And the post-secondary sector is gasping for cash right now...
How Canadian Universities Can Help Build a Stronger Army Reserve
Every summer, Canada’s universities and the Canadian Army Reserve confront opposite versions of the same problem. Thousands of young citizens make themselves available for military service just as universities enter the most flexible part of their operating year. The Army must find places in which to house, feed, and teach them, while residences, classrooms, and dining facilities on many campuses operate below their regular academic-year demand. Canada has treated one as a military problem and the other as a matter of campus scheduling, although together they suggest a practical answer to a pressing defence need.
The deeper case, however, rests with the citizens who have already stepped forward. Canada cannot reasonably ask young people to arrange their studies, civilian work, and family lives around military service while the country’s other institutions remain politely uninvolved. Universities need not become military institutions in order to accept a practical share of responsibility for the society that sustains them. They need only offer, on clear terms and at full cost, the ordinary things they already know how to provide, while allowing the Army to do what only the Army can do.
Beds, meals, and classrooms may seem too prosaic to belong in a discussion of national preparedness, yet durable national capacity is usually built from ordinary things made dependable before they are urgently needed. Young Canadians are already volunteering to serve. Canada’s universities should be ready to serve beside them.
Every summer, Canada’s universities and the Canadian Army Reserve confront opposite versions of the same problem. Thousands of young citizens make themselves available for military service just as universities enter the most flexible part of their operating year. The Army must find places in...
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