Canada boosting military might as it seeks 400,000 volunteer soldiers, quadrupling size of force

The Great White North is getting ready for war.Canada is racing to figure out how to clothe, equip and train as many as 400,000 volunteer soldiers to join the army reserves under an ambitious new mobilization plan that would more than quadruple the size of its military.Americans worried about their neighbor to the north muscling up can rest assured knowing the entry standards wouldn’t be very strict, according to a Canada Department of Defence directive first obtained by the Ottawa Citizen.“The entry criteria ..

.should be less restrictive than the Reserve Force for age limits as well as physical and fitness requirements,” the nine-page unclassified document noted.Reservists would get just a one-week training on “basic skills,” learning how to shoot guns, drive trucks and operate drones.And the government is counting on its public servants to be first in line to volunteer, something those workers haven’t exactly embraced.“Non pensionable military service? So where’s the incentive?” slammed one in a Reddit sub for Canadian government employees.“Volunteer to spend non-pensionable time in the armed forces?” lambasted another.

“Have the people in charge fully lost the plot at this point?”“I would not trust 98% of our colleagues with a rifle,” said another.The plans would put Canada’s already struggling military in a real scramble, and the new recruits might have to make do with hand me downs uniforms, according to documents obtained by the country’s public broadcaster, CBC.“This is possibly the tallest order that the Canadian Armed Forces, in my view, has received possibly since the end of the Cold War,” Christian Leuprecht, a professor at the Royal Military College of Canada, told the outlet.In a signal the country may be preparing for unprecedented times, the department also created a first of its kind senior position focused entirely on expanding the military, according to the documents.Work began in June and would see the supp...