Project Hero was launched last summer by Rick Hillier, former chief of defense staff and now chancellor of Newfoundland’s Memorial University. Kevin Reed, an honourary lieutenant-colonel in Canada’s Armed Forces took it to other post-secondary schools throughout the country. Currently many universities and community colleges have signed on.
Project Hero provides scholarships to those who have had a parent killed in action while serving in the Canadian Armed Forces.
Earlier this month the University of Regina signed on to Project Hero and the awarding of scholarships will commence at the beginning of the next school year. To be eligible to receive the scholarship, the applicant must be a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada. He or she must be under the age of 26 and have been a dependant of a person who died while serving with the Canadian Armed Forces on an active mission. The applicants must be full time students and maintain a 75% average each semester in order to be eligible for funding during the next semester. Those applicants who qualify will have tuition and compulsory student fees paid for and will be given $1,000 a year for books and other expenses.
This week, 16 professors at the university wrote an open letter to the administration asking the university to cease participation in Project Hero. The 16 didn’t like the fact that soldiers who died in combat in Afghanistan were portrayed as “heroes”. One of the professor’s, Jeffrey Webber, was quoted as saying, “We think this program is a glorification of Canadian imperialism in Afghanistan.” Webber went on to describe the war in Afghanistan as the “occupation of a sovereign country”.
It comes as no surprise that Webber is one of the people who want to deprive military children of scholarships. Webber’s expertise, if you can attribute that word to an assistant professor, is in the Latin American left. He is also on the editorial boards of such publications as New Socialist. Nevertheless it is the job of teachers to impart wisdom and that he does. Canada is an imperialistic country; who knew? And we have also learned that Canadian troops are occupying Afghanistan. And we all thought our troops are there at the invitation of the Afghan government. Boy, these lefties sure love that word “occupation”.
The group of professors at least should get an A for honesty. At a minimum (and as Canadians the word “minimum” is an apt description) they are a refreshing change from other lefties who hate the war, want Canada out of Afghanistan, accuse the government and by implication the troops of war crimes and then feign sadness when there is a death and dutifully pay homage every November to those who have lost their lives defending what we now know is Canadian imperialism. At least these troop haters are consistent.
These professors simply hate the military and equate a soldier dying on the battlefield with those who have died in industrial accidents. If scholarships had been set up for children who lost a parent in a gang fight after a drug deal went wrong, these guys would be in their glory. If they really wanted to, they could raise money for other students who have lost parents in industrial accidents and gang fights but that kind of work would be beneath them. Despite any protest to the contrary, these professors couldn’t care less about military families, especially those families who have seen a loved one die on the battlefield.
This is the second major embarrassment emanating from a Canadian institute of alleged higher learning in a week. The University of Ottawa looked just as bad as the U of R does when Francois Houle, a vice president of the institution sent a letter to American pundit Ann Coulter warning her that if she didn’t watch what she said during her scheduled speech she could end up being charged with a hate crime.
The administration at the University of Regina has no plans to cancel Project Hero. Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall expressed his disappointment with the letter and one Regina area MP is calling on the professors to apologize to the Canadian troops, something not likely to happen.
Project Hero was launched last summer by Rick Hillier, former chief of defense staff and now chancellor of Newfoundland’s Memorial University. Kevin Reed, an honourary lieutenant-colonel in Canada’s Armed Forces took it to other post-secondary schools throughout the country. Currently many universities and community colleges have signed on.
Project Hero provides scholarships to those who have had a parent killed in action while serving in the Canadian Armed Forces.
