The proposal suggests a citizen militia would be built initially on a cadre of civil servants given a week’s military training to prepare for war

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It has taken me a while to absorb the recent proposal by the Chief of the Defence Staff,  General Jennie Carigan, clearly supported by Prime Minister Mark Carney, to raise a 300,000-strong “citizen militia” in peacetime.

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The proposal suggests this would be built initially on a cadre of civil servants given a week’s military training to prepare for war.

As I am now assured this peacetime citizen-militia mobilization plan isn’t an attempt at comedic satire by some late-night talk show host, then the proposal deserves a serious logistical, political and cultural reality check by someone who actually served in and trained hundreds of  reservists.

First, I can’t help but assume this proposal for a negligently trained citizen militia has all the political essence of an overwhelmed, confused and confounded Canadian government and military over its head. One that is despondently grasping at straws to convince the United States and NATO that