Militia

Mel Lastman claims he did the right thing in using the military to fight that deadly snow foe. Well, there would be no need to call on the regular military to help out in most emergencies - and the Toronto snowstorm of 1999 could hardly be called a real emergency - if the militia were to be placed under the control of the provincial premiers.

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In the U.S. the various state governors routinely call out their militias (National Guard) to aid the civilian sector in crises ranging from fires to floods to earthquakes to hurricanes to civil unrest. In real national emergencies, such as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the militias are federalized. William Bedford