Globe and Mail: Latest Canadian Forces ads omit Afghan mission

[tuvor]

OTTAWA — One thing is missing from the Canadian Forces' latest generation of TV recruitment ads unveiled this week: any mention of Afghanistan or overseas combat.

It's an odd omission given that Canada is engaged in its biggest military operation since the Korean War in Afghanistan, a mission that has revitalized the Forces and driven a lot of its new equipment spending.

Instead, the two new TV ads - Hard Landing and Drug Bust - paint a job in the Forces as an exclusively domestic career: rescuing survivors of a downed airplane in the Canadian North and catching drug smugglers off the East Coast.

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Peter Donolo, a partner with the polling firm the Strategic Counsel, said the minority Conservative government is likely trying to play down the controversial Afghanistan mission in case it is defeated and must go to the polls, while playing up two issues it has long championed to political acclaim: Arctic sovereignty and border security.

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