"The Canadian Forces Spend Millions to Recruit and Target Your Children"

Ok, so the title is my rough translation of this blatantly ignorant article about the Canadian Cadet Movement. A (rough) English translation is available here. A snippet of the March 13th article published in Le Devoir:

The end of the primary school or the beginning of the secondary arrives, and know that there may be a recruiting agent in your entourage. The parents of a young neighbor or a friend, a trainer or even a member of the school's staff are perhaps instructors in a cadet corps. As absurd as the thing can appear, the Canadian Forces approach the children as of the age of 12. To some extent, don't we thus have our own child-soldiers?

Of course, it is nothing comparable with the child-soldiers mobilized by force in some countries at war. But all the same, it should be known that through Canada, 50 000 young people are recruited in cadet corps by the Army, the marine or the Air Force. The "instructors" of these juniors are soldiers belonging to your local reserve unit of the Canadian army. The young people carry the military uniform, are conditioned to obey military orders by the officers and to learn the handling of weapons.

Pour ceux de vous qui peut lire en français, cliquez ici pour le premier article dans Le Devoir et ici pour une réponse "Les cadets ne sont pas des enfants-soldats".

While the sheer ignorance and lies of Normand Beaudet does not even deserve a response, I feel it is imperative to tell you about my positive experience in cadets.

Cadets taught me things that a public classroom couldn't teach. Cadets taught me:

The value of friendship.
Joy of shining boots.
Respect for history and traditions.
Importance of communication.
Pride in my country.
Improve my public speaking skills.
Love for silent drill routines.
Acts of good citizenship.
How tough it is to be a good leader.
Respect is earned not demanded.
Passion for physical fitness.
Understanding of group dynamics.
Necessity of teamwork.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Did I want to join the CF at some point during my cadet career? Yes. But having come from a family with CF on my maternal and paternal side I considered joining the CF long before I joined cadets (which was at 16 years old). Would I want my child to join cadets? Of course! Being as both my partner and I were cadets in our youth, this is likely in our future either as volunteers ourselves and/our with our (future) children.

Cadets is a free program and you get paid to go to summer camp. For low-income families who couldn't afford to put their kids in organized sports or send them to summer camp this offers them an opportunity to be leaders and be socialized in a 'family' that will embrace them where it doesn't matter what label is one your jeans or shoes. But this is by no means a way to recruit "impoverished youth." You don't have to be 'poor' to join and in my experience, we came from all types of families. At summer camp you can learn how to play an instrument, sailing, archery, photography, or flying a plane.

During my five years in cadets I saw this youth program became watered down to be so de-militarized that it began to lack some of the most important aspects: discipline. Many of my fellow cadets and staff would complain that the standards were being lowered or "slack." I was too young to know about the real politics going on at the time, but I do know about movements like this one have continued to paint cadets to be a child soldier movement. It is unfortunate because there are very few opportunities for youth that offer the same experiences of leadership, physical fitness, respect for the outdoors, and discipline.

Reaction from RCSU(E):

We are familiar with Mr Beaudet's group, which, for several months, has been using disinformation to express its opposition to the Canadian Forces (CF) and to various CF recruitment campaigns. Until now, the media and the general public have shown no interest in Mr Beaudet's allegations concerning the Cadet program. After a discussion with NDHQ, I adopted the approach of not responding to the letter published in Le Devoir, in order to avoid giving the author an opportunity to reply. The Cadet Leagues were informed of this approach.

Were any of my fellow bloggers out there cadets?