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Hmmm, innocent people arent interested in dying, just because politicians are incapable of doing their jobs properly. How weird is that huh?
As per usual, it's not all that easy. Sometimes war breaks out no matter what you do, see Ukraine. Sometimes you need to go to war to stop genuine evil, see world war two. The Netherlands, as far as.I know, still sends a large batch of tulips to Canada as a thank you for their soldiers liberating the country. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
Of course everyone is against conscription, but once shit hits the fan,any will feel different and for those that don't, would you prefer living under the gentle hands of Putin, desperately trying to stay away from high windows? Downtown Vancouver would be screeeeewed!
No one wants conscription, but we live in an imperfect world
I generally understand and partially agree with you, but realistically "if war breaks out" means "if we have financial interests somewhere". If you could limit your conscription so that you would not end up being forced to fight in pointless proxy wars over oil and minerals and limit it to actually directly defending your own country, the picture would look very different i think.
I honestly have grave doubts about Canada conscripting citizens over a finance war, that would not fly, I imagine it would cause a shit storm from the public.
From what I've seen in this article,.and the world at large right now,.I fully believe.the point stands for what if Russia or China starts a war with NATO. Unfortunately, only a.few years ago that seemed an impossibility, now it seems damn likely.
Uuuhm what do you think Canada was doing in Afghanistan or Libya or Iraq. And dont tell me "war on terror" or "liberation" because thats not even funny anymore at this point.
Maybe respond to the points made instead of bringing up cherry picked points you wanted to make.
What was Canada doing in WW1 and WW2? The only times in Canadian history that we had a conscription policy FYI.
Ehh. IMO WWI was just a war between declining empires. Not like we were fighting for anything but Britain in that one. At least WWII has the excuse of fighting fascism, but in my opinion that's a sort of post facto justification considering how friendly the US and UK was with right wing ideals before the war.
Would I fight a war against fascism? Yeah. Would I fight a war to make Danielle Smith, her oil companies (I am Albertan so this is the first thing that I thought up, but it applies to capital-serving govt in general), and the ruling class richer? Nah.
It's hard for me to imagine a war that Canada would be engaged in that wouldn't be just to save the US's declining influence, but I imagine that some Canadians would support conscription if there was a proper justification that wasn't "save the US empire" or "make more money for oil companies".
At least that's my opinion.
A lot of opinion over the fact that Canada, in its entire history, has only used conscription twice and it was for two major conflicts. The arguments you are attempting to make are moot when considering this very big fact. Obviously no one, excluding the nuts from the same tree, would be super keen on conscription to fight a meaningless war.
If it is hard to imagine a war Canada would be fighting to defend itself worry not because the arctic is thawing and a few countries are salivating over it.
A lot of opinion over the fact that Canada, in its entire history, has only used conscription twice and it was for two major conflicts
I never claimed otherwise.
The arguments you are attempting to make are moot when considering this very big fact
Not really. It has nothing to do with how many times Canada has used conscription.
If it is hard to imagine a war Canada would be fighting to defend itself worry not because the arctic is thawing and a few countries are salivating over it.
I imagine if a straight up war of conquest over Canada's north happened, more Canadian's would be willing to help with that and conscription would probably be unnecessary. That highly depends on our feelings of national unity, which to me seem to be at an all time low (in my lifetime). I feel that any attempt by the federal government to introduce compulsory military service would be disastrous as there's high tensions when it comes to the prairie provinces and Quebec. Why would they consent to their peoples being forced to fight and die for a united Canada when they don't feel like Canada should be united?
I don't know how they would plan to address this, but I feel Canada would need a large reason to be unified if they were to introduce conscription, and the current climate isn't it.
I never claimed otherwise.
I never said you did, nor am I here to argue with you about this.
The point was the commenter, who isn't you, brought up wars that have nothing to do with conscription. Which is why I brought up WW1 and WW2 in the first place.
Similarly, if conscription did take place on a gender-neutral basis for both men and women, 50 per cent of Canadians would oppose it. With the exact reverse also holding true, a large percentage of Canadians may potentially support conscription if the right scenario arose.
The topic is conscription and if Canadians support it.The survey and article states a 50/50 split on Gender neutral conscription, and support if the right situation arose. We aren't talking about if shit goes down would conscription even be necessary, and we are not talking about how unified Canada is or isn't
Stay on point if you wish to continue speaking to me please.
