Canada has far too few soldiers. Here's a radical fix – mandatory service | Hacker News Reader

Canada has far too few soldiers. Here's a radical fix – mandatory service

nationalpost.com

11 pointsamichail11 comments

There are a ton of anecdotal stories that tt takes up to a year to join.

There are abundant anecdotes on Canadian subreddits of people who wanted to join, are supposedly eligible to join, but couldn't actually get through the entire process for various reasons, from delays in paperwork processing to confusion about what was available. And after a year, people have made other life plans.

You still cannot even start an application online.

That’s a big contrast to the US where the various services they’re ready to sign you up asap in high school.

The comments on the reddit post for this article are basically what I said. Canada is definitely not the same way.

https://old.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/1jbx1u0/canada_has_...

That's so strange as I just assumed most nations were proactive about recruitment as well.

In the US there's a legit effort and many of the benefits like education benefits are great, and transferable in some cases.

A solid majority of young Americans aren’t fit for service. I strongly considered the military during my second eviction, but I was way too out of shape to even think about it.

Ironically, being fat might’ve saved me from a lifetime of PTSD and other issues. We don’t treat veterans right in America.

I recall some services established and extra PT system at one point so they didn’t have to bypass those potential recruits.

I don’t know if that’s the case.

Doesn't explain "too few" at all. To few for what?

If you look on the forces.ca website, there is very clearly a shortage of non-comissioned but highly technical soldiers. You see it in the bonuses and "in-demand" tags.

https://forces.ca/en/careers

I don't think mandatory service would fix that problem.

Still doesn't answer how you quantify "enough".

Enough to contain an invasion.

https://theconversation.com/zombie-water-apocalypse-is-trump...

There is a set force level target. We're thousands short of that. Just maintaining a relatively small force in Latvia as part of NATO is a strain. Much less having any reserve for other contingencies - e.g. major wildfires or domestic disasters.

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