The CAF can't compete with medical school, which is what alot of immigrants want for their kids and why they come here. If we want more immigrants in the CAF we might consider making it a good choice as a path to citizenship, like in the US military:
A profile of the Canadian Forces
A very small proportion of CF personnel were members of visible minorities—only 6% of all CF members (5% of regular forces and 11% of reservists) were visible minorities compared with 17% of the civilian working population. This is much lower than the U.S. military’s rate of 33% (
Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Personnel and Readiness 2006). Only 3% of officers in the regular forces were members of visible minorities.
Similarly, a very small portion were immigrants (6% compared with 21%). The low rates of visible minority and immigrant members may be related to the citizenship requirement for joining the CF. Currently, only Canadian citizens can join the regular forces (
DND 2008e).
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However, even after excluding recent immigrants (in Canada less than 10 years) and adjusting for age, significant differences in visible minority and immigrant representation remain between the CF and the civilian working population (data not shown). The under-representation of visible minorities in the CF can be explained by many factors (
Jung 2007): the importance of education, family, and ethnic identity;
11 a relatively low ranking of military service as a career, combined with the negative image provided by their own native militaries; and insufficient numbers in senior ranks to provide the necessary positive role models. However, visible minority representation in the CF is important because they are the fastest growing segment of the Canadian population, particularly in the traditional recruitment target age group of 17 to 24 (
Rueben 2004).
www150.statcan.gc.ca
www.cnn.com
www.motherjones.com
I don't disagree with you!!
