The Current - Should Canada Make Young People Do a Year of Service?

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

There's a growing call for mandatory national service in Canada — asking 18- to 30-year-olds to spend a year in public health, the environment, youth services, civil protection, or the military. Esprit de Corps editor Scott Taylor says it could strengthen citizenship and even help the Armed Forces. Policy expert David McLaughlin argues it's a way to build unity but warns it won't come cheap. Seventeen-year-old Jaden Braves pushes back, saying young people need to shape the program themselves.

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This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. So here's an idea for you. What if every Canadian between the ages of 18 and 30 had to give a year of their life to the country? Could be planting trees, helping in long-term care or disaster response, or joining the military. The concept is that that year of service could give young people valuable experience and foster national pride. This is not a new idea, but it is an idea that most Canadians seem to like now. About 70% are in favor, according to a recent Angus Reid poll, about mandatory civilian service. Support for that idea, though, drops fast on the option of military service. Scott Taylor is a former infantryman in the Canadian Forces, editor of Espredicor magazine, David McLaughlin. was Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. He's a columnist with the Winnipeg Free Press.

Both have written recently about this topic, and they both join us now. Good morning to you both. Good morning. David, you wrote in the free press that in some ways, you connected this to the idea of build, baby build, Mark Carney's idea of build, baby build.

You said building Canada is not the same as building Canadians. Tell me more about that and what you think this idea of service could do for this country. Well, our past Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau famously said that, you know, Canada was the world's first post-national state, you know, that we had no core

identity and no mainstream. And that's a, that's not a good thing for a country to have, to be, or a position to be in. And you don't get national unity, you don't get national identity with that kind of, that kind of dynamic. And so we're a modern, pluralist democracy. We grow by bringing people to us, by through greater immigration, welcoming newcomers. Part of this idea, of national service is to build a stronger unifying Canadian national identity by giving younger people in their formative years this chance to serve Canada in a variety of options, military, civilian and other things, and help connect them to the country and help connect them with their fellow Canadians. So it's, you know, it's one, it's a great thing to build more

pipelines and more ports and other things, but building Canadian citizenship is really what this is about. Scott, you also have long believed in this idea, as you said, in the piece that you wrote. What do you see broadly as the benefit for Canada if we have a program like this? We'll talk about what the program might look like, but what do you see as, in the best case scenario, the benefit for this country? Well, I think, I mean, I agree with David. And it's the fact that we are so diverse as Canadians, I mean, we're so spread out across the country, that the waves of immigration that come in, the different cultures that we have. And we were all proud of that, but we don't really experience it.

And I think something that would bring Canadians together from Newfoundland to Quebec to BC, everyone has a certain stereotype of what those people are in those regions. And then, of course, the Louisiana recent immigrants. But pulling them together and having them work together and they experiencing that, I think that would only deepen the pride

that people have in who we are as a diverse nation. And that's something which I personally experienced by going through boot camp in 1982. And I've died from Scarborough, been through art school, went out there. I mean, I hadn't really met a whole lot of Canadians. But all of a sudden, we were all in one big melting pot. You got the farm boys from Saskatchewan. You got the fisherman from Newfoundland.

And we became like a brotherhood. I mean, it was just through us all going through the same challenges. And that doesn't have to be a military challenge. That could be people out planting trees or fighting forest fires. What did that do for you in terms of how you thought about the country? It certainly made me realize. just what amazing people we have from all different walks of life and different parts of the country. And it brought us together. It connected us. I mean, all of a sudden, you knew people

from Saskatchewan. You knew people from B.C. And it wasn't something whereby it was something that was a feel of the unknown kind of thing. And you knew who they were. And it took a greater pride in knowing them in that sense. David, it's interesting. As I said, this is not a new idea. But in looking at this recent Angus Reed poll, you have, as I said in the introduction, something like 70% of people who were polled in favor of this idea. But one of the most interesting parts of this is that the young people, the people, the cohort, the generation that would be drafted, if we can say that word, into this national service, that they overwhelmingly are supportive of this, with one caveat that we'll get to. But what does that tell you? And what do you think that

