armed forces
While war rages in the Middle East and Europe, Canada’s military is less capable than ever
From the MacDonald Laurier Institute
By Richard Shimooka
There are no good solutions to this problem, only less bad alternatives.
Over a decade ago, I had the opportunity to interview Jim Judd, the former deputy minister of national defence. After all these years, one quote still sticks out to me:
People assume because DND has 60,000 personnel and a budget of 12 billion dollars it should be able to do something, but there are quite severe practical limitations to its capability. In my view, it was not all that well understood outside of military circles.
Judd’s comment seems even more relevant today than it was eleven years ago. The ongoing Russian war in Ukraine, Chinese aggression in the West Pacific, and now the brutal incursion by Hamas into Israel from Gaza have stripped away any facade that the international system will be more peaceful or stable than in the 20th century. For most major liberal democracies, these events have shaken the complacency that has prevailed since the end of the Cold War: that is except for Canada. The recent announcement that the defence department will need to shoulder a $1 billion dollar budget cut over the next three years clearly illustrates the lack of awareness of this government on the international moment.
Yet, like Judd’s comment, there is little understanding amongst the public of how the military functions, and the consequences of these cuts are critical. While many may be dimly aware that the armed forces are facing a challenging situation, the actual details and the future outcome are only known to a precious few. This article will try to address that.
What will become apparent is that political decisions have simultaneously over-deployed the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) while neglecting to invest in its capabilities. This has upset the fragile sustainment system, leaving its actual operational capability in tatters. The military has become a token force abroad and is even unlikely to be able to provide for Canada’s own defence in the near future. What follows is not a worse-case scenario, but the most likely outcome given the present situation and future trends.
The first step is to understand the aims of the CAF and how it is structured to achieve them. With the exception of the CF-18’s tactical fighter fleet’s continental defence mission, much of the CAF’s active duty military is organized to undertake expeditionary operations abroad. This should not be surprising. Other than the airborne threat of Russian aircraft, there are very limited direct naval and land threats to Canada. Most operations are abroad. Yet units are not able to deploy indefinitely—personnel need rotation home for rest, while equipment needs time for maintenance and overhaul. Furthermore, they require time to undertake personal development training as well as building up their forces prior to deployment.
In order to sustain units in the field the CAF employs something known as the “managed readiness system.” Essentially the system rotates units between deployment, recuperation, and training. This usually means a 1/3 ratio: for every one unit deployed into the field, two are in the other phases of a cycle. This isn’t a universal ratio: the Army’s field units can operate between a 1/2 to 1/4 ratio, the Navy’s frigates cycle is closer to 1/3.5 in practice, and submarines are 1/4 (this is largely due to the greater maintenance requirements these vessels require in order to operate safely). This was a major consideration for acquiring the four Victoria class submarines from the United Kingdom in the 1990s as it would ensure in practice that one would always be available for operation.
Tactical fighters operate differently, but a 1/4 ratio roughly captures the size of the fleet required to keep a sizeable force available for operations. Furthermore, as equipment ages, they also require more time and effort to maintain and overhaul.
In practical terms, the CAF’s objectives since the end of the Cold War have been to sustain four frigates for deployment, 18 CF-18 fighter jets for peacetime operations (12 on alert in Canada and six abroad for NATO), and a half brigade’s worth of soldiers (2000-2500) with ancillary capabilities. Among Western states, this is a fairly small contribution. For example, the United Kingdom, with only 30 percent greater GDP than Canada, potentially can sustain three brigades, totalling over 10,000 soldiers in the field that are able to fight in very high-intensity environments.
As we’re about to see, Canada falls far short of even its modest objectives, with the gap widening for the foreseeable future.
In the eight years since the Trudeau Government assumed office, two broad trends have been discernible. The first is an expanded international vision for the CAF, with large deployments in Europe and the Middle East, as well as a more active naval and air presence in the Pacific. This, as well as increased maintenance requirements for an aging equipment base, are the major cost drivers for the CAF. At the same time, while Canada’s defence policy, Strong, Secure, Engaged, promised a fully funded and structured recapitalization of the military, it has not been delivered—even within two years of the document’s promulgation, National Defence had already failed to spend $8 billion dollars budgeted to it. Thus, overuse tied with undercapitalization has resulted in the entire range of operational capabilities deteriorating over the past decade. Some modestly so, others much more drastically.
