Real enemy identified

The Council of Canadians, already busy fighting unimaginable horrors like for-profit health care and free trade with the demonic empire to our south, wants to make sure the children are protected from scary people with guns:

The Council of Canadians, founded by well-known nationalists such as Maude Barlow and Margaret Atwood, wants to stop the military from recruiting at high schools across the country.

A resolution was passed at the group's annual general meeting Oct. 29 after a young member of the Ontario chapter objected to recruitment visits at his high school.

Cliff White, spokesman for the council in the Atlantic region, said the move is partly in response to Canada's current mission.

"The fact that we've moved from peacekeeping to war fighting ... the traditional role of the military has changed," he said.

White said council members are concerned that Canada's role in the "American war on terror" will increase recruitment efforts in schools and universities, similar to what has happened in the United States.

White also said recruiters don't accurately portray the life of military personnel for students.

"They're often recruited on the basis of a career or a job, of getting a better education and so forth," he said.

"But the other side of that is that they are also going to be required to put their lives on the line. Once you've joined the military, you're told to go fight, and you go fight, you don't have the option of saying 'I don't agree with that, so I'm going to stay home.'"

I'm not sure what they're saying in schools, but from the Canadian Forces' glitzy TV commercials, you'd certainly never get the idea recruits might have to fight or anything like that.

The Council's stand is too much even for one New Democrat MP:

"What nonsense," Peter Stoffer, the New Democrat MP from Sackville-Eastern Shore, exclaimed yesterday. "I know probably what their sentiment is: it's peace at all costs, and let's have a Kumbaya here.

"But the reality is, I don't find anything wrong at all with military personnel going into schools and letting them know what they do for a living ... The military can be a very, very good career for young men and women"

[...]

"My God, what do they think these kids are, stupid?" Stoffer scoffed. "They're not that naive, these young people, and the parents of these young people. They know that they're putting their life on the line."

Does Stoffer speak to his party leader like this? Here's hoping...

Damian P.

Posted by damian at November 15, 2007 04:38 PM