The senior leadership of the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence are scrambling to formulate a plan that would lead to the creation of a supplementary reserve.

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The projected number of this force of citizen soldiers is to be a whopping 300,000 volunteers. The basic training would be a one-week course, presumably involving some measure of small-arms weapon training and basic vehicle driving skills.

According to the initial plan, the supplementary reserve would have more lax standards of physical fitness requirements than the regular force and the active reserves. The kicker is that there is no plan afoot to provide these supplementary reservists with uniforms.

The architects of this scheme are Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan and the now former deputy defence minister, Stefanie Beck. In the original draft of the plan, Carignan and Beck........

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