Panama Hears of Canada Boosting Military Might: Seeks 400,000 Volunteer Soldiers Quadrupling Size of Force
The Great White North is getting ready for war. Is this a response to a hypothetical invasion from the ‘Land of the Free’ wanting to make Canada its 51st state? “With just one-week of training, I would not trust 98% of our colleagues with a rifle”.
Canada is racing to figure out how to clothe, equip and train as many as 400,000 volunteer soldiers to join the army reserves under an ambitious new mobilization plan that would more than quadruple the size of its military. Canada’s army currently has an estimated 70,000-strong force of full-time regulars. Public servants would be first in line to join the army reserves, according to the new defense directive but Panamanians as a friendly nation would be welcomed to sign up. No guarantee of acceptance. Americans worried about their neighbor to the north muscling up can rest assured knowing the entry standards won’t be very strict, according to a Canada Department of Defense directive. “The entry criteria . . . should be less restrictive than the Reserve Force for age limits as well as physical and fitness requirements,” the nine-page unclassified document noted. Reservists would get just one-week training on “basic skills,” learning how to shoot guns, drive trucks and operate drones.
And the government is counting on its public servants to be first in line to volunteer, something those workers haven’t exactly embraced. “Non pensionable military service? So where’s the incentive?” slammed one in a Reddit sub for Canadian government employees. “Volunteer to spend non-pensionable time in the armed forces?” lambasted another. “Have the people in charge fully lost the plot at this point?” “I would not trust 98% of our colleagues with a rifle,” said another. The plans would put Canada’s already struggling military in a real scramble, and the new recruits might have to make do with hand me downs uniforms, according to documents obtained by the country’s public broadcaster, CBC.
“This is possibly the tallest order that the Canadian Armed Forces, in my view, has received possibly since the end of the Cold War,” Christian Leuprecht, a professor at the Royal Military College of Canada, told the outlet. In a signal the country may be preparing for unprecedented times, the department also created a first of its kind senior position focused entirely on expanding the military, according to the documents. Work began in June and would see the supplementary reserve – currently made up of 4,384 inactive or retired Canadian Forces members willing to return if called – boosted to 300,000. The primary reserve – 23,561 part-time armed forces members – would jump to 100,000. That would be on top of an estimated 70,000-strong force of full-time regulars.
Canucks cited natural disaster response and “high-intensity large-scale combat operations” as motivations behind the move. “We are really looking at our own sovereignty, territory,” Defense Chief General Jennie Carignan told the Globe and Mail, denying the plan is in any way a response to a hypothetical invasion from the Land of the Free wanting to make Canada its 51st state. “That’s not part of it,” she said. “We’re working closely with the United States on the integrated air missile defense.” Canada said it will take inspiration from Finland, whose reserve force boasts close to 900,000 citizens thanks to mandatory conscription.