Navy
Let’s start with the Navy. For much of the 2000s, the twelve Halifax Class frigates were run hard to meet various commitments after 9/11. Now reaching thirty years of age, these vessels have undergone excessive levels of service and are showing their age. The foremost example is the HMCS Toronto, which has been undergoing refit since 2022. It has severe hull corrosion which has left her in a dilapidated state and may require hundreds of millions of dollars in repairs. The vastly increased maintenance requirements are visible across the class. In 2002 each Halifax class frigates’ docking work period (DWP) required around 200,000 man-hours to complete. Current DWPs now average 1.2 million hours, and will likely reach 1.5 million by the end of the decade. This translates into a significant cost increase and affects ship availability. With these constraints, the original objective of four vessels operational at any one time is completely unachievable: Canada at present effectively has only two frigates (with a third potentially available in some instances), which will become increasingly difficult to sustain in the coming years.
Canada’s submarines are in a similar shape. The grounding of the HMCS Corner Brook in 2011, and its subsequent dockyard accident in 2020, has effectively left the fleet with only three submarines in the managed readiness system, often leaving none available for operations. With fewer deployment opportunities, crew regeneration has suffered, damaging the remaining personnel morale and impacting the skill base that is critical for operating such a highly complex capability.
Army
The Army is not in much better shape, although its challenges are somewhat different from the other services. The expansion of the Latvia mission to approximately 2,000 soldiers will effectively utilize the vast majority of the units available at any given time through managed readiness. However the demands, like during the Afghanistan era, will stretch the system and have a number of negative consequences. The first is whether the mission can be sustained for more than two years—there simply are not enough soldiers available in the coming years given the ongoing personnel shortages.
Another almost certain consequence will be the curtailment of unit training across the Army, as there will be fewer personnel available. This places troops at greater risk even for a peacetime operation like in Latvia. Russia has continually targeted Canadian soldiers with active measures campaigns to discredit their presence in the country, something that requires training and vigilance to avoid. This also ignores that the CAF will not deploy to Latvia with many basic capabilities, such as ambulances and air defence systems that can defend against UAVs or mobile artillery, all of which are basic capabilities for operating in a war today.
These issues are compounded by the increasing number of domestic operations surrounding disaster relief the Army has been tasked with, such as helping to deal with the wildfires that raged this past summer. While these are generally handled by the reserves, the growing scale of these events, as well as the tendency to use the military as the force of first resort in these cases, is further straining its already weakened force generation system.
Air Force
Perhaps the most precipitous decline is with the RCAF’s tactical fighter fleet of CF-18s. Canada is currently in the process of shrinking its fleet to 37 aircraft while preparing for the transition to the F-35. The fleet size is sufficient only to sustain domestic NORAD operations, a reality underlined by the announcement last December that the RCAF would withdraw from NATO commitments for the foreseeable future. Even more problematic is the lack of pilots and support personnel, which may even lead to the Air Force being unable to fulfill the NORAD alert mission requirements in full. As the F-35 transition gets underway in the coming years, there are fears that there will be insufficient personnel to staff both aircraft types, which will likely result in fewer available CF-18s to meet the alert role.
The state of the tactical fighter fleet can be directly attributed to the Liberal government’s decision to scrap the acquisition of the F-35 in 2015. While some suggested the competition “built trust” and confidence for the decision, the process essentially wrecked the ability of the Air Force to provide even the most basic level of security for the country. Even more ironic was that the government tried to implement an end-run around a competition through the interim buy of 18 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, justified by the need to meet both the NORAD and NATO missions simultaneously. Now, seven years later, Canada has effectively ended one mission and faces the possibility that it will not even be able to meet its most basic mission of defending the country’s airspace.
Solutions
So, what can be done? Unfortunately, there are no good outcomes for the government, only less bad alternatives. Avoiding the worst-case scenario will require multiple lines of effort. Overall it requires the forces to reduce its overseas commitments while trying to revitalize its standing forces by accelerating modernization and recruitment.
The first step is to approach the United States and close allies and frankly acknowledge the situation the government has placed itself in. To some degree, they are already aware: recent moves like the exclusion of AUKUS and the U.K.’s offer to assist in arctic security implicitly recognize Canada’s weakness. However, to reconstitute the military effectively will require the CAF to withdraw from some of its long-standing commitments. For example, it is questionable whether the Latvia expansion is responsible given the state of the Army. There is a high probability that the mission’s demands are unsustainable in the long run, to the point where CAF will have to withdraw significant portions of its commitment to the Baltics or risk a collapse of its managed readiness system. Maintaining the operation’s present size and/or undertaking shorter periodic deployments of units are much more achievable alternatives given the current constraints.
