A re-elected Conservative government will make the College Militaire Royal a full-fledged

THE PLAN

A re-elected Conservative government will make the College Militaire Royal a full-fledged, degree-granting military university.  The Prime Minister committed that the government would work collaboratively with the Quebec Government as it re-establishes the university.

Re-establishing CMR as a degree-granting university will cost approximately $4 million annually and will help recruit Quebec-based cadets and improve bilingualism in the armed forces.

THE ISSUE

College Militaire Royal de Saint-Jean (CMR) opened in 1952 offering education in French to officer cadets.

In 1971, under an affiliation with Université de Sherbrooke, CMR was permitted to award bachelor’s degrees.  In 1985, CMR was granted the right to issue its own university-level diplomas.

Unfortunately, the College was closed by the Liberal government in 1995 as part of their  “decade of darkness” of budget cuts and neglect of our armed forces. That was the wrong decision for Quebec, for Canada and for our military.

As one of many steps to rebuild and restore our military, the Conservative government righted this historic mistake by re-opening CMR as a CEGEP in 2008, marking a new start for this the College.

Conservative Government Record of Support For our Military

The Conservative Government has made rebuilding the Canadian Armed Forces a priority since taking office. A strong CAF is vital to the protection of Canada’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and it is an important instrument for defending Canadian interests and promoting Canadian values abroad. To ensure that the CAF can carry out its missions, we have:

• Re-built “core military capabilities” of the CAF following the Liberals’ “decade of darkness”. The CAF’s air transport, sovereignty surveillance and army combat capacities have all been strengthened.
• Taken the steps needed to rebuild the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and the Canadian Coast Guard through the comprehensive National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy worth some $35 billion.  With ships now being built in both Halifax and Vancouver, the shipbuilding procurement strategy engages Canadian industry from coast-to-coast in sustaining RCN and Coast Guard fleets in the decades to come.
• Resolutely defended Canada and our allies overseas against a growing terrorist threat by deploying military forces to participate in the military coalition led by President Obama against ISIS.
• Taken a firm stand against Russian aggression in Ukraine by establishing a Canadian military training mission there, and also by supporting deterrence in Europe in conjunction with our NATO allies.

THE CHOICE

Justin Trudeau’s Liberals and Tom Mulcair’s NDP have viewed the Canadian Armed Forces with attitudes ranging from disinterest to contempt.  They lack true respect for our military and true appreciation for the importance of the work it does.