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‘For 20-30 years, we did not get the job as a result of we have been ladies and now we’re getting it simply because we’re ladies. This isn’t progress’
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“This particular government is no friend of the military. The whole DEI, radical progressive movement is forced on it,” says Maj. (ret’d) Barbara Krasij-Maisonneuve. Picture by Courtesy Barbara Krasij-Maisonneuve
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Final month, whereas we noshed on southern-style fried rooster at a roadside eatery in Augusta, Ga., our upbeat waitress knowledgeable me she was becoming a member of the military to go to dentistry faculty. “Yeah, the military will pay my tuition, and then I’ll serve,” she defined. “It was a great career path for my dad.”
J.D. Vance, America’s vice-president-elect, tells an analogous story. After highschool, Vance enlisted within the U.S. Marine Corps. Utilizing the G.I. Invoice — a legislation that gives advantages for navy veterans — Vance went on to check at Ohio State College.
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It’s a strong story: advantage acknowledged and ambition rewarded. Comparable recruitment tales exist inside Canada’s Armed Forces, however they are often obscured, by affirmative motion quotas and disquieting tales of warrior tradition run amok.
In a latest dialog, Barbara Krasij-Maisonneuve — a trim, 62-year-old retired main now comfortably ensconced within the Niagara Area’s wine nation alongside her husband, Lt.-Gen. (retd) Michel Maisonneuve — recounts her recruitment story.
As an 18-year-old highschool grad in Hamilton, Ont., Barbara signed as much as serve on the bottom rung of Canada’s navy ladder — a non-public within the Navy Police. “I heard my mom and dad talking about taking a second mortgage on their house and business to send me to Carleton to study journalism,” she reviews, “and I felt so ashamed … I went off to the recruiting centre to join the army.”
Following primary coaching, Barbara was shipped to Edmonton to function a navy “policeman,” she chuckles. “In 1981-82, it was like going to the Wild West,” she reminisces. “The pipelines were flowing and every two weeks, when it was payday and shifts changed, the police forces (the RCMP, Edmonton city police, Alberta highway patrol and Military Police) would triple up on shifts because we knew all hell was going to break loose.”
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Barbara’s service with the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) advanced; she studied at college after which served for 21 years as a logistics officer within the Royal Canadian Air Drive.
“For 20-30 years, we didn’t get the job because we were women and now we’re getting it just because we’re women. This is not progress,” bemoans Barbara after I ask about how CAF recruitment of females goes. In 2016, shortly after Justin Trudeau’s election as prime minister, then Chief of Defence Employees Gen. Jonathan Vance set a goal to extend the share of girls within the CAF from 15 per cent to a minimum of 25 per cent by 2026.
You don’t need a warrior tradition within the navy? We want that tradition
The goal is proving tough to achieve, Barbara reviews; as we speak, roughly 17 per cent of recent recruits are ladies. Confounding these efforts, recruiting extra broadly isn’t going nicely; the CAF is at present quick 16,500 personnel.
“If I knew nothing about Canada’s military,” Barbara displays, “except what I see on legacy media, and I had an 18-year-old daughter, I’d say, ‘Stay away, they’re all sexual predators, it’s racist, it’s white supremacist.’” The picture of Canada’s navy, portrayed by media and strengthened by the federal government, Barbara bluntly asserts, is just not inviting for brand new recruits.
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“This particular government is no friend of the military. The whole DEI, radical progressive movement is forced on it,” Barbara laments. “And what dismays me,” she continues, “is that it seems like a lot of our senior leaders … many of them are women now, have embraced this.”
This summer time, Gen. Jennie Carignan was named Canada’s first feminine Chief of Defence Employees (CDS). In 2008, Carignan was the primary woman to command a CAF fight arms unit and after a collection of leaps and bounds, she was promoted to lieutenant-general in 2021 and named the primary chief for Skilled Conduct and Tradition. Her daunting process was to rework the navy’s tradition, together with cleaning the group of sexual misconduct.
“I know Jenny. Jenny and I were classmates at RMC (Royal Military College) class of 1990,” Barbara shares. “It seemed that the women who were trying very hard to succeed in the military left their femininity behind. You know, they kind of look like men … I called them the ‘comfortable shoes brigade,’” she laughs. However that wasn’t Jenny, Barbara continues, “If Jenny had not joined the military to be a combat engineer, she was going to be a flamenco dancer.”
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“I have great faith in Jenny,” Barbara says, her tone now severe. “But realistically,” she asks, “was Trudeau gonna choose anybody but a woman for that job? He’s the biggest fake feminist that I’ve ever known.
“My hope is that one of the first moves she (Carignan) makes as CDS is to close the culture department,” Barbara says. “Just close it.”
It’s not unthinkable: different organizations are winding down overwrought DEI (diversity-equity-inclusion) bureaucracies. And within the U.S., President-elect Donald Trump seems to be performing on his risk to purge the American navy of “woke” leaders; he’s picked Pete Hegseth as his secretary of defence (a Fox Information commentator and veteran who questions the position of girls in fight) and Trump’s transition crew is reportedly considering a “warrior board” to fast-track the removing of “unfit” generals and admirals.
Barbara’s not suggesting cultural coaching isn’t important; the navy has been coping with sexual harassment and racism prevention for many years, she reviews. Within the early ’90s, there was a coaching program known as SHARP. Then Operation Honour, to guard the individuals you labored with, she explains, “whether it was a young guy being bullied or a woman or a BIPOC.” There was bystander coaching. After which got here the #MeToo motion, with three deadly flaws, Barbara contends.
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The primary flaw: “The movement removed burden of proof; you could just make an accusation, end somebody’s career, and walk away.” The second flaw: “This idea that every time you approach a male colleague, he’s a predator … I shudder to think what that’s done to relationships.” The third flaw: “Suddenly, women are weak again.” Barbara has been accused of sufferer shaming, by keyboard warriors and journalists. “But I stand by my words,” she provides, her voice quiet and resolute.
“You don’t want a warrior culture in the military?” she posits. “We need that culture, we need to recruit to that … and we have to go back to meritocracy.” We are able to’t hold pushing our warriors — “whether they be men, women, black, white, whatever” — to the again of the road, Barbara pleads.
And, she continues, “we need a government that’s going to say, wearing that flag on your sleeve is the most wonderful thing you can do … because the world’s a really scary place right now.”
Momentarily misplaced in her ideas, she reaches for the intense purple poppy pinned to her black turtleneck.
“When I joined (the military), there were 12 per cent women and a whole load of trades had just opened up to us,” Barbara displays. “And we’ve made it to about 17 per cent.” In militaries the world over, the share of females serving is roughly the identical and but, she shrugs, we’ve a 25 per cent quota in Canada.
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The CAF has targeted its recruiting on this goal, Barbara rails, “and then we added all of the DEI, tiny little minority special interest groups to that quota. And now we spend money making a third bathroom or putting sanitary napkins in the men’s room and stuff, but we’re still buying our own helmets.”
However she isn’t giving up. The North must be protected, Barbara enthuses, and that’s a task the CAF might embrace. She is aware of what women and men in uniform can do. And she or he desires others to have the chance to stay their very own highly effective story of advantage acknowledged and ambition rewarded.
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