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The ultimate decision to create a military professional association will have to come from the rank and file that it would represent. Do the soldiers, sailors and air personnel, the flesh, blood and backbone of the Forces, feel they deserve a collective legal voice over working conditions, rights when disabled, processing of family and spousal benefits, grievances and career progression?

Our Armed Forces continue to serve overseas alongside the unionized militaries of countries such as Germany and France.

Or should we in 2019 and beyond continue to leave ultimate responsibility for caring for the rank and file to the 20-something lieutenant just out of university, or the pedantic staff-officer captain or major focused on promotion and determined not to “upset the colonel”?

Before any informed decision can be made, negative and factually incorrect perceptions of a military professional association need to be identified and shot down.

Photo by Sgt Dan Shouinard / DND Combat Camera

First and foremost, a professional military association does not, never has, and absolutely never will be about our military having the right to strike. (Critics and skeptics, please read the previous sentence again.) As with our uniformed police fire and border services, a unionized military would have to instead move to mediation and arbitration if contract negotiations reached an impasse.

Second, military unionization is never intended to give military personnel the right to refuse a lawful operational combat order. To imply otherwise would not only be a crime under the National Defence Act but would also defeat the whole purpose of a military union, which is to work within, and not against, the operational objectives of the organization. Unionized firefighters are not opposed to fighting fires. Unionized police are not opposed to fighting crime. Unionized operating room nurses want the patient’s surgery to be a success.