So, first and foremost, your trade largely dictates what you'll be doing if and when you deploy.
There's an easy way to distinguish trades amongst branches, and it's worth noting, if you're not combat arms, there's next to no chance of you actually seeing combat. Every single CAF member is trained as a rifleman and a soldier, in the event they need to fend for themselves. But no one, NOOOO ONE is ordering cooks to go outside the wire.
We're having a hard time finding combat tours for combat arms right now. Everyone is itching for a deployment.
And when deployments are run, for example, there's always some wiggle-room for when a unit is expected to be seeing combat. They'll overstock pre-deployment training, so that way they can fail the lowest common denominator.
Basically, if you don't want to go, you can just merit at the bottom, or openly state that you do not intend to deploy.
To simply answer your question: cooks will not see combat. Everyone does not stand a chance of fighting. I know guys who went over to fight in a war, and ended up being posted a company quarters in a fucking barber shop.
Doctors will not go out on the front lines.
Moreover, Canada isn't even at war right now. I bet that story about a section of cooks was on an exercise, or a course, or within the base proper.
If you don't want to see combat, don't go combat arms.
If you maybe want to see combat, try combat arms and see how you feel, and you can always opt out/release. (It's a volunteer army.)
If you definitely want to see combat, go infantry and try for specops.
If you're just looking for a career, join up, knuckle under through basic, and then specialise in a job. There ARE office jobs that need to exist within the CAF. Plus, you have spec pay, which I believe varies based on speciality.
Does that help at all? Any other questions?