Re: Canadian Forces Recruitment

by **Hammercore** Mon 12 Feb 2024, 4:47 pm

Jamie Sarkonak: Turns out, open hostility to white men isn't great for military recruitment

Identity-driven policies and rhetoric only serve to alienate the military's biggest pool of recruits

Jamie Sarkonak . Published Feb 10, 2024

Like every army ever, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) have always been predominantly male. And, as a country with a majority of the population being of European descent, its members have been predominantly white. These facts should be uncontroversial.

But unlike every army ever, the CAF is using the identities of its historic membership to promote an ethos of guilt and shame within the institution. This isn’t fixing the present recruitment crisis and it’s doubtful that it ever will — but this approach has the firm support of scholarly military voices, the latest example coming to us from Paul Mitchell, a defence studies professor at the Canadian Forces College.

“The idea that our armed forces are ‘too woke’ misunderstands efforts to improve the work environment for historically underrepresented groups,” Mitchell wrote this week for the Conversation. He argued that recruitment is falling among white males, and because the visible minority population is increasing, the military needs to turn its eyes elsewhere.

He was, in part, coming to the defence of the Canadian Military Journal which was criticized for its ideological slant last month. The journal’s summer issue was chock-full of identity-politic diatribes. In one article on the military’s festering “whiteness” problem, an author confirmed systemic racism was indeed happening based on a few qualitative interviews with non-white service members analyzed through the lens of racial, anti-western philosophy.

“I want to stress that the institutionalization of whiteness requires ongoing work by individuals who uphold white settler norms,” she wrote, widely assigning blame.

Another article suggested that military cultural norms should be shifted with ideological education. “Structural forms of power and privilege,” it argued, should guide lessons on colonialism, racism, sexism, misogyny, ableism, and heteronormativity; discomfort — that is, demoralization — should be embraced in learning.

The periodicals drenched in leftist theory, and our dear professor’s defence of it, aren’t just silly culture war musings that have no effect. Their impact can be found on the surface, in human resources materials and “anti-racism toolkits” that teach leftist racial ideology as fact. Deeper changes go to the heart of the CAF bureaucracy, which has bloated to include “diversity and inclusion champions,” affirmative action officers among its roles, and evaluations that examine a member’s “inclusive behaviours” as of 2022. Baked-in to all this is an understanding that masculinity, the “warrior ideal” and colonial history are fundamentally toxic to military culture.

But if there’s any institution that should be comfortable as a male-dominated space, it’s our military. It’s an institution whose job is to fight and defend, and, like any professional standing army in history, tends to draw from groups most capable of doing that: men. Men are more fight-prone for all sorts of reasons, and it’s an army’s job to channel and discipline these tendencies for the benefit of society as a whole. That doesn’t mean that women in the service should be left to fend for themselves — the opposite: they deserve to be treated with dignity like anyone else, and should expect any perpetrators of sexual harassment and assault to be fully prosecuted — but the institution doesn’t need to be de-masculinized to do that.

Similarly, the CAF should be able to take pride in its heritage as a descendant of the British system, while making sure to discipline anyone who harasses or attacks enlisted Indigenous people and minorities. It can do outreach to make itself known as an option to these groups, but leave the navel-gazing about unquantifiable systems of power and oppression to civil sociologists.

The sudden urgency to have the Canadian military reflect the nation’s demographics with perfect precision is odd, because this hasn’t been the case in about a century. A 2007 study observed that the primary recruiting pool consists of men who are: fit, aged 17 to 20, high-school educated, rural or small-city in origin and Caucasian in background. They also tend to come from families with a history of service. One can glean that the military was a good choice for those who wanted a stable career without having to dedicate his 20s to expensive education that doesn’t offer a clear path to a decent income.

“It is likely that the only time the Canadian Forces ever truly ‘reflected’ Canada was when conscription was in force during the two great global conflicts of the 20th century,” mused the study.

