The federal Conservatives gave Canadians a lesson in Halifax yesterday, a lesson most of them likely didn't want.
A group of Second World War veterans were trotted before the cameras alongside Peter Mackay, the national defence minister as props in a campaign announcement.
The lesson was Manipulation, Cynicism and Crassness 101.
Ostensibly they were there to announce that the Halifax Rifles - a disbanded militia unit - would be reactivated. The veterans had fought with the Canadian Forces during the Second World War, many of them receiving their initial training with the Rifles.
But here's the thing:
No one knows what this unit will do.
No one knows where the soldiers for this unit will come from.
No one knows where they will train.
In short, there is no Halifax Rifles, any more than there are the various battalions of soldiers promised by the Conservatives to any town and city in the country that wanted one.
The regional commander of the army stated the problems, albeit in the guise of making it sound like this was a good thing that the army was squarely behind:
Simply getting people to join will "be a challenge because there’s a lot of demand on reserve (units for) folks that are very, very good," he said.
"Both industry here as well as the Canadian Forces and all the other units are going to be competing for the same quality folks. . . . That’s why it’s going to take a little bit of time to actually stand up the unit and get the folks in there."
He expects it will take three or four years to fully re-establish the regiment.
You see the Friends of the Halifax Rifles have been lobbying for years to recreate the Rifles. They've worked every room they can to get the name back on a uniform. They are well-intentioned and sincere with a justifiably love of their former unit and desire to see their own cherished memories continued.
But up to now both the Canadian Forces and the politicians who over see the military have understood that we cannot create military units for what essentially amounts to sentimental reasons.
The military cannot and should not be used for anything other than the reasons we have soldiers, sailors and aircrew. They don't exist to proper up failing local economies. And they don't exist in the active military force to serve - essentially - as living relics of another time, looking good on parade, chewing up scarce cash and human resources and no really contributing anything to the defence of Canada.
There is a fine reserve infantry unit in Halifax already, one that has to work hard to keeps its ranks full. It's not so different from the other reserve units for the army, navy, and air force in Halifax and the surrounding areas or anywhere else in the country in that respect. All of them have well defined missions and they are set up within areas where the competition for talent is already fierce. They recruit hard and they train hard all year long to do a job. Adding another reserve unit doesn't increase the capability in the area; it just sets the military to competing with itself for people.
At one point, the Friends were suggesting that the Rifles could be a reconnaissance unit, an idea that appears in this latest announcement. What they had in mind at one point was buying a whole bunch of civilian type jeeps. Soldiers would spend their training time bombing around the coasts of Nova Scotia keeping an eye out - on the weekends only, of course - for enemy submarines or smugglers. All wonderful ideas a half century ago but all hopelessly out of touch with the current reality.
What makes this announcement crass, cynical and manipulative is that people involved in the announcement on the government side know there is very likelihood the promise will ever come to light. National Defence has already been through the debate between the professional military and the amateurs and wannabes who came into office a couple of years ago over where the Canadian Forces should put its priority for the defence of Canada. The whole episode wasted valuable time and chewed up valuable cash resources for absolutely nothing except to show seeds of confusion in some cases. Thankfully that was short-lived.
There will be no Halifax Rifles in four years times just as there will be no rapid reaction battalion in Goose Bay or any of the other hare-brained schemes cooked up in Conservative backrooms to fool just enough naive voters to get the party elected.
In this case, a group of very sincere and well meaning men have been taken advantage of. They are proud of their service to the country and Canadians should be respectful of them.
Instead, the defence minister has done little more than stick a "Kick Me" sign on their backs. He could easily have stuck bunny ears up behind their heads for the cameras and been every bit in keeping with the substance of his announcement.
He certainly couldn't have been more disrespectful or abused them - and us - in any greater way.
-srbp-