The most damning thing about this is the Canadian gov would struggle to find 300k people in the rest of the population that it would trust with skilling up in those ways. Federal public servants will be the last bastion of the values they try to force on everyone else.
It is in the process of spending vast amounts of money to remove guns from legal gun owners that are subject to absolutely amazing amounts of oversight already.
Canada has been running about 1% of gdp military spending, despite obligation of 2%; with new promise to meet 5%. a 500% increase to the size of our military in short order is the promise.
Our reserves are at about 40,000. They announced the plan to go to 400,000. 10x the size. It's not so much about any outside fears, it's just meeting our obligations.The fear about Russia or China is unfounded. The problem is that the USA our greatest ally isn't letting us use them as a shield.
>Federal and provincial employees would be given a one-week training course in how to handle firearms, drive trucks and fly drones, according to the directive, signed by Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan
There's only about 300,000 federal employees. Greater on the provincial sides, but Canada isn't that big. Conscription will be necessary to fulfill these numbers
>The public servants would be inducted into the Supplementary Reserve, which is currently made up of inactive or retired members of the Canadian Forces who are willing to return to duty if called.
It says voluntary, but given the very significant % who need to join and be subject to immediate activation. I dont expect many to volunteer. Reserves at least pays you to have this cost. Conscription will be necessary. They are forcing those government employees ultimately.
Just in case people miss the core message: This is something you do if you have a credible risk assessment that you think a big conflict is a possibility within the next decade or so.
And, as much as I'd like to focus on deteriorating Canada/US relations, it's likely a dual purpose. The Ukraine/Russia/NATO situation would be the second factor. OK, a triad, China/US is also on the radar. Whatever the weighting, it's pushed Canada to work on a mobilization framework, because the combined risk is high enough.
Which means "oh shit" feelings are entirely appropriate, panic isn't.
Seems like a generally good idea for creating a large reserve force. It definitely beats general conscription.
I don't see why Canada in particular needs such a large reserve force. This would jump Canada from number 127 to number 52 in terms of percentage of population in reserves, and bump it up to 17th in terms of absolute reserves size. For a nation with basically zero chance of invasion of its home soil and an extremely low risk of internal conflict, it's hard to imagine a scenario where anywhere near this many reservists would be required.
They are likely being pressured to meet minimum obligations as part of NATO membership. Canada's military realistically isn't going to be called on for defense of the homeland but as part of a support force for NATO.
24 000 reserves out of a population of 40 million seems like a rather small number.
Norway has 40 000 in the Home Guard (Heimevernet) rapid reaction force of volunteer part time soldiers and a further 20 000 reserves. All from a population of about 5.5 million.
How well would 24000 reserves fare against a smaller but well trained group of regular military units? Aren't they pretty much canon fodder?
I guess it depends on the opposition. The counter is look at the quagmire the US military found itself against insurgent opposition because they were not willing to use the same plays as Russia leveling cities. Israel leveled Gaza with the same mentality.
This isn't using government employees for non-combat tasks to free up troops. It's more like the WWII Home Guard in the UK.
"Federal and provincial employees would be given a one-week training course in how to handle firearms, drive trucks and fly drones...The public servants would be inducted into the Supplementary Reserve, which is currently made up of inactive or retired members of the Canadian Forces who are willing to return to duty if called."
This sort of thing is usually a desperation measure in wartime. What threat does Canada see? US ICE goon squads crossing the border into Canada? Building up the regular military reserves is more normal. Further down, the article says that's happening.
A better use for a Home Guard of government employees would be civil defense. What to do when power goes out, food distribution breaks down, or gas deliveries cease.
> Federal and provincial employees would be given a one-week training course in how to handle firearms, drive trucks and fly drones
What is the use of these "professionals"?
I know russians send these substandard soldiers to meat grinder ("infiltration in small groups" tactics). If they're killed with ukrainian FPV drone, it's fine, at least AFU spent a drone. Is it what Canadians are planning to do?
Odd how this is on front page of HN but buried way down my feed on (Canadian) Google News and doesn't seem to be front-page news?
Do you have to be a public servant or retired Canadian Forces, or do they take portly middle-aged out of shape software engineers, too? Asking for a friend.
