“The defence minister said he fixed the recruitment crisis. But actually, it's very bad. The military is not fixed. He just lowered standards and hoped we wouldn't notice. I want the minister to admit his recruitment reforms failed.”
What they said. What they meant.
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Oral Questions
National Defence
The Conservatives raised concerns about low graduation rates and recruiting non-citizens into the military, citing a leaked report. The Liberals mostly just repeated talking points that recruitment is at a 30-year high.
“I want to paint the other side as negative. I insist our military recruitment is fine. Look, we threw money at it! The military should be happy we pay them at all.”
“Those numbers are bad. I want the Liberals to stop bragging and admit the military has problems. They should fix them instead of just doing damage control.”
“I want to brag about military recruiting and have you ignore our failures. It's the Conservatives' fault for not passing our good plans.”
“There are problems in the military. The government is to blame. Stop causing these problems with your bad policies.”
“Don't worry about conflicts. Recruitment is high. The military is getting more money and equipment. Things are great!”
“That doesn't help our military. We took very few Canadians who wanted to join. The government put random foreigners in charge instead. Some don't even speak English or French. How can our country be safe when our officers might not follow women's orders?”
“Recruitment numbers are up. They're the highest in thirty years. We recruited over 7,000 regular force members and filled 70 critical roles. There's still work to do.”