Will Canadian Forces vote Conservative? Embassy Magazine says so

Rabble.ca in its election blog notes that Embassy Magazine, the foreign policy newsweekly, manages to report that most soldiers will be voting Conservative, without quoting any soldiers.

"I would suggest that most of the members of the Canadian Forces would probably vote Conservative in this election," said retired colonel Alain Pellerin, executive director of the Conference of Defence Associations. "I think the message from the current Conservative government probably resonates more with the troops."

It also quoted Canadian military historian and senior research fellow with the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute Jack Granatstein:

"I suspect [the military vote] will stay heavily Conservative," he said. "They essentially gave the Afghan force everything it could possibly want, except for helicopters. My guess is that the Tories have earned the vote."

Embassy reported that, in the last federal election, in the top 10 ridings in which military ballots were cast in the last election, nine contain major military bases. The Conservatives won five of the top ten, the Liberals three, the Bloc Québécois two and one went to independent Quebec MP André Arthur.

The most potentially damaging move the government has made, military watchers said, is the decision to extend the mission in Afghanistan to 2011.

Many Canadian soldiers have now done multiple tours of duty, something that takes a toll on both the troops and their families. The prospect of yet another tour could turn soldiers against the government, particularly in Quebec where support for the mission is lowest.

Rabble blogger Stephen Staples said:

We could all easily guess that Dinosaur Jack Granatstein and Col. Allain Pellerin (ret) will vote for Stephen Harper, since their groups get a lot of funding from his government, but do they also have some “Vulcan mind-meld” with Canada’s 62,000 regular military personnel that allows them to know who soldiers will vote for?

I think that we would all be surprised to learn that military families have the same priorities as the rest of the Canadian population.

During the 2006 election, I listened to an incredulous reporter interviewing a military wife who said she was far more concerned about health care funding than more money for military equipment.

And again, this week the CBC interviewed a military wife in CFB Petawawa who said that many wives wanted the troops home right away. Could they be planning to vote NDP? Sacre blue!