ColbyCosh.com

I did a quick scroll through the Afghan casualties link and also noticed the near total lack of French names save for RSM Girouard. The only two Montrealers had non-French names (SGT Karigiannis and CPL Warren).

Canadian city-dwellers are so used to urban gunfire that they're better at ducking?

It's knife fights we urbanites are trained for...or at least getting stabbed. Does that count?

"BruceR" wrote:

"Canadian city-dwellers are so used to urban gunfire that they're better at ducking?"

...and running?

Interesting as well that support for the Afghanistan mission seems stronger where there's more of a connection to the soldiers actually doing the fighting.

Raymund: There's a Marc Leger from Ontario, which ought to count for something.

The fundamental thing here has to be that military service is, by nature, both a move that doesn't appeal to left-wingers (and in Canada, that pretty much means centrists and red Tories too), and an honorable escape from a small town to the greater world.

So that pretty much means that most urbanites don't have the right incentives to enlist, and generally have a lot more career options right under their nose.

I think you'll find a similar situation in the US, where the red states do most of the fighting and dying.

Ryan, thanks for your comment. I regret missing Leger in my review of the casualties list. And you're correct about red-staters being overrepresented in the US armed forces. And the casualty list is a small sample size from which to draw statistically significant conclusions.

More broadly, my crude attempts to map Canadian culture and society onto American analogs (e.g. Alberta = Texas, Saskatchewan = Minnesota, etc.) founder on the situation of French-Canadians. I wasn't trying to disparage the patriotism of all French-Canadians.

A couple of thoughts occur to me: (1) I presume the urge to honorably escape from a small town would be as applicable in rural Quebec as in rural Ontario. (2) A reading of the Wikipedia entries on the Conscription Crises of 1917 and 1944 suggests that French-Canadians have been historically less likely than Anglophone Canadians to (want to) serve in the Canadian military.

The lack of Quebecois fatalities is explained by the fact that the Van Doos have not yet formed the core battle group in Kandahar (they did serve earlier in Kabul where there is little Taliban activity--the Kabul mission was close to so-called "traditional peacekeeping". However the Van Doos will be arriving in August for a six-month combat tour. There will be deaths.

Deaths by province as of July 5:

B.C. 2
Alta 8
Sask. 4
Man. 1
Ont. 21
Que. 3
N. B. 6
N. S. 8
Nfld. 7

Same fatalities in the Atlantic provinces as in Ontario which has over five times the population of these provinces:

The simple fact is that military service in Canada today is very largely a product of family tradition (amongst white Anglos too) combined with lack of economic opportunity in certain areas.

Mark
Ottawa

Like, say, Alberta?

A rather more robust Weltanschauung, perhaps.

Mark
Ottawa

you're correct about red-staters being overrepresented in the US armed forces

Among U.S. combat deaths in Iraq, more blue-staters have died than red staters. See http://icasualties.org/oif/ByState.aspx for info.

As for the general question:

If Okalik is right, what can one conclude from the near-total absence of soldiers from Vancouver and Toronto amongst Canada’s honoured combat dead?

That those who have chosen not to serve have a fucking poor vantage point from which to criticise others for not doing so?

Among U.S. combat deaths in Iraq, more blue-staters have died than red staters.

True, but blue states tend to be larger. Taking the size of the states into account, red states continue to be overrepresented per unit of population by combat fatalities.

For example, Texas and California have suffered about the same number of fatalities (326 to 385) despite Texas having about two-thirds of California's population.

True, but blue states tend to be larger.

But there are more red states than blue ones. The total population in the two is just about equal, I thought?

Mark, thanks for the note about the Van Doos. I conclude the casualty statistics are not a significant way to think about Anglophone/Francophone differences regarding the Canadian military.

As for "red staters" being overrepresented in the US military, it would be more accurate to throw away the US electoral college map and instead say middle-class suburban whites are underrepresented relative to other US demographic groups.

Not to belabor a point, but I checked the state-by-state references, and I got a higher total for red states (defined as those who went R for prez in 2004) than blue states - 1989 against 1957). Still, '04 had some surprises such as Ohio going Republican. I agree with Raymund that red/blue doesn't seem to be a meaningful distinction overall - I think Mark's comment about an element of family tradition holds true in the US as well.

It was an eye-opener, though. While I have friends in the military (I'm in Wisconsin) I had always thought of the deep south as providing a high proportion of recruits. These numbers made it look like a much more even distribution across the country.

Yes, the highest proportion of combat deaths to state population is Vermont, which if you'd asked me to rank the likeliest I'd have picked 50th and last, especially in light of my rather memorable time living there.

There are blue states and there are blue regions; you'll remember the famous map from 2004 of the massive patch of red from coast to coast, border to border, with various small blue areas interspersed. To take my own state as an example: Pennsylvania has voted Blue in every presidential election since 1992, yet also has the U.S.'s largest rural populace and many solidly red counties. A considerable number of Pennsylvanians (169) have also died in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The situation with Ontario would seem to be somewhat analogous, particularly as they are both about the same size (or were until recently).