NewsMax.com
Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2001

According to the Ottawa Citizen:

A leading adviser to the chief of the Canadian Army, Col. Howard Marsh, has stirred considerable discussion above the border with his forecast that by 2020 North America's society and economy will undergo such unprecedented changes that amalgamation of the two militaries will be inevitable.

Among the pressures Marsh sees contributing in the next 20 years to a radically changed Canada that will compel it to turn to such a military merger:

• Canada's overall public debt will increase to $2 trillion.

• Increasingly large numbers of retirees will put financial pressure on the social safety net, forcing the government to find new ways to save money.

• A North American trading bloc will probably adopt the U.S. dollar as its currency.

• As competition for skilled workers increases, soldiers will be in short supply.

• With soldiers' professional development increasingly contracted out to nonmilitary entities, military training centers and institutions such as the Royal Military College in Kingston could be closed.

• Although Canadian Forces excel at producing leaders who are good at tactical, short-term thinking, they do not train officers capable of dealing with long-range strategic issues.

Marsh warns that expected widespread changes will affect not only the military but also Canada's public-service, health-care, social- and pension-plan systems:

"I look at the change likely to come upon us, and I'm led to believe we won't be able to make it, which would probably force government or the public to ask questions about government structure or a different way of looking after the Canadian Forces.

"There is a day of reckoning coming."

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