Haven't shot a gun since Bible Camp when I was 12. Could be fun.
How much useful combat skills can be taught in only a week? It seems like an extremely low estimate on the training needed to play a useful role in the military.
* The article speaks of this personnel like reservists, but could the training also apply to helping defend public infrastructure and institutions, where they work? (For example, if there ever be a need to quickly hand out firearms on-site, or if ever there was a need for random people to know how to observe and report threats?)
* Could this training be practice, before mass military training of most adult citizens?
> The Canadian Forces is counting on public servants to volunteer for military service as it tries to ramp up an army of 300,000 as part of a mobilization plan, according to a defence department directive.
im of two minds, where on the one hand having some basic physical competence and responsibility can only improve civil servants, but on the other, the civil service is now stacked with radical partisans, and arming them and organizing them as paramilitaries is going to go exactly how you'd expect.
This reminds me of the movie 300 where an army shows up with potters and other tradesmen, while the army of Sparta were all soldiers.
Opinion: as an expat, I'm not sure who would join the CAF nowadays. Not much to be proud of in my opinion. Without exaggerating, not a single person I grew up with is doing well, and I had to leave Canada to start my family.
This is likely an attempt to appease Trump on one of the many silly demands he's making in the silly tariff negotiations, this one being increased military funding. Gotta find something to spend money on.
I think some are too focused on recruiting or conscripting citizens for fighting a kinetic conflict.
For the Five Eyes(Canada, US, UK, Australia, NZ) that don’t ever need to worry about conventional invasion, it’s far more about national resilience that relates to national defence.
How does a nation rapidly adapt to warfare that is occurring beneath the threshold of conventional warfare, and in some cases general public detection.
It’s not about fighting future trench warfare, it’s likely more about adaption to disruption to the nation of the electrical grid, logistics systems, and digital platforms.
A contemporary civil defence optimised not to defend against nuclear war but to defend against cyber, informational, psychological, and supply chain warfare.
Less continuity of government(as per Cold awards doctrine), more continuity of economy.
"We find that at present the human race is divided politically into one wise man, nine knaves, and ninety fools out of every hundred. That is, by an optimistic observer. The nine knaves assemble themselves under the banner of the most knavish among them, and become "politicians". The wise man stands out because he knows himself to be hopelessly outnumbered, and devotes himself to poetry, mathematics, or phylosophy; while the ninety fools plod off behind the banners of the nine villians, according to fancy, into the labyrinths of chicanery, malice, and warfare. It is pleasant to have command even over a flock of sheep, and that is why the politcians raise the banners. It is, moreover, the same thing for the sheep whatever the banner. If it is democracy, then the nine knaves will become members of parliament; if fascism, they will become party leaders, if communism, commissars, the result is still exploitation. As for the wise man his lot is the same under any ideology. Under democracy he will be encouraged to starve to death under garret, under fascism he will be put in a concentration camp, under communism he will be liquidated." -- Merlin
This reads like one of those ideas that folks come up in a conference room where "oh these people will just volunteer to do it" and ... nobody asked if they want to or if these are the people they even want to do it.
I worked at a company once and we were acquired. They fired everyone but the folks on my floor. One day I get a call supposedly from HR at the new company (I had no idea who it was). They said they forgot to keep some facilities folks on and they asked if I could do some tasks like ... move garbage and open the door for the mail guy. I had to explain that I had to be on the phone / ready to answer my entire shift and so did everyone who wasn't fired ... it took them a while to figure out that nobody was going to move trash for them / the scale of what they were asking. They thought we would just chip in and become janitors or something. I'm sure it seemed a reasonable solution for everyone not doing it.
32 comments
[ 384 ms ] story [ 475 ms ] threadIt is in the process of spending vast amounts of money to remove guns from legal gun owners that are subject to absolutely amazing amounts of oversight already.
Our reserves are at about 40,000. They announced the plan to go to 400,000. 10x the size. It's not so much about any outside fears, it's just meeting our obligations.The fear about Russia or China is unfounded. The problem is that the USA our greatest ally isn't letting us use them as a shield.