those young people would get out of this? Well, you know, the kids may be all, right after all. And we are seeing, perhaps we're seeing, a residue of teaching civics in schools starting to catch on. I mean, every province in territory has a civics program. Three provinces make it mandatory. And so over time, this is the way you teach citizenship, is the way you teach young people about their country,

about their communities and other things. And so having a program that allows for, that to grow even stronger and grow even deeper is something that, you know, young people are already perhaps saying, look, this is, you know, I do like my country. I identify as a Canadian. I want to learn more about it. And this, this dynamic shows a residual pride that we're talking about building upon. That pride is, in Canada, is obviously rather acute these days because of the Trump dynamic and the 51st state thing. We had an election all about that. And so it's certainly, you know, higher or top of mind. But we also have a dynamic with

young people who are losing social cohesion because the, you know, the youngest generation because of the internet, smartphones and and social media. And the, there's a reason that schools, provinces are banning, you know, phones in the classroom. So there's two conflicting kind of dynamics happening here and they speak to something like having a national service program to help give kids that opportunity. So the caveat that I mentioned, Scott, is that in this Angus-Reed poll, only 43% of Canadians supported the idea of mandatory military service compared to over 70% for civilian service. What do you think that's about? Why is mandatory military service so much more divisive and so much less popular? Well, that number you're mentioning actually

drops down even further when it hits the cohort of people who would once being drafted 18 to 24 I mean obviously there comes a danger of actually having to go to war and military is something was amongst the young generation of course something which is abhorrent so but there's also people who are adventurous that would still want to to try that I mean the recent numbers I forget the exact number but it would more than make up the shortfall that the Canadian forces currently have if people were having mandatory service and choosing a military option which would come with a bill of higher pay and obviously a different, different experience. So it would be, you know, it's not going to be mandatory across the board,

but people that would choose that option out of the five, I think there's five different categories that they could choose or would choose. We would make up the shortfall that we need. What does it tell you about the military? I mean, we've talked about this extensively on the program, the military struggles to get and retrain more recruits when you have those low numbers. Well, it's been a steadily downward trend. I think we're doing the numbers that a day in 1962, we had a population of,

18 million. We had 126,000 in the regular force. By 1986, we had 86,000 in a regular force, but we had 27 million people. And now we got 40 million people and we're lucky to have 58,000 in the forces. And that's the distance that it has from the general population just keeps getting bigger. It was one in 147 Canadians were in uniform in 1962. It was 1 in 330, I think, in 1986. And now it's 100, 1 in 1660. So it's, it's, it's It's gradually being pushed out and becoming its own separate tribe. And they need to reach out and need to have. And this would be an opportunity if people had to go and experience the military to see what it's like. Can we talk, David, about what this would look like and some of the barriers that are here? I mean, would you, for example, would you pay people to take that year off? Yes. I think you have to in order to provide both the incentive for it and to make it meaningful and worthwhile to people.

I mean, there's lots of programs around the world. some 80 plus countries have forms of mandatory national service. Most of them are military base because of their security situations are radically different and more intense than Canada. But in all of them, there is some kind of stipend. There is some kind of the state covering expenses and costs and that. So it all depends on the design. A longer term program, say up to a year, yes, absolutely, you're going to have to have some kind of salary stipend. and that doesn't have to be like a full 100%

and that you might get in the workforce, but there has to be something for people there to be that kind of incentive. You can also design it in part depending on the age. We're talking here like 18 to 30. You could start either 16, 17 and just go to 20 or 24. I mean, there are different ways to do this to manage both the costs and also the design

to get that sort of maximum impact. How would we pay for this? How would the nation... If you're paying people, a huge cohort to take a year out, that that would be very expensive. Oh, it's going to be billions of dollars for sure. If you look at what other countries have been doing, you can consolidate some programs that that currently exists.

