Reserves Vs. Regular Force

Interviewer: For those who don’t understand the difference between joining the reserves and joining the Canadian Forces, give us a sense of what the differences might be?

Well the big difference is the reserve world is a part-time job. It’s got to be definitely the best part-time job in the country. It’s like you go to work at McDonalds. You are scheduled to work two days a week. In the reserve world, I would say 90% of the people in the reserve world work what we call a real job in the daytime. So most reserve units work two days a week and two weekends a month and it’s strictly volunteer. You enrol, if you want to get released it takes probably a week or two and you’re out again. So the biggest difference between the reserves and the regular force in that regular force are full time, that’s their job. They go 24 hours a day. When they are told to go somewhere, they have to go. In the reserve world if someone came up and asked you, “We’re sending you here now!” You can say, “Hmm, no not going,” because this is a part-time job, it’s a voluntary thing and I have my full-time job besides this and my employer may not even let me go. So it sort of works that way. One is a part-time, one is a full-time.