Canada: Name women to honorary posts or leave them vacant, military commander says

Article here. Excerpt:

'An army brigade commander is threatening to leave appointments vacant if regiments don’t begin naming women as honorary colonels and lieutenant colonels.

“I will not recommend any new honorary appointment unless we see improvement of our diversity targets,” Colonel Daniel Stepaniuk wrote in an Aug. 13 email after a strategic planning session for all regular and reserve units in Ontario.

Postmedia has a copy of the email.

“I will not recommend an extension of any current honorary unless we move to satisfy our diversity targets… When I say gender diversity targets, think 50/50,” Stepaniuk wrote.

He is the commander of 32 Canadian Brigade Group, based in Toronto but with 12 reserve regiments in Hamilton, Brantford, Mississauga and other cities in southern Ontario. He spent 30 years in the forces, 27 in the army reserve.

In the Canadian army, “honoraries,” as the appointments are colloquially known, are traditionally recruited locally, from the ranks of regimental supporters, business and the like. Army colonels and honorary lieutenant colonels are primarily the preserve of the militia, or part-time reserves.

A key part of the honorary’s job is to represent the unit and protect its independence and history.'

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... the Canadian army. Now before our friends up north flip out on me and send me links to all the great military stuff Canadian units and individuals have done (of which there have been many), I am referring to life today. With nuclear weapons keeping anyone from actually getting serious about throwing down a la the 20th century, just what are the chances the Canadian military will ever again be mobilized to any degree? Aside from exercises with the US and maybe Greenland, who else? To be fair, the Canadian forces could afford to have a few female honorary colonels, etc. Actually they could probably afford to distribute beer and corn chips with rations and not see too much change. Hey, do Canadian troops eat poutine for every meal? I heard somewhere that poutine was aka "Standard Canadian rations" in the armed forces. Or is that just some vicious rumor some bloody yank came up with? [Trivia for non-Canadians: Poutine was in fact invented as a dish in Quebec, first appearing in the 1950s. And it's mmmmmmm..... gooooodddd... try it, you'll see.]

Sorry neighbors, I am just an ignorant American with a wholly unearned superiority complex and a smugness about the value of my money vs. yours. Yeah, you want to throttle me, I get it. "Bloody yank". But let's get real here, guys - Quebec. I mean, really. WTF. French separatists. Frenchies living in Canada insisting that everyone else parlez Francais or else. And you put up with them.

OK but in all seriousness... I had a cousin by marriage a couple generations back who flew for the RAF. He was Canadian and when WWII started, the UK was getting pilots and crewmen from anywhere they could. A lot of Canadians went over, not many came back. Well that was SOP for the flying forces. The casualty rate was insanely high in the flying forces during WWII, first for the Allies, then for the Axis. He didn't come back. He's buried in France, in fact.

If he were alive today to see what kind of silliness has overtaken the Canadian forces... dunno what he'd say.

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. . . more women in positions they are unfit for, and didn't earn! We don't have enough of that as it is, already! [/s]

Wow. It never ceases to amaze me how the political left has very selective, extremely myopic vision. They put quotas in place to ensure that unqualified and undeserving people get prestigious positions based on anything other than merit, and then they accuse every group that does not benefit from this favourtism of being privileged. It'd be laughable if it weren't so sad.

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