Recruitment or Reform?: the CAF must choose both
Nearly four years after the first allegations emerged against former chief of the defence staff Jonathan Vance, and two and half years since the publication of Justice Louise Arbour’s report on sexual misconduct and sexual harassment, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) finds itself at a crossroads. Amidst an ongoing recruitment crisis, the CAF faces a critical question: can it rebuild its ranks without compromising its commitment to cultural reform and accountability to misconduct?
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and a growing chorus of right wing pundits have begun to pit culture change as the root of the recruitment problem, claiming a need to restore a ‘warrior culture’ and end a ‘woke culture.’ This narrative is dangerous. It scapegoats efforts at cultural change for recruitment struggles, diverting attention from systemic issues such as ongoing systemic sexual violence, racism, inadequate mental health support and uncompetitive pay. Worse, it risks silencing survivors and perpetuating the cycle of scandal followed by inaction.
Rather than position the recruitment crisis as a product of ‘woke culture’, the CAF must continue to treat the ongoing MSV problem as part of its recruitment problem. In short, the CAF’s recruitment crisis is, at least in part, a product of its sexual misconduct crisis and the ongoing failure to address it and restore trust amongst service members and the Canadian public.
So just how bad is the recruitment crisis? In March of this year, Defense Minister Bill Blair came out and said that ‘over the past three years, more people have left than have entered. That is, frankly, a death spiral for the Canadian Armed Forces’. More recently, at the November 20th media conference for the release of the 4th EMR, MND Blair reiterated that the current round of changes made to enact Arbour’s recommendations were well aligned with the need to boost recruitment. The statements are backed up by the numbers. As of September 2024, The CAF Regular Force is 7,600 persons short of its 71,500 authorized strength target. The problem is further complicated by the fact that 70,880 applications were made in the 2023-24 fiscal year, but only 4301 individuals were enrolled.
As a result of this crisis, we are seeing increasing reports of scepticism around the military's ability to perform its duties and support allies in the case of a serious conflict situation. Recent public opinion polls reflect this feeling, with opinions showing that only 38% of Canadians believe the military has capacity to perform such a task while 48% lack confidence.
This scepticism is inextricably linked to issues with recruitment. The same report asked respondents why they believed the CAF was going through its recruitment crisis. These findings confirm previous suspicions about the ‘long shadow’ of the MSV scandal. 17% of those surveyed cite ‘past incidents of sexual abuse in the military’ as the main reason for this recruitment crisis. This is the joint 3rd highest response, after ‘mental health concerns’ (24%) and ‘lack of competitive pay or compensation compared to other jobs’ (19%) and alongside ‘lack of national pride in the Canadian Forces’.
The question, then, that needs to be asked is can the CAF and DND respond to the recruitment crisis, without compromising further advancement of the Arbour recommendations and cultural change more broadly?
It is concerning that recent language about recruitment indicates that perceived ‘wokeness’ and demands for culture change in the CAF are often at least partially blamed for the crisis.
In comments made in April, Conservative leader Pierre Polievre promised to ‘end the woke culture, and…bring back a warrior culture’ and while ex-conservative DM, Peter MacKay, has defended Poilievre by insisting that the statement does not refer to efforts to stamp out high-profile sexual misconduct, it would involve the removal of gender-specific changes made to diversify and remove harmful masculinity from the CAF.
Comments by other observers mirror this rhetoric. One retired major has made ill-informed comments about effect of the #MeToo movement on militaries and the issue with removal of burden of proof which allows someone to ‘just make an accusation, end somebody’s career, and walk away’. Another commentator has blamed the crisis on ‘open hostility to white men’ and in fact the military ‘should be comfortable as a male-dominated space’. These kinds of responses to recruitment issues have the potential to be very dangerous.
As we approach the beginning of a new election cycle, it is important to stay vigilant to the ways military issues are discussed. It would be too easy to slip into another period of silence regarding MSV and misconduct within the military. In the face of calls for a return of calls for a return of a warrior’ culture in the CAF, it is important to make sure that this does not equate to a reversal of efforts to combat MSV and more broadly the dismantling of hyper-masculine attitudes across the force.
A report last month by the Ottawa Citizen comes as a warning about this silencing. Alarm bells ring when the management at Canadian Forces Morale and Welfare Services fail to apologize to an employee who was sexually assaulted by a NATO soldier in Latvia because they ‘didn’t want to perpetuate that cycle’, a cycle of public reporting and bad press. It is troubling that concern about public perception in light of recruitment crisis could be dictating how leaders in the CAF respond to victims of sexual assault in the military.
Boosting recruitment should not come at the expense of continued efforts to address MSV/harmful cultures in the CAF. We must not fall into the same cycle of scandal followed by silence as has happened too many times before, both in Canada and militaries across the world. The military must find a way to make its cultural change, and zero-tolerance attitude to MSV, better aligned with its recruitment strategy, accepting that even big, long standing institutions must adapt to changing social norms. As we look towards a potential shift in power in Ottawa, maintaining awareness, accountability and political attention on this issue is paramount.
