thanks for the history lesson about Johnny Canuck, RH. I have my great grandfathers diary from WW1, where he fought in the trenches of France for a year. There are several mentions of Johnny Canuck in his diary that I never realized what they meant.

Great idea

Hughes was the master of many bad equipment purchases. The most major mess-up of HughesÂ’ was the Ross Rifle. This rifle, designed by Sir Charles Ross, a friend of Hughes, and manufactured in Quebec City, was the first rifle designed and built in Canada. Hughes belief in the effectiveness of the Ross Rifle would blind him to the deficiencies of the weapon, so much to the point that he would make itÂ’s creator an honorary colonel along with the rest of his political allies.

In September 1913, the Ross Rifle was fielded by the Royal Canadian Regiment for tests. The Regiment reported that the Rifle had many flaws, including a badly constructed magazine, a poor feeding mechanism, and a safety catch that would cut the thumb of the soldier using the rifle. The Regiment did file a full report on the rifle, however, as its conclusions did not agree with the opinions of higher powers, the report, and the flaws of the rifle were largely ignored [1] . The straight pull-lever of the Ross Rifle would also easily jam with heavy usage or under dirty conditions [2] .

With its many defects still existent, the Ross would be deployed overseas with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in 1914, since Hughes believed in it, and also because Canadian commanders were unable to get any rifles from the British, who were short on supplies.

The troops were not fans of the Ross Rifle. One army driver commented, “To hell with the [Ross Rifle]. I’ll take a club,” as well as another comment that accused the government of nothing less than murder for not replacing the weapon [3]. The commanding officer of the Canadian Corps in 1915, Sir Edwin Alderson, agreed with his men on the performance of the rifle. He withdrew the Ross from service without the consent of Hughes on the grounds that the rifle was a danger to the safety of the men using it. The rifles were replaced with the British Lee Enfield.

Upon hearing of the move to the British weapon, Hughes was outraged and called the reasons put forth by Alderson for the removal of the Ross from service as “absolutely absurd and ridiculous.” [4] In essence, Hughes ignorance to the truth about the Ross can be contributed to his lack of use of the rifle. Hughes, despite dressing up like a military officer while being Minister of the Militia, was nothing more than a civilian. Therefore, he never did have to use the rifle in combat.

In 1916, the Ross Rifle was no longer in service with the Canadian military, with the exception of snipers, which was the only thing that the Ross was good for. It would leave service with its major defects, despite over eighty modifications to the design of the rifle.