Canada has a Canada Service Corps. Federal Government has that. That's about 200 million over five years. I mean, you could, you know, fold that into it. So there are ways of doing this, but then that goes really to what you're trying to achieve. What is the cost of building a citizen? and what is the cost and benefit, if you will, to a country of having good citizenship

and having that cohesion and other things that come with it. That too has to factor into it. But there's no question, Matt. This would be a more expensive proposition than what we currently have. Scott, how do you create buy-in for something like this, aside from paying people? Social media being what it is, you can take it or leave it. But when you read responses to this, I mean, from the left and the right, in many ways, there's a similar response, which is, don't tell me what I'm going to do.

How do you create a buy-in so that people understand that if this is going to go forward, that there's a broader benefit to something like this? It may not have an immediate kick, but I think it would be a snowball effect as people did participate. I mean, if you look at the Ketimovic program, which I believe is still in existence, it started in the 70s over, I have a sister-in-law that went through that. She went to four different parts of Canada. I don't think she was paid much at all. It was maybe just a small stipend.

But they paid the travel and the experience that they got coming out of that was incredible. So I think if people did start with the mandatory service, the initial cohort might balk at it. But by the third time around, people just the word of mouth would be that this is actually an amazing course. And if people were learning things, skills, life skills like first aid and CPR things was mandatory as part of this service, you're building better Canadians when they come out of it. So the nation would become stronger. I think that definitely whatever the cost is, the benefits outweigh that. David, just finally, last word to you. Talk a little bit about what you see as the promise here.

You wrote that National Service would be an important down payment to creating a stronger Canadian democracy and stronger Canadian citizenship. If we were to do something like this, what could Canada be? Canada will become more united. Canada will become more cohesive. It will become friendlier to each other. We'll understand each other better. and we'll be able to act with more national purpose.

I mean, to me, that's the benefit of a program like this, an approach like this. We believe in rights, Canada as a charter of rights and freedoms, with rights come responsibilities, too. And so we'd be building that stronger individual self-reliance that will help make grow better citizens for the future. The kids will be better off individually for their own careers, their own lives, and that's not nothing. It's good to speak with you both about this. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you much. Scott Taylor is a former infantryman in the Canadian Forces editor of Esprit Decor magazine.

David McLaughlin was a chief of staff to the Prime Minister, Brian Mulruni, and a columnist at the Winnipeg Free Press. All right, it is October. It is officially spooky season, which is great timing because there is a new Canadian thriller series out. It's called Wayward, and I think we should be talking about it. My name is Alameen Abdul Mahmood, and I love pop culture. And this week on my podcast promotion, I called up some of my favorite critics. to get into the show about a school for troubled teens and then things start to go wrong.

It's just wonderful. And it's bringing something new and interesting to the thriller genre. For that episode and a whole lot more, you can find and follow Commotion with Alameen Abdul Mahmoud on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Jaden Braves is the founder and CEO of young politicians of Canada. Jaden, good morning to you. Good morning, Matt. You're 17 years old. You would be part of this cohort.

court called on to give a year of service if this idea was to be implemented. What do you make of it? Well, I think the first thing we have to look at is where exactly the problem lies. Where is the sense of national identity and pride falling short? And I think it has to come right back to reintegration of civics in the classroom, reintegration of Canadian values in the classroom, but also making sure that this isn't an imposition of Canada's gerontocracy on the next generation. I know a lot of young people might be listening and thinking to themselves, why are people that are not thinking like us, not experiencing the things that we are not growing up in an age of artificial intelligence and the internet and social media, now telling us that we should be

mandatory joining the military. And don't get me wrong, I believe, in the defended Canada, working with NATO and such. But this to a young person in Canada right now is a totally foreign and potentially contradictory argument or even proposition to what is on a lot of young people's minds. It's interesting that, I mean, if you take the military part out, of this, according to that Angus Reed polling, many, many, like, there is extraordinary support among that cohort, among your generation for this idea. What does that tell you?

Strip the military part out of this? Right. I mean, I think in general, my generation understands that, and the ones that are, you know, at least failing out, Agis Reed polls will probably agree. Canada needs more values that we understand as a young group of people that were, you know, taught in the classroom that we internalized. And I think that, yeah, absolutely, young people are ready for this and there should be some sort of program. Do I think it should be able to cost billions of dollars of taxpayers' money to deal with a problem that we're not all uniformly agreeing is one in Canada when it comes to a sense of national identity?

