For anyone who is interested, next week as part of its "Road Stories: The Home Front" special, the National will be featuring stories from CFB Edmonton on Monday, CFB Trenton on Tuesday, and CFB Petawawa on Wednesday. Its apparently going to examine soldiers preparing for duty in Afghanistan, as well as their families preparing for their absence.
It was advertised on the tail end of an "Inside the Mission" report by Brian Stewart. The story went into the incorrect perception that Canada has done less than its share in recent decades, and that Kandahar represents Canada finally picking up the slack (this POV has been furthered by statements made by the PM and Gen. Hillier, but they were more to do with funding rather than operations). This is apparently one reason why European nations have been so slow to help combat the Taliban in Afghanistan. Anyways, the story debunked this myth rather authoritatively by mentioning Bosnia, Somalia, Kosovo, Haiti and East Timor, and generally pointed out the intense operational tempo for the CF in the 1990s. One quote was something to the effect of "We were very committed to European security issues in the 1990s. We were watching their backyard for most of the decade. It's ironic now that they won't help us" Thats not word for word, but you get the point. Anyways, I was very impressed by the stories, they were relatively unbiased, which meant that the positive contributions of the CF worldwide could not be hidden. When they mentioned the Somalia mission I was waiting for a pre affixed "ill fated" or "disasterous", but Stewart only described (and quite accurately) the forces we committed there.
Even if CBC as a whole does not do a good job reporting on the CF, I would argue that Brian Stewart has done an excellent job here, and the fact that CBC is showing reports like this one as well as ones next week is also a commendable improvement.
It was advertised on the tail end of an "Inside the Mission" report by Brian Stewart. The story went into the incorrect perception that Canada has done less than its share in recent decades, and that Kandahar represents Canada finally picking up the slack (this POV has been furthered by statements made by the PM and Gen. Hillier, but they were more to do with funding rather than operations). This is apparently one reason why European nations have been so slow to help combat the Taliban in Afghanistan. Anyways, the story debunked this myth rather authoritatively by mentioning Bosnia, Somalia, Kosovo, Haiti and East Timor, and generally pointed out the intense operational tempo for the CF in the 1990s. One quote was something to the effect of "We were very committed to European security issues in the 1990s. We were watching their backyard for most of the decade. It's ironic now that they won't help us" Thats not word for word, but you get the point. Anyways, I was very impressed by the stories, they were relatively unbiased, which meant that the positive contributions of the CF worldwide could not be hidden. When they mentioned the Somalia mission I was waiting for a pre affixed "ill fated" or "disasterous", but Stewart only described (and quite accurately) the forces we committed there.
Even if CBC as a whole does not do a good job reporting on the CF, I would argue that Brian Stewart has done an excellent job here, and the fact that CBC is showing reports like this one as well as ones next week is also a commendable improvement.