Of primary importance, though, is that the personnel and procurement systems require reforms. Pouring more money and resources into the present systems is like pouring water into a bucket with holes. The holes must be plugged before anything else can proceed. Both systems must address the new realities in their respective areas, which will require substantial changes to how the government operates. Once this is accomplished, raising funding levels that meet the NATO two percent of GDP threshold will be critical—there are far too many deferred maintenance and procurements programs that need to be addressed immediately if the CAF wants to remain viable.
Finally, budget certainty is essential. Cutting a billion in funding and delaying implementation of Strong, Secure, Engaged further undercuts the military’s state. Unpredictable budget environments are a prime cause of delays and larger cost overruns, both on procurement projects and for operations—issues that the CAF and Canada cannot afford anymore.
The current situation was utterly predictable even seven years ago. Now that the country is in this quagmire, it will require a herculean effort to get out of it.
Richard Shimooka is a Hub contributing writer and a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute who writes on defence policy.
armed forces
Judge dismisses Canadian military personnel’s lawsuit against COVID shot mandate
From LifeSiteNews
Associate Judge Catherine Coughlan rejected a lawsuit from more than 300 past and current members of the Canadian military who lost their jobs or were put on leave for not taking the experimental, dangerous COVID shots.
A Canadian federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed on behalf of some 330 past and current members of the nation’s military who lost their jobs or were placed on leave for refusing the experimental COVID shots, because she alleged that their lawsuit lacked “evidence” that the jabs were harmful.
The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members had sought some $1.3 million in damages from the government for having their charter rights violated due to the military’s 2021 COVID mandates, according to their lawsuit.
In a November 13 ruling, Edmonton-based Associate Judge Catherine Coughlan ruled in favor of the Trudeau government, and thus military’s COVID jab mandate, to strike down the case. Coughlan remarked that the plaintiffs’ case lacked “material facts” along with “evidence” and was filled with “vexatious language.”
READ: Canadian father files $35 million lawsuit against Pfizer over son’s jab-related death
“The only indications of bad faith are found when the pleadings baldly assert that, among other claims, Canada failed to carry out safety and efficacy testing for the vaccines, and that the Directives were premature and ‘promoted the fraudulent use of the biologics’,” she wrote, overlooking reports of thousands of injuries due to the shots in Canada alone.
As a result of the lawsuit being tossed, all plaintiffs are now on the hook to pay some $5,040 out of pocket in legal costs.
As reported by LifeSiteNews in June, documents obtained by LifeSiteNews show that the number of jab injuries in the CAF rose over 800 percent in 2021, with the most being credited to Moderna’s experimental COVID shot.
The CAF members’ lawsuit was filed in June of 2023 and overall sought some $1 million in damages, along with an extra $350,000 in general damages. The lawsuit also had a condition that there be a declaration made that mandating the COVID shots for military members was a violation of their charter rights.
READ: Israeli boy featured in COVID vaccine campaign dies of heart attack at age 8
LifeSiteNews reported in July that a member of Canada’s military who was injured after taking the experimental mRNA COVID jabs has been denied compensation from the nation’s Veterans Affairs department.
Under the CAF’s mandate, hundreds of military members were fired, or one could say, purged for not getting the COVID shots. This is in addition to the thousands of public servants fired for not agreeing to take the COVID shots.
The CAF eventually ended its COVID mandate in October 2022, which was months after the federal mandate was lifted, but members are still “strongly encouraged” to take the experimental shot.
The federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that its federal COVID shot workplace mandate would be dropped in June 2022, as would the mandate requiring domestic travelers have the shot to board planes and trains.
In November of 2023, a CAF member who spoke to LifeSiteNews under the condition of anonymity observed that the military considers members who refuse the COVID jab “a piece of garbage.”
READ: COVID shots have 200-times higher risk of brain clots than other jabs: new report
In March, LifeSiteNews reported on large personnel losses causing the CAF to consider dropping its remaining requirements altogether.