The author of the 2007 study concluded that demographic cherry-picking was probably a futile exercise. Unrealistically high identity targets proportionate to the population were unlikely to ever be met for a variety of reasons, including immigrant families’ tendency to encourage kids to go into professional fields of work with prospects for high income. It appears that while white, working-class rurals saw service as a class-booster, immigrants, especially more recent ones, often don’t. The inevitable falling-short of artificially high diversity targets, the author predicted, would “only entrench further the perception of organizational inertia and systemic racism” in the CAF and deter minority participation.

Academics like Mitchell, and his colleague Stephen Saideman, have insisted that a diversity-equity-and-inclusion culture change is key to raising recruitment and bolstering retention, but it’s hard to see how. Despite outreach efforts to newer recruiting pools and the hosting of cultural events that may appeal to them, personnel numbers are still at crisis levels, with the CAF being short 16,000 people. Recruitment hasn’t much improved in the past few years, either, with new members numbering at 10,300 in 2019-20, 4,300 in 2020-21, 8,100 in 2021-22 and 7,200 in 2022-23. Retention is poor, and people are leaving in greater numbers than they are joining.

“If all you think of the military is that it is for straight white dudes, then that’s not going to attract the 60 to 70 per cent of Canadians who are not straight white dudes,” Saideman told CTV last year.

It’s nothing new to reach out to recently-joined demographics to augment one’s forces: the Romans did it, the Brits did it, the French did it; it’s common sense. But importantly, this shouldn’t involve outright rejection of the recruiting base. Canada has foolishly done this: aside from embracing rhetorical attacks on “whiteness” and masculinity, it’s actually de-prioritized the enlisting of white men since at least 2018. In the U.K., a similar philosophy of alienation has been adopted only to see recruitment fall, with one British military leader telling staff to stop choosing “useless white male pilots” in 2021. (China doesn’t seem to have this complaint, having happily hired ex-British air force pilots to train their communist counterparts.)

Combine the CAF’s new cultural hostility to its recruitment base with just how much penny-pinching the military does, from meal reimbursements to monthly cost-of-living adjustments, it’s no wonder that fewer people want to join. Last year, housing benefits were clawed back from 7,700 members to be re-distributed to new recruits. Members are leaving simply because they can’t afford the basics on a CAF salary.

Want a military that’s attractive to both the increasingly-turned-off traditional recruiting pool and immigrants? Offer prosperity — not the racial propaganda of the left.

National Post

by **Apollo** Mon 19 Feb 2024, 8:52 am

Vast majority of permanent residents applying to join military haven't been accepted, figures show

Security checks for permanent residents can take 18 to 24 months, military says

Ashley Burke · CBC News · Posted: Feb 19, 2024

Canadian Forces Recruitment - Page 5 Jamal-ludin

CBC News

by **Accer** Wed 13 Mar 2024, 2:44 pm

Military ditching aptitude test for some applicants, will start accepting recruits with medical conditions

Military launching trials to address its recruitment crisis

Ashley Burke · CBC News · Posted: Mar 13, 2024

Canadian Forces Recruitment - Page 5 Military-recruitment

CBC News

by **Powergunner** Mon 25 Mar 2024, 6:13 am

Military culture reform is key to fix recruitment ‘death spiral’: minister
By David Akin . Global News . Posted March 24, 2024

Canada’s defence minister says steps taken last week to modernize the military justice system is part of an overhaul of military culture that is crucial to reversing the “death spiral” of shrinking recruitment.

“I very strongly believe cultural change is a process, not an event,” Bill Blair said in an interview on The West Block with Mercedes Stephenson. “And it really requires that we’re going to institutionalize that change.“

Blair believes a crucial first step in fixing the military’s recruiting problem is admitting there is a serious problem. Blair gave a speech in early March to a military conference and, in a room filled with admirals, generals, and other senior leaders of the Canadian Armed Forces, he described the CAF’s inability to attract more members as “a death spiral.”

He told Stephenson he deliberately used that strong language as a “wake-up call” to the leaders in the room.

“I think it’s really important for us to acknowledge that a prolonged period of time where more people are leaving and joining the Canadian Armed Forces isn’t sustainable,” Blair said in The West Block interview.

“That was my intent in speaking to people who I think are very important in Canadian military and military culture.”

