If anyone cares for my personal opinion on this, read on, if not move on to the next comment.
I figure if you are Canadian, and decide to live abroad and end up in a war zone, or an area that has a history of wars, big or small scale events, maybe you should forego Canadian Passport protection.
Canadians that came from China, thru various escape routes thru Hong Kong in the 60s, 70s were told if they went back to visit family or vacation that Canada could not protect them from arrest or charges from the Government of China.
So if you decide to live in a conflict area, as the Middle East, you should be responsibile for your own rescue plan. You want out, there is always some sort of warning that something bad is coming.
Canada is too far away, does not have the troops, or equipment , or aircraft to storm a airport, and hold it as rescue flights in come and land, load up and depart. Canada does not have a Navy to storm a beach and hold it for boat operations to take people out.
( Canadian Armed Forces are under valued by the government and underfunded, and under manned just my opinion)
Right now we could barely mount an operation to rescue the Canadians who might be stuck in the various hurricane affected areas of the US and they are not in a hostile country.
If every chopper was sent
15 chinooks ( 33-55 troops) ( 825 persons)
85 Giffons (8-10 troops depending on the source) ( 680 to 850 persons could be moved)
25 Cyclones ( up to 22 people ) ( upwards 550 people max )
13 Cormorants ( 15 to 20 depending on seating plan, or standing) ( 260 persons)
13 Jet Rangers ( 2 or 3 plus a pilot) ( 39 people)
( max of 2524 people in a single lift )
the C17, C130 fleets could take that many plus more people in a single lift
But aircraft taskings and operations take a few of each off the list
The US Cenus reports 95 000 Canadians live in Florida with as many as 500 000 homes owned by Canadians ( snow birds)
We cannot rescue them so how do we do a rescue operation in a war zone ?
US Coast Guard has 144 helicopters across the US.
National Guard has 30 plus helicopters operating in the Florida area. Operating in an area less 1% of Canada's land mass
So how the hell does anyone expect Canada to rescue them in an emergency of any kind.
So we would need to use Civilian leased aircraft, pay a huge bill for pilots, crew and aircraft be flown into the Middle East war zone and land at airports that may or not be secure, and not anger the various factions and governments who might take a small dislike to Canadians. Or use cruise ships to take them away.
Then have the people we rescue just return to the area after they complain the lodgings, the hotels they were offered were not up the standard they would expect to live in for any time period.
Estimated 45 000 to 50 000 Canadian maybe living in the Middle East.
In 2006 Canada evacuted 15 000 people , but not all were Canadians, estimated 7000 returned
waste of money and man power ?
but it made the government of the day look good.