>Federal and provincial employees would be given a one-week training course in how to handle firearms, drive trucks and fly drones, according to the directive, signed by Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan
There's only about 300,000 federal employees. Greater on the provincial sides, but Canada isn't that big. Conscription will be necessary to fulfill these numbers
>The public servants would be inducted into the Supplementary Reserve, which is currently made up of inactive or retired members of the Canadian Forces who are willing to return to duty if called.
It says voluntary, but given the very significant % who need to join and be subject to immediate activation. I dont expect many to volunteer. Reserves at least pays you to have this cost. Conscription will be necessary. They are forcing those government employees ultimately.
And, as much as I'd like to focus on deteriorating Canada/US relations, it's likely a dual purpose. The Ukraine/Russia/NATO situation would be the second factor. OK, a triad, China/US is also on the radar. Whatever the weighting, it's pushed Canada to work on a mobilization framework, because the combined risk is high enough.
Which means "oh shit" feelings are entirely appropriate, panic isn't.
I don't see why Canada in particular needs such a large reserve force. This would jump Canada from number 127 to number 52 in terms of percentage of population in reserves, and bump it up to 17th in terms of absolute reserves size. For a nation with basically zero chance of invasion of its home soil and an extremely low risk of internal conflict, it's hard to imagine a scenario where anywhere near this many reservists would be required.
Norway has 40 000 in the Home Guard (Heimevernet) rapid reaction force of volunteer part time soldiers and a further 20 000 reserves. All from a population of about 5.5 million.
Via the magic of universal male conscription:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Defence_Forces#Conscri...
I guess it depends on the opposition. The counter is look at the quagmire the US military found itself against insurgent opposition because they were not willing to use the same plays as Russia leveling cities. Israel leveled Gaza with the same mentality.
"Federal and provincial employees would be given a one-week training course in how to handle firearms, drive trucks and fly drones...The public servants would be inducted into the Supplementary Reserve, which is currently made up of inactive or retired members of the Canadian Forces who are willing to return to duty if called."
This sort of thing is usually a desperation measure in wartime. What threat does Canada see? US ICE goon squads crossing the border into Canada? Building up the regular military reserves is more normal. Further down, the article says that's happening.
A better use for a Home Guard of government employees would be civil defense. What to do when power goes out, food distribution breaks down, or gas deliveries cease.
What is the use of these "professionals"?
I know russians send these substandard soldiers to meat grinder ("infiltration in small groups" tactics). If they're killed with ukrainian FPV drone, it's fine, at least AFU spent a drone. Is it what Canadians are planning to do?
When a wannabe imperialist thinks, he can get something easy, he will take it. If he thinks, there will be unknown risks and costs .. he might not.
Do you have to be a public servant or retired Canadian Forces, or do they take portly middle-aged out of shape software engineers, too? Asking for a friend.
Haven't shot a gun since Bible Camp when I was 12. Could be fun.
* Could this training be practice, before mass military training of most adult citizens?
Opinion: as an expat, I'm not sure who would join the CAF nowadays. Not much to be proud of in my opinion. Without exaggerating, not a single person I grew up with is doing well, and I had to leave Canada to start my family.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/carney-budget-to-slash...
Well played, Mr. Carney!
For the Five Eyes(Canada, US, UK, Australia, NZ) that don’t ever need to worry about conventional invasion, it’s far more about national resilience that relates to national defence.
How does a nation rapidly adapt to warfare that is occurring beneath the threshold of conventional warfare, and in some cases general public detection.
It’s not about fighting future trench warfare, it’s likely more about adaption to disruption to the nation of the electrical grid, logistics systems, and digital platforms.
A contemporary civil defence optimised not to defend against nuclear war but to defend against cyber, informational, psychological, and supply chain warfare.
Less continuity of government(as per Cold awards doctrine), more continuity of economy.
That’s just my 0.02c.
I worked at a company once and we were acquired. They fired everyone but the folks on my floor. One day I get a call supposedly from HR at the new company (I had no idea who it was). They said they forgot to keep some facilities folks on and they asked if I could do some tasks like ... move garbage and open the door for the mail guy. I had to explain that I had to be on the phone / ready to answer my entire shift and so did everyone who wasn't fired ... it took them a while to figure out that nobody was going to move trash for them / the scale of what they were asking. They thought we would just chip in and become janitors or something. I'm sure it seemed a reasonable solution for everyone not doing it.