Although Canada has a Vaccine Injury Support Program (VISP) program, active members of the CAF, as well as veterans, are not eligible for the civilian program. According to Christensen, this leaves many COVID jab-injured CAF members and veterans with no recourse other than Veterans Affairs Canada.
COVID shot mandates, which came from provincial governments with the support of Trudeau’s federal government, split Canadian society. The mRNA shots themselves have been linked to a multitude of negative and often severe side effects, such as heart diseases, stroke, and death, including in children.
The shots also have connections to cell lines derived from aborted babies. As a result, many Catholics and other Christians refused to take them.
armed forces
Canadian veterans battle invisible wounds of moral injury and addiction
Moral injury, a unique psychological trauma, drives many Canadian veterans to substance use disorders as they struggle with inadequate support
When he was stationed in Bosnia in 1994, Steve Lamrock would drive a truck loaded with food through villages full of hungry people.
As a Canadian Armed Forces platoon quartermaster, one of Lamrock’s duties was transporting food to other soldiers involved in the United Nations Protection Force’s peacekeeping mission in the war-torn country.
“I had people starving to death, children starving to death,” he recalled, his wife seated beside him for support. “I could see, weekly, the deterioration in certain people in the community and the elderly from a lack of nutrition.”
Often, there was a surplus of rations.
“The UN policy was, if you can’t give exactly equal to both sides, you don’t give anything away,” he said, adding that it could trigger violent raids if you provided food to just one faction.
“So we would throw out food when there’s people starving to death.”
Moral dilemmas like these haunted Lamrock long after he retired from the military in 2009. Tormented by nightmares, he turned to alcohol to cope. “When I drank so much I passed out, I wouldn’t dream or remember the dreams as vividly or as often,” he said.
Lamrock — whose 24-year military career included tours in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo and Iraq — was identified as suffering from psychological distress caused by the perception of having violated one’s moral or ethical beliefs. Experts are now calling this moral injury.
Moral injury is not formally recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, an authoritative manual on mental disorders. But experts and veterans say moral injury affects many individuals who serve in the military, and requires better institutional support and treatment than are currently available.
Moral injury and addiction
“[Moral injury presents as] shame, guilt and anger that occurs when someone is exposed to an event that goes against their moral values, standards or ethics,” said Dr. Don Richardson, a psychiatrist and scientific director of the MacDonald Franklin Operational Stress Injury Research Centre in London, Ont. The centre studies the impact of stress injuries on military personnel, veterans and first responders.
Moral injury can result not only from witnessing or causing harm, but also from being affected by an organization’s actions or inactions, Richardson says.
The term moral injury was first introduced in the 1990s by American psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Shay, who worked with veterans of the Vietnam War. It gained wider recognition following the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, when traditional treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) — such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy — were proving to be only partially effective.
While fear is often at the core of traditional PTSD cases, feelings of guilt, shame, anger and betrayal are more strongly linked to cases of moral injury, says Dr. Anthony Nazarov, associate director of the MacDonald Franklin Operational Stress Injury Research Centre and an expert on moral injury.
Nearly 60 per cent of Canadian Armed Forces personnel deployed in NATO operations in Afghanistan reported exposure to morally injurious events, according to a 2018 study co-authored by Nazarov. Those exposed to such events demonstrated a greater likelihood of developing PTSD and major depressive disorders.
Dr. Ronald Shore, a research scientist and assistant professor in psychiatry at Queen’s University, says individuals suffering from moral injury often develop coping strategies due to a lack of support to help them process traumatic experiences.
One common coping mechanism is substance use, he says.
“You’re constantly feeling like something is wrong with you, that you’ve done something wrong … that leads to that self-regulation with addiction,” Shore said.
Lamrock says his experiences in Bosnia — and the habits he developed afterwards — deeply affected him and his family.
He recalled promising his young daughter they would do something fun after a night’s rest. “‘No, you won’t, Daddy, you won’t get up,’” she had replied, knowing he would likely be too hungover.
“That was my motivation to quit,” he said.
Betrayal
It is common for veterans suffering from moral injury to feel angry or betrayed due to the military’s actions or lack of support.
“[A person feels] betrayed by policies, betrayed by leaders, betrayed by organizations,” said Nazarov.
This has been the case for Gordon Hurley, 37, whose 14-year career in the Canadian Armed Forces included tours in Afghanistan, Africa and Iraq.
“When you get out, there’s nothing,” Hurley said. “If you think that Veterans Affairs is going to support you … they will, but you’re gonna have to fight for it.”