Brother if you consider the idea that there would be future conscriptions moot why are you even here? That's the topic. That's what we talking about. If you don't want to consider the possibility there could be future contributions then you are kind of wasting everyone's time here because again that's the topic.
Brother if you consider the idea that there would be future conscriptions moot why are you even here?
Funny because I never said that.
Give the thread another once over and try again. Do your best not to waste my time by staying on topic with your second attempt.
We are not talking about previous conscription, we are talking about future conscriptions. History is a useful indicator but does not predict the future.
The issue is "people dont want conscription" the answer is "make sure conscripts wont be abused for pointless wars". Most people would be willing to defend their homes by force without a second thought.
Just because there hasnt been a fire in your neighbourhood in the last 50 years, do you not buy insurance when you buy a house?
We are not talking about previous conscription, we are talking about future conscriptions. History is a useful indicator but does not predict the future.
Why did you bring up other wars if history cannot predict the future? Here is your last comment to refresh your memory.
Uuuhm what do you think Canada was doing in Afghanistan or Libya or Iraq. And dont tell me “war on terror” or “liberation” because thats not even funny anymore at this point.
If you just want to derail the thread with off topic references, and aren't willing to speak on the actual history of Canadian conscription policies or discuss the article, don't bother responding to me.
Uuuhm what do you think Canada was doing in Afghanistan or Libya or Iraq.
Not expecting conscripts to go there.
just because politicians are incapable of doing their jobs properly.
We work differently here. Put the brush and the America paint away.
(As a former service member and someone whose name is forever on their conscription list, should it be needed, and whose oath to the Queen has been taken up by king and steed, I have a vested interest in the kinds of conflicts we send our troopies to. Sorry if it looks different as you rail in homeroom)
Uh, yeah. I want to raise kids, not fodder.
'Twas ever thus. We've imposed conscription exactly twice since Confederation, during the two World Wars. During WWI, it caused riots because Francophones thought the way it was being imposed was inequitable. At neither time did any significant number of Canadian conscripts get shipped out to fight—instead, they took on domestic roles like guarding military posts to free up volunteers to be shipped out instead (I think a few did go overseas in the trailing months of WWII, but it was a pretty small percentage).
In other words, the draft has never been popular here, and likely never will be. And inequity in how it's imposed has been an issue for more than a century. (The nature of the inequity is different this time, but I don't think that matters so much.)
Times have also changed. The information available on our fingertips is showing that things are not as black and white as they seem. Back during the world wars, mass propaganda convinced us to go fight for imperialist reasons (remember, we did not go to war with Nazis over their treatment of the Jews).
It's a lot harder to convince a populace to go to war when it's not clear the opponent is entirely in the wrong.
My grandfathers on both sides of my family Indigenous family were conscripted into the First World War .... they were promised pay, money, land, animals, all they need to build a farm in northern Ontario when they returned. They were gone for over two years ... one never came back, the other was dropped at a train depot near Chapleau and told he could go home .... hundreds of kilometers away in the bush with nothing, no boat, no money and only the supplies he could get together. All the men in his group from our families were like that, some dropped off in the middle of winter, some in the summer, some in the spring run off, others in the fall as winter was approaching. And when they got home, all the money had been taken away from the Hudson Bay Company to pay for imaginary made up 'debts' and the remainder taken by the church for 'donations'. No land, no money, no animals, no supplies .... everyone was suspicious of the church during that whole period because they suddenly had a good supply of farm animals delivered up to them.
When the Second World War came along .... all the old veterans told their sons not to bother because it was senseless and they would get nothing out of it.
When rich people can't get along, they send poor people to fight their battles, while the wealthy also make profit from the event and leave the poor to die everywhere.
In unrelated news, rape is bad.
National poll finds majority of Canadians are opposed to military conscription if war breaks out
found that most Canadians (57 per cent) are either strongly (35 per cent) or moderately (22 per cent) opposed to military conscription in modern times if only men are to serve.
Similarly, if conscription did take place on a gender-neutral basis for both men and women, 50 per cent of Canadians would oppose it. With the exact reverse also holding true, a large percentage of Canadians may potentially support conscription if the right scenario arose.
Of course if the right situation were to arise, if it's either conscription or Russia somehow takes over Canada who would choose the latter?
Of course if the right situation were to arise, if it’s either conscription or Russia somehow takes over Canada who would choose the latter?
According to the headline, and what is attempted to be pushed as the narrative in the article (poorly), the "Majority of Canadians".
d u h
Couldn’t you all just vanish into the tundra if the Yanks stormed the border? They’d soon get bored and go home.