Blair made a direct connection between boosting recruiting numbers and overhauling the current culture of the Canadian Armed Forces, a culture where sexual misconduct by senior male leaders was for many years overlooked or trivialized.

Former Supreme Court of Canada justice Louise Arbour’s scathing report released in 2022 found the top ranks of the Canadian Armed Forces were “incapable” of recognizing the “deficient” parts of a culture that keep sexual misconduct and abuse of power entrenched.

Global News first brought to light allegations in February 2021 of sexual misconduct against senior leaders in the Canadian Forces — the first of dozens of exclusive reports.

To that point, last week, changes to the National Defence Act were tabled in the House of Commons.

Among other things, the new legislation takes investigations and prosecutions of Criminal Code sexual offences away from the military and puts them in the hands of civilian personnel, enshrining a policy that had been issued by Blair’s predecessor, Anita Anand, as a ministerial directive in late 2021.

Blair is a former chief of police in Toronto and, in the 1980s, served as the sexual assault investigation coordinator for Toronto Police Services.

That experience, he said, has helped him now, as minister of national defence, assess the proposed changes to the way the military deals with those cases.

“Change is absolutely necessary,” Blair said. “I also heard very clearly the experience of many victims and their lack of trust in a system that is supposed to protect them and supposed to support them.”

For 2022-2023, the CAF had hoped to have a headcount of 91,884, including 46,143 in what it calls “ready forces,” personnel serving in combat-capable units.

But, according to the CAF’s most recent departmental results report, it fell short on both counts with an overall headcount of 89,864 — the first time in years the CAF population dropped under 90,000 — while “ready forces” number just 43,777.

For the current year, the CAF is hardly bullish about boosting those numbers. It hopes to grow the overall CAF population by just 872 to 90,736 and its “ready forces” by just 169 to 43,946.

In a profile of Canada’s military population published in 2022, Statistics Canada said that about one in five members of the Canadian Armed Forces were women.

And while the CAF has looked at eliminating some eligibility requirements for serving in uniform in order to increase the pool of potential recruits, one of the CAF’s biggest problems is its inability to quickly process new recruits.

“Frankly, we’ve got to go fast,” Blair said. “When maybe 16,000 people come with an application and say they’re interested in a career in the Armed Forces and more than a year later, less than 100 of them have actually processed — that’s not acceptable.”

Blair said he has made the argument at the cabinet table for more spending on defence.

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland will table the 2024-2025 budget on April 16 and analysts have already said there is little room for increased spending anywhere if Freeland wants to hold to previously announced fiscal targets on debt and deficits.

“We’re going into a very robust discussion taking place on how we do what needs to be done,” Blair said. “There’s a lot of other competing challenges that the country faces. But we recognize the importance of of investing in the Canadian Armed Forces and most importantly, investing in the men and women who serve.”

Global News

by Covert Fri 19 Apr 2024, 12:59 pm

Demands of defence policy almost double military's recruitment gap, top soldier warns

Ottawa's plans to purchase new equipment also could be undermined by recruitment shortfall

Murray Brewster · CBC News · Posted: Apr 19, 2024

Canadian Forces Recruitment - Page 5 Canada-fighterjets

CBC News

by **OutlawSoldier** Fri 03 May 2024, 5:08 am

Canadian Army Reserve holding job fair Saturday

Toula Mazloum . Published May 1, 2024

The Canadian Armed Forces is inviting the public to visit its job fair this Saturday in Ottawa.

The Department of National Defence said the job fair will take place at 307 De Niverville Rd. from 10 a.m. till 2 p.m.

It notes that army reservists will be there meeting with the public and helping them not only try out some of their equipment, but also participate in a wide variety of activities.

CAF recruiters will also be on-site helping applicants with the recruitment process.

“Through continuous on-the-job training and camaraderie, the Army Reserve offers sustained and stable employment and financial support for education, along with adventure and unique experiences, all while earning competitive salaries and gaining new transferable life skills,” reads a news release.

For more information, the CAF wants you to contact Sgt. Jacob Heins at Jacob.Heins@forces.gc.ca.

CTV News Ottawa

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