Canadian Forces Banned from Schools - Part I

Military recruiters are no longer welcome in Quebec's schools, says a coalition of teachers' and student's unions. In February of 2009 the Centrale des syndicats du Québec (CSQ,) Quebec's largest teacher's union, received representatives from the anti-recruitment group Operation Objection. This fall, as a result of that meeting the union has launched a campaign to keep the military out of the province's schools. Letters from the union have been sent to the Education Ministry, to school boards, to colleges and parents committees informing these recipients that schools are not the appropriate place for military recruitment.

Military Recruiting in High Schools and CEGEPs: Targeting Vulnerable Young People?

After reading some recent news articles I was left with the impression that the issue at hand was whether the military was recruiting in schools where students are underage (i.e. high schools and CEGEPs) and whether military recruiters were telling the whole truth when they set up information kiosks. After listening to a CBC radio interview with the union's special counsel Alain Pelissier, and after looking at through information published by the Campagne d'opposition au recrutement and Operation Objection, it seems that these people will be happy with nothing less than the total elimination of any hint of the military from our schools - right down to not even allowing the local cadet unit to hold its meetings in the school gym after hours.

Although on the surface the issue would seem to be the targeting of a vulnerable segment of our society, this does not appear to be the real motivation behind the campaign. The first argument put forth by the teacher's union is that the new recruitment policies adopted by the military aim to "seduce" sixteen year olds. The coalition accuses recruiters of going out to high schools with contract in hand, proposing to enroll high school students on the spot at an age when they are not yet old enough to vote or to purchase alcohol and tobacco. ("Campagne de la CSQ contre le recrutement militaire dans les écoles")

If it were true that the military were looking to have young people drop out if school to join the army and be sent straight off to fight in Afghanistan, this would truly be alarming. However no one under the age of eighteen can join the Canadian Forces without informed parental consent. No matter how convincing a recruiter might try to be, in this scenario, the student's parents stand between him and a spur of the moment decision he might later regret. And if we are going to say that parents too can be duped by recruiters, then really any mention of anyone's age becomes irrelevant.

More to the point, Operation Objection's own handbook shows that of a group of 3,545 individuals recruited by the Canadian military, 94 percent were adults. Rounding up to the nearest percentage point, only one percent were sixteen. ("War free schools")

It may also reassure the public to know that recruitment is a process that takes place over a period of weeks, or even months. Further, recruiters do not bring applications into high schools; the kiosks held in secondary schools are reserved only for answering questions and giving information about the various options the military offers. It is impossible for a high school or underage CEGEP student to be tricked into military enrolment in a single afternoon at a school job fair.

"Aggressive" Military Recruitment: Targeting Underprivileged Students?

Another argument the coalition makes against recruitment in the schools is that recruiters are targeting students in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. While there is, indeed, data that points towards students from areas of high unemployment opting for military service in larger numbers, this would not seem to be due to increased recruiter activity in those regions.

Pelissier discusses what he characterizes as "aggressive" recruiting policies in place since 2007. Operation Objection's parent group ACT for the Earth leads the public to believe that the number of recruitment staff in the Canadian Forces is going from 300 individuals to 80,000. ("Counter recruitment: Facts and figures") Without an understanding of the recent demographics of the Canadian Forces this would, indeed, seem to be a huge increase in recruitment efforts. But rather than engaging tens of thousands of recruiting agents, the Canadian military is instead asking each member of the Forces to take part in an outreach program called Operation Connection, designed to demystify the military and to help Canadians see that our servicemen and servicewomen are people just like the rest of us. ("Op CONNECTION: Reaching out and touching Canadians")

Canada's Military Demographic: Good Reason to Step Up Recruiting

There is a desire to recruit more people into the military, this is true. But this is a move that is long since overdue. A profile published by CBC last year stated that with a population of 33,143,610 Canada's total military personnel consisted of 62,000 full time members and 25,000 reservists. ("Canadian Forces in the 21st century")

Compare this with our WWI and WWII figures, and it is very difficult to see how anyone would blame the military for stepping up recruitment in order to staff vacant positions. After the 1939 declaration of war 60,000 men and women enlisted in just one month - and that, with a population about one third of today's. More than 600,000 Canadians enlisted during WWI when the population was 7,207,000. ("Canadian Forces in the 21st century") That's over 8% of the population who were at that time willing to dedicate themselves to military service. Even with the reservists counted, today's military doesn't account for even one percent of our population.

To Read Part II follow this link

Sources:

"CDS responds to the Anti-Military Recruitment Coalition" General W.J. Natynczyk, Chief of the Defence Staff

"Campagne de la CSQ contre le recrutement militaire dans les écoles" Établissement vert Brundtland

Campagne d'opposition au recrutement militaire web site

"Canadian Forces in the 21st century" CBC News

"Counter recruitment: Facts and figures" ACT for the Earth

"Do the Canadian Armed Forces have a place in schools?" CTV News

"'Get out of our schools,' military recruiters told" Brenda Branswell (The Gazette)

"Military recruitment" The Current (CBC Radio One)

"Military under fire for on-campus recruiting" Kathryn Blaze Carlson (National Post)

"Op CONNECTION: Reaching out and touching Canadians" Captain Holly-Anne Brown (The Maple Leaf)

Operation Objection web site

"Walter Natynczyk" Wikipedia

"War free schools" ACT for the Earth