From now on, recruiting on the west coast will take place like it does pretty well everywhere else in Canada: via the Internet. The military recruiting system will send staff out to Corner Brook a few days a month. They can always travel to high schools or job fairs to promote the Canadian Forces as they do now.
Documents leaked to David Pugliese at the Ottawa Citizen last month said that the Corner Brook office has one of the lowest numbers of recruits in the Canadian Forces system. The Corner Brook office, along with the one in Sydney Nova Scotia and Oshawa Ontario are affected by the changes.
NDP defence critic Jack Harris is quoted in Pugliese’s story and he said almost exactly the same thing to CBC who covered the story on Monday.
“Online applications are fine but it takes a face-to-face meeting to get a sense whether a person is right for the job.”
Jack Harris knows absolutely nothing about military recruiting, in case you didn't;t know that by now. He has exactly “zero” experience.but yeah, a face-to-face meeting is part of the process. The Canadian Forces aren’t eliminating face-to-face meetings. They are just shifting out of a few areas where – in case you missed it – they aren’t getting recruits.
According to Pugliese, “Harris said he was surprised that Corner Brook and Sydney would be selected as Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia have long been regions that have supplied many military recruits.”
Clearly Jack didn’t get the point that Corner Brook has turned out a relatively low number of recruits.
And in case anyone thinks that DND was just bee essing that whole low recruiting thing, take a look at some lovely pictures of the population projections for Corner Brook. Not looking too good for the recent past and not too good for the future, as far as young people are concerned.
The decision to change the way the Canadian Forces runs its recruiting makes perfect sense.
Jack Harris does not.
-srbp-