Recruitment of Permanent Residents Accelerating Amid Personnel Shortages, Canadian Military Says

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

The Canadian military says it has accelerated the intake of permanent residents with an overhaul of the recruitment process to help address its personnel shortage.

“We are challenging outdated policies and practices to simplify security process for applicants with ties to other countries,” Chief of Military Personnel Lt.-Gen. Lise Bourgon said at a Feb. 19 media briefing.

The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) collaborated with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada as part of this change to access permanent resident data, allowing for faster security screenings and reduced administrative delays, said Commodore Pascal Belhumeur, commander of the Military Personnel Generation Group.

Through this process, candidates without high-risk foreign ties now undergo an initial reliability status check before enrolment, aligning them with the procedures used for Canadian citizens. The initiative has reduced processing time for 10 percent of Canadian citizens and 95 percent of permanent residents, leading to a two-and-a-half-fold increase in permanent resident enrolments, Belhumeur noted.

“Between November 2022 and October 2024, we enrolled just 128 permanent residents despite numerous applications. In contrast, we’ve enrolled 357 in the last three months,” Belhumeur said, adding that the CAF received roughly 14,000 applications from permanent residents this year.

The CAF opened service to permanent residents in 2022, with the goal to increase the number of troops and diversify their ethnic make-up. The federal government has promised a faster pathway to citizenship to permanent residents who join the ranks.

The CAF is working to address a significant personnel shortage, aiming to reach an authorized strength of 71,500 and a reserve force of 30,000 members, as outlined in Canada’s Defence Policy. Currently, the force stands at roughly 63,500 regular force and 23,000 reserve force members, leaving a shortfall of 15,000, according to government data.

The CAF has enrolled nearly 5,200 recruits since April 1, 2024, reaching 80 percent of the year’s target of 6,496, Bourgon said.

The CAF also introduced a probationary period for new members last December with the aim of increasing the pool of recruits. This change allows applicants to begin training while their administrative paperwork is processed. Applicants must pass the security clearance, meet medical standards, and align with CAF values during the probationary period, according to Bourgon.   

Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan said that while the current recruitment focus is to reach the CAF’s targeted strength, the organization aims to exceed that figure. Carignan, who assumed her role last July, has pledged to achieve full strength within five years.

Diversity Target

Carignan was asked during the briefing about the CAF’s long-term recruitment target. She said there isn’t a specific intake number but noted the organization is working toward “specific diversity numbers” to better reflect the Canadian population.

“We are aiming towards being a representation of all Canadians within our forces. So it means we need to recruit enough diversity in the CAF to ensure that there’s representation of all Canadians within the military,” she said. “We aim at increasing the number of women because women represent 50 percent of the Canadian population.”

Bourgon said the goal is to recruit “as many people as possible,” including racialized Canadians and women.

“We’re trying to maximize our numbers across the board,” she said. “We want to reach the 7,000 mark” of total new recruits.

Bourgon said upholding the CAF ethos is a key aspect of the evaluation process for vetting new recruits. The new CAF ethos, released in July 2023, said that “diversity, equity and inclusion are so critical to CAF effectiveness that they are set as professional virtues and a key part of our military ethos.”

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has become a cornerstone of the CAF and is pervasive throughout the federal government, but has faced growing backlash in the corporate world. Companies such as Google, Goldman Sachs, Amazon, Ford, Meta, McDonald’s, Toyota, and Walmart have announced a shift away from DEI initiatives.

Tory Leader Pierre Poilievre has repeatedly criticized the “woke culture” in the military and pledged to replace it with a “warrior culture” if the Conservatives form a government.

Asked about Poilievre’s remarks, Carignan said, “I don’t know what woke means,” adding that her goal is to “build strong teams,” which she described as “built upon the foundation of trust and respect between its members.”

Noé Chartier contributed to this report.