’m truly hoping conscription isn’t the road they go down versus, oh IDK, effectively dealing with sexual assault in the ranks and paying soliders a good enough wage that they don’t need to use food banks while training in urban centres - at minimum.
My wife is in the CAF, and when she heard about Sunak proposing this brain dead idea from our family in the UK, her first reaction was that nothing would fill her with more dread than the idea of working alongside a group of people who absolutely do not want to be there.
The idea that you could even get a draftee through the modern CAF’s training processes is laughable. I don’t think the average person has the slightest clue what it takes to be something like an Infanteer. The course has a 60% injury rate… As in 60% of each platoon will be injured badly enough that they’re taken off course and have to retry. It took my wife two attempts, and that was doing well. Some people at Meaford were on their fifth or sixth. She’s still waiting to find out if she has permanent nerve damage in her toe from one of the defensive exercises where she spent eight hours in manning a machine gun nest at night, lying in a puddle of water, in sub zero temperatures.
The nightmare they put you through on DP-1 is designed to weed out anyone who does not absolutely want to be there with a passion verging on insanity. Nothing is more important than knowing, with absolutely certainty, that the people standing next to you are just as dedicated as you are. That you can depend on them to stand with you, fight with you, and drag your ass out of there if things go really bad.
And we already know how to fix our recruitment; it’s the onboarding process. They recently opened up eligibility to people on PRs, and they got enough qualified applicants to completely fill our manpower shortfall. A year later all of them were still waiting for their security check and medical, and most had dropped out of the process because they couldn’t keep waiting. That’s why we have a recruitment crisis. People want to serve, but no one can wait a year to hear back from a job interview.
Well, that and the fact that members literally can’t afford housing next to the bases they’re assigned to because military housing is desparately underfunded and the civilian housing market is an investment portfolio for the rich.
Does the mandatory national service pay $30+/hour, with raises if you stay voluntarily after the mandatory period is finished? That might do it.
$30/h today and still $30/h 20 years from now and they’ll wonder why people are upset again.
Classic “our model doesn’t work anymore for some reason”. How about instead of pay we try to “modernize” it with [insert buzzword]?
Let’s modernize it with AI that will get the kids interested.
Yeah, that was my first thought. If it was a guaranteed well-paying career like it used to be maybe it would change the mood in here. Otherwise, no, it’s just a way to have a less pathetic military.
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Canadian government just wants mindless drones. They care about the general population as a resource.
If they cared, they wouldn’t have let things get like this, and they would actively be pursuing ways to make things better.
Edit: I should add voting reform would have been massive if the liberals followed through with that. As it stands now from my personal perspective, it’s the wealthy and powerful vs the general population.
We’re going to reform the voting process! Wait, we won? Never mind the process works great!
Who said anything about love? The government just wants them to shut up and obey orders.
What, you mean people wouldn’t want to potentially for for a country that abandoned them before service and had a history of doing so after?
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Strict parents make sneaky children.
“Mandatory national service”. Sure, and I’m certain that the same Conservative governments that famously underfund everything in the military will surely fund this adequately.
After all, nothing’s going to make you love your country like being conscripted and having to take a year off when you’re on the verge of incurring massive amounts of debt, with no chance of owning a home and no employment prospects. Does this “Mandatory national service” include paying conscripts? Because I’ll bet it doesn’t.
Tell you what, let’s conscript the Boomers. After all, they’ve already made out like bandits, have a fuck-on of equity and significantly less debt and a ton of time on their hands. Hell, it’d even free up jobs that Boomers are clinging to like fucking limpets to a rock. Let’s see how much they “Love Canada” then when they have to take an unpaid year off for it.
more free market will solve this.
