The new term has been included in speeches and releases from Defence Minister Peter MacKay (Central Nova, N.S.) since last December and extends also into news releases from other government departments when referring to the Canadian Forces, the description of Canada’s Army, Navy and Air Force contained in the National Defence Act since a Liberal government under then prime minister Lester Pearson unified the three separate services into one in 1968.
A spokesman for Mr. MacKay said inclusion of the term “Armed” in the Canadian Forces title reflects the legal description for all three services combined in the National Defence Act and also reflects more closely the kind of operations Canadian Forces personnel now conduct.
The Harper government in 2011 reintroduced use of the description “Royal Canadian” for the Air Force and Navy, and last week applied “Royal” to the five Army corps, including armoured and infantry troops.
Opposition MPs have criticized what they consider to be an outdated view the Conservatives have toward the military, reflected as well in romantic versions of war the government presented last year during 100-anniversary celebrations of the three-year war between Britain and the U.S. that began in 1812.
A program officer with Project Ploughshares, an inter-denomination church peace project founded in Canada in the 1970s, said the war celebrations last year and the Conservative government’s rebranding of the military have political overtones.
“These are all steps toward placing Canada’s military in a more central political role, the purposes of which are not entirely clear to me, certainly, but seem to suggest the government does expect more, politically, from that role,” said Kenneth Epps, senior program officer for Project Ploughshares, based at a Mennonite college on the University of Waterloo campus.
Mr. Epps told The Hill Times he believes the Conservative changes also extend into the Canadian foreign policy under Mr. Harper.
“I think what’s happening, and this is where I suspect there may be some opposition, even within the Department of National Defence, because it is casting the Department of National Defence as a political actor, when certainly DND would not see itself as serving a political agenda; it would see itself as a servant to Canada,” Mr. Epps said.
“I think most Canadians still view the Canadian Forces as ones that are involved in a range of activities, many of which do not require weapons such as search and rescue, aid to the civil authority when they’re helping with fires and floods and so on,” he said in an interview with The Hill Times.
The Department of National Defence, which referred questions about the change to Mr. MacKay’s office, continues to use the term Canadian Forces in its news releases, without including the term “armed.”
A search of news releases in Department of National Defence archives shows Mr. MacKay used the standard title, Canadian Forces, last Nov. 11, for Remembrance Day events. He used it again in a Nov. 26 speech later that month, but by Nov. 29, in a news release from the office of then Assistant Defence Minister Bernard Valcourt (Madawaska-Restigouche, N.B.), it had become Canadian Armed Forces.
“The term Canadian Armed Forces has been used interchangeably with Canadian Forces in the past, but is now being consistently used by both the Prime Minister and Minister MacKay and has been used by government officials for years,” Jay Paxton, Mr. MacKay’s director of communications, told The Hill Times.
“Of the two terms, we think the Canadian Armed Forces is a more appropriate representation of the work of our men and women in uniform,” said Mr. Paxton.
Asked if the term applies also to peacekeeping, search and rescue or civilian disaster assistance, Mr. Paxton said: “Stating that military forces are armed does not detract from that work.”
Retired Canadian Forces colonel Michel Drapeau, an Ottawa lawyer and expert on the National Defence Act, said although the act contains a legal description that allows the government to call the Canadian Forces the Canadian Armed Forces, he questioned the government’s motives.
“One thing that is not clear is why … is it necessary or useful to bring such a change?” Mr. Drapeau said in an emailed response to The Hill Times.
“No doubt, reliance on the formal legal name of the Canadian Forces will imply costly changes to outdoor and indoor signs, letterhead, advertising, and would also have to be reflected in a host of regulations, orders, directives, policies and contracts,” he said.
“One possible negative perception from the change is that our military is yet being moved further away from its historical and worldwide acclaimed record of peacekeeping,” Mr. Drapeau said. “The more simple and neutral Canadian Forces appellation is more in line with that prospective role under the UN flag.”
Liberal MP John McKay (Scarborough-Guildwood, Ont.) said the name change reflects a Conservative government’s preoccupation with the military.
“They spend all kinds of time convincing themselves that we are a militaristic nation, and certainly if you push us, we can fight back, but we don’t go around the world starting fights or trying to be a colonial power, or proving that we’ve got a more muscular military than anybody else has,” Mr. McKay said in an interview.
“It boils down to nonsense, it’s basically the same as the ‘Royal,’ you reach back into history and apparently reaching back into our status as a colonial power is more important than dealing with 2013,” Mr. McKay said.
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: TIM NAUMETZ
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