Quoting Barry Cooper and David Bercuson

" Canadian government has for the best part of a generation assumed they have a perverse obligation to let Americans, Brits, French, Germans, Australian, yea, even the Belgians and the Dutch, ley both lives and treasure on the line in the continuing effort to maintain freedom and order around the globe. Unfortunately, we hide this truth from ourselveson an ongoing basis, usually by promoting our own good works as peacekeepers."

"Behind closed doors in Washington, however, when Canadians ask what the Americans think about our current defence capability, they are told that no one takes us seriously anymore."

Most of us know this already, but I was thinking why no do something about it. I could make up a petition on a word doc. and send it to whoever wanted it. If we could (dreaming) a million signatures thats 10% of the population. The only way anything will actually change is if we prompt it or let the government know we are concerned.

We need to change the attitudes of Canadians first. See my post on the right approach to recruiting. What are the Yanks doing right? What can we adopt to fit Canada's vision and recruiting/PR goals? Why don't we have a slogan like the Brits do? ARMY: BE THE BEST sure sounds better than YOUR PRIDE YOUR FUTURE YOUR MOVE.

Now about the petition. You can still do one up. Just do not whatsoever write the body of the petition or sign it as a soldier!!! Sign it as a private citizen. I'm assuming most of you are reservists or civillians. This is an advantage that most reservists have other than their counterparts in the regular force. There are other means you can voice your opinion as well such as the Conference of Defence Associations. Get a membership, or give your CO the polite suggestion to go get a membership and represent your unit at the various events of the Association. Here's the site.
www.cda-cdai.ca

I don't really have time to join any kind of association. What with school, and the reserves and all the other stuff I do I don't really have time. And I'm pretty sure the other people in the reserve association are not my age group or rank, so I would feel pretty out of place.

I'm also not about to tell my troop commader to grow some balls. I mean, he's a good guy and all but there are certain lines that I'm not going to cross..