Retired veteran says military should recruit ‘warriors’ — not diversity hires
In 2016, the Trudeau government set a target of 25% for women recruits by 2026, up ten-percentage points. Currently, women make up one in six (17%) new recruits.
A retired Canadian veteran has come forth to denounce diversity hires as a blowback to women looking to join the military.
“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 Krasij-Maisonneuve, 62, when asked about the military’s efforts to recruit women.
The image of Canada’s military does not bode well for prospective recruits, she contends, with the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) short 16,500 personnel.
In 2016, the Trudeau government set a target of 25% for women recruits by 2026, up ten-percentage points. Currently, women make up one in six (17%) new recruits.
In an interview with the Post, Barbara recalled joining the military police as an energetic 18-year-old from Hamilton, Ontario after financial hardship quashed her dreams of being a journalist.
“I heard my mom and dad talking [one day] about taking [out] a second mortgage on their house and business to send me to Carleton to study journalism,” she said.
Instead, Barbara joined the army to avoid placing undue stress on her family.
She went on to serve 21 years in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) as a logistics officer, following stints as a military “policeman” in the early 1980s.
Fast forward to 2024, Barbara says: “If I knew nothing about Canada’s military, 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.’”
She adds, “this particular government is no friend of the military,” citing the “DEI, radical progressive movement” has been wrongly pursued by “a lot of our senior leaders … many of them are women now.”
Her husband, Michel Maisonneuve, a retired Canadian lieutenant general, previously condemned Trudeau for turning Canada’s military into a “woke” mess.
“Our country has been led by a government that has been focused on virtue signalling,” Michel claimed at the 2023 Conservative Convention.
“Apologizing for who we are and how we came to be,” he said at the time. Barbara echoed the sentiment, accusing Trudeau of having an “innate ability to see endless flaws in everyone else, but none in himself.”
“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,” she added.
In March 2023, Canada’s National Defence Department claimed the military needed “self-reflection" on the racism, privilege and “white fragility” of its members.
An anti-racism report detailed by the Ministry outlined CAF members should examine the “ways that whiteness and white superiority become embedded in policies and processes.”
"Racism and discrimination still manifest in our workplaces through bias, privilege, policies and power dynamics," said the report, Guide To Courageous Conversations On Racism And Discrimination.
In May 2022, the Ministry said white supremacy is one of the more significant problems plaguing the military. It recommended the adoption of discriminatory hiring practices against Christians.
As part of the 2017 Strong, Secure, Engaged policy, the military also established racial quotas to recruit visible minorities. It aimed to bolster recruitment from 8 to 12% by 2026.
However, DND polling revealed that most visible minorities consider the military a “last resort” as a career option.
“We can’t keep pushing our warriors — whether they be men, women, black, white, whatever — to the back of the line,” Barbara told the Post.
“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.”
Alex Dhaliwal
Calgary Based Journalist
Alex Dhaliwal is a Political Science graduate from the University of Calgary. He has actively written on relevant Canadian issues with several prominent interviews under his belt.
COMMENTS
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Bruce Atchison commented 2024-11-18 21:08:15 -0500The enemy is within. Socialists are weakening our country and destroying all that made it strong. The fake utopia they promise will be a police state with thugs left in the military. How I wish citizens would realize how dangerous Trudeau’s cheerleaders are.