We're not all uniformly agreeing that that's an important thing to necessarily invest in. I think the first thing that we need to do, which young politicians of Canada just announced last year at the at the 2025 summit in the National Youth Roundtable and Legislations report is to create a national standard of civic literacy. So provinces are held accountable for ensuring every Canadian, every young Canadian going through the system, not only has an updated and nuanced understanding of the federalist system, but what it actually means to be a Canadian. I can tell you in my high school there's a shop teacher, or there was at least teaching a civics program from an extraordinarily biased point of view. And I know that's not the only story that I'm hearing. And I know people on this, listening to this radio right now will understand they have the same experiences as well. And once we address that problem, the sense of national pride and identity and understanding of one another will very much increase. Do you think that there's the opportunity, if you put people from different backgrounds from across this country into the same space, whether they're planting trees, whether they are doing disaster relief, maybe they're joining the military, maybe they are doing something.

But they're coming together, that there is the opportunity for people to learn more about each other? Absolutely. Canada's incredibly divided. I mean, how can we even expect that we're not divided? We live in polar different places of this country. We're extremely rural. We don't have a sense of shared unity. We come from entirely different backgrounds. And we don't have a framework in place to unite us other than the values to which Canada holds itself on, which we aren't even uniformly reintegrated or taught into that. framework in the classroom. So yes, there is a desperate need for it, and we need to figure out a solution that can combine education systems. It's very, very easy to bring a framework into an education system. It's very, very hard to tell, you know, the Carney cabinet at the national level to start a piece of law. Well, there's so many other things that need to get done, while things

were already progged in the Trudeau government. And Bill C63, for example, the Online Harms Act still hasn't been taking action on. And so, yes, we need this, but we have to look at exactly where it can start getting implemented and who's going to lead it. And I think this must manifest as a national standard that we all know are being taken. In the United States, for example, I hate to cite them as someone doing something good right now because they clearly aren't. And young people are afraid of that. Another point around Americanization that young people are scared of.

But they have a national citizenship test when they finish grade 12. And that's something you think we should learn from? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. How would you go about one of the concerns that you said, you know, could be articulated is this idea that it's a top-down, what you said a gerontocracy kind of telling young people what to do. How would you create buy it? If this idea were to catch fire, how would you design it so that your generation buys in? Well, I think young people need to be leading it. I think we need to be at the forefront of this proposition and be in Parliament and be having the conversations around how something like this would be structured, rather than this coming from, you know, quote-unquote, older Canadians are saying younger Canadians should be doing this. If we're the ones proposing it, we will be involved in obviously discussions and how it's carried out. But it's also not something that should be seen as mandatory.

It should be something that's seen as participating with your country. and it's something that's obviously wouldn't be strictly to the military, which is also nuanced and exciting, and I don't think really gets it done in other countries. And so that emphasis on excitement and young people being at the forefront of its development would be really exciting. Doesn't it need to be mandatory, though, if you're going to have everybody buying, don't you have to do it? Yes, yes, yes. But we're not calling it mandatory. When you call something mandatory to a bunch of young people, you're saying that the country is forcing you to do something. And in a country like Canada, well, we all come from different backgrounds,

and we claim it's a mosaic and not a melting pot, which, you know, people have various opinions on, we need to present this as an idea that unites us together, not as a mandatory, but it's almost a privilege that we get to embark on. And now it can be mandatory, but we have to think about, okay, is it going to be when you're 18 if you're an adult? That's never going to happen. The implementation of this idea is just not on the purview. But what could be done is in the education system, in the day-to-day, in the classroom, having a much better community service program that's mandated across this country. I have to let you go. But that idea that David talked about that with citizenship comes responsibility. What do you make of that?

With great citizenship comes great responsibility and we need to do much better at a federal level and ensuring every young Canadian is prepared to embark on what it means to be Canadian. We are not in touch with that right now thanks to a myriad of issues, many of which you can think of south of the border and we need to reintegrate and re-understand what it means to be Canadian. Jaden, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Jaden Braves is the founder and CEO of young politicians of Canada. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.