John Robson: Canadian Military’s Plan to Boost Ranks Is Woefully Inadequate

Members of the Canadian Armed Forces stand to attention during a Remembrance Day ceremony in Montreal on Nov. 11, 2024. The Canadian Press/Graham Hughes

Commentary

The latest pseudo-news from Ottawa, increasingly fantasy island, isn’t Chrystia Freeland “resigning” immediately after being fired. It’s the Canadian military going to recruit in Neverland and defeat the pirates by make-believe.

Or, in bubble-speak, “The Canadian military has an ambitious plan to increase its regular force ranks to 86,000, according to a briefing for senior leaders.” Care to clutch at that straw? Ha ha. Not there.

The very next line of that Ottawa Citizen story says, “The boost in numbers, from the current 63,000 to between 84,500 and 86,000 will take decades to accomplish, according to the document obtained by the Ottawa Citizen.” Decades. Right. And we all know policies that deliver immediate PR benefits and delay any pain or substantive action for decades are a lock, right? Like balanced budgets, integrity in politics, etc.

For that matter, even policies that deliver immediate PR benefits and promise action in this Parliament are now fantasies. Think happy thoughts about electoral reform, ending boil-water advisories on reserves, openness by default, sprinkle yourself with pixie dust, and … hey. We’re still in dingy Place de Portage shuffling memos.

Even so, this rubbish sets a new standard for mental and moral surrender. It’s not as though “senior leaders,” if one may so describe people who neither lead nor quit on principle, don’t know our military is in desperate condition.

Troops are scarce, recruiting a disaster, and the equipment is rusty junk. The National Post’s Tristin Hopper reports that “[f]or the first time, more than half of Canada’s naval and air fleets were marked as being unfit to ‘meet training and readiness requirements.’” As for morale, “just 30.4 per cent of military personnel said that the armed forces provide a ‘reasonable quality of life’” which Hopper drily calls “far less than the official target of 85 per cent.”

Instead of leadership, we get a fantasy “plan” for the Armed Forces to limp from 63,940 members today, well below its authorized strength of 71,500, to “75,000 around 2032.” Around 2032. And if you think that’s unrealistic, how about “84,500 around 2040.” And dream on, because they are: “The ultimate goal would be approximately 86,000.”

That level would be pitifully inadequate even today. But projecting troop strength for the 2040s in 2024 is like projecting them for 1916 in 1896. What goals any government set in 2008 for 2024 actually happened? Of course, we might be conquered by “ultimate,” achieving Net Zero sovereignty by 2050 instead of the carbon one.

To grind an axe in the Canadian military context risks the head peeling off into shavings just as the handle snaps. But the Citizen story also says, “There is no mention of an increase in reserve force troops.” Yet if one thing would help the Armed Forces, immediately and enduringly, it’s dramatically increasing flexibility and connection to the populace by boosting the reserves.

They were highly visible in our cities before public affairs fell into the hands of people scornfully ignorant of the military. And regular force “senior leaders” dependably slight the reserves until they suddenly appeal desperately to them for a mission, possibly fearing competition for non-existent resources. But it’s this sort of “leadership” that has gotten us into this mess.

Well, that and the increasingly total retreat into comforting illusion. Nobody in authority can possibly think this thing is even a plan, let alone one that if real would be useful. Nobody can possibly think 86,000 troops would let us help fight the Houthi pirates if we got them quickly, or that we could arm them if we did. But instead of admitting the situation is grim and getting real, they flit off into fantasy.

As, clearly, in the Department of Finance, where the solution to a massive deficit overrun to $61.9 billion is to hide it as long as possible then babble excuses about how there was a lot of spending. Virtually nothing in Canadian governments is working, not even police dog training, and instead of everyone stiffening their upper lips, rolling their upper sleeves, and putting realism uppermost, we go all “Airplane II”: “Pretend nothing’s happened and hope everything’s all right in the morning.” Or next year, or next decade.

For instance, a CAF spokesperson said that from April 1, 2024, to Nov. 15, 2024, they’d enrolled just 3,357 people, so “The CAF is committed to achieving its recruiting objective of enrolling 6,496 members into the Regular Force for fiscal year 2024-25, which ends on March 31, 2025.” And if not, send more incantations. For instance, “reconstitution efforts” booga booga “our immediate and long-term plan to grow the CAF to achieve the end strength directed by the government, and continue to deliver the desired strategic effects for Canada on all assigned operations.”

Tinkerbell, call your office. There’s this long line of brass hats at the door, and…

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.