Hurley was medically discharged from the military in 2021 due to various physical and mental health challenges, including PTSD. He says Veterans Affairs requires him to continually prove the severity of his injuries to maintain disability support and benefits, such as reimbursements for retinal surgery and rehabilitation.
Hurley says that having to repeatedly prove his injuries to Veterans Affairs has been frustrating. “You were the ones who released me from the military … for these injuries, but now you are asking me to prove them back to you?” he said.
The Canadian Armed Forces redirected inquiries about support for veterans with moral injury and substance use disorder to Veterans Affairs Canada.
In an emailed statement to Canadian Affairs, Veterans Affairs spokesperson Josh Bueckert said mental health-care practitioners who work with veterans are “well aware of moral injury” and recognize the condition is often associated with operational stress injuries.
Bueckert said the department provides funding to organizations such as the Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families, which has a moral injury toolkit for veterans.
He also noted the department offers veterans a range of mental health resources, including access to 11 operational stress injury clinics and a network of 12,000 mental health professionals. Bueckert said veterans also have access to treatments for substance use disorder and for conditions such as “trauma-and-stressor-related disorders.”
Hurley acknowledges all these benefits are available, but says they are hard-won.
“All those benefits listed you get, but unless your condition has been [approved by the department], you do not receive those benefits,” he said.
‘Never-ending battle’
Josh Muir, 49, served nearly 14 years in the military and was deployed twice to Afghanistan. After sustaining soft tissue damage, hearing damage and spinal injuries in a 2010 improvised explosive device attack, he was medically discharged from the military — something he says he opposed because the military had become his entire identity.
“As soon as I’ve crossed this threshold, I no longer really have a clear picture of who I am, what I am, what use I might play in the future, and where to go from here,” he said.
He described feeling discarded by the military. “I was very quickly turned from a valuable asset into a liability that needed to be rid of as quickly and as expeditiously as possible,” said Muir, who turned to alcohol as a crutch.
Canadian Forces veteran Josh Muir and his son Max at a beach in Vancouver, April 2024. [Photo Credit: Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families]
Shore, of Queen’s University, says recovering from moral injury and substance use disorder can require rebuilding one’s identity as the sense of purpose and belonging one gets from being part of the military fades.
Therapies such as acceptance and commitment therapy help veterans accept difficult emotions and commit to taking actions that align with their values. Another treatment called narrative therapy helps veterans separate their problems from their identity. These therapies can be effective at helping veterans recover, says Richardson, of the MacDonald Franklin Operational Stress Injury Research Centre.
Richardson also encourages veterans to seek peer support through groups like Operational Stress Injury Social Support or True Patriot Love Foundation.
David Fascinato joined the military in 2005 and served in psychological operations, including a deployment to Afghanistan in 2010.
Fascinato, who has since left the military, has struggled with mental health issues and moral injury. He says he has come to realize that veterans need organizations that offer community, purpose and tools to rebuild their sense of self.
This realization led him to co-found Team Rubicon Canada, a volunteer disaster relief organization that conducts missions in Canada and abroad. “Doing things with others for others, that’s where it helps reduce substance misuse and provides an off-ramp,” he said.
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Fascinato has also found purpose by serving as executive director of Heroic Hearts Project Canada, an organization that supports veterans and first responders with alternative mental health treatments such as psychedelics.
Richardson and Shore view psychedelic-assisted therapy — which uses psychedelics to disrupt ingrained neural patterns — as a promising treatment for moral injury and substance use disorder..
Shore says support for psychedelic trials with veterans is still limited due to safety concerns and insufficient research. However, Canadian veterans are seeking psychedelic therapy in overseas retreats in places like Mexico and Peru.
Hurley says he was only able to recover from his alcoholism after seeking treatment at a psychedelic retreat in Tijuana, Mexico in 2022. “Only after I did ibogaine did I get released from [alcohol addiction],” he said, referring to a type of psychedelic drug.
While the production, sale and possession of psychedelics remain illegal in Canada, Health Canada in 2023 amended its Special Access Program, which allows health-care providers to request psychedelic medications for patients with life-threatening or treatment-resistant conditions.
In Muir’s case, he was able to gain control of his addiction and mental health issues after completing a two-month residential program at a treatment centre on Vancouver Island. The cost of the program was covered by Veterans Affairs.
While Muir is grateful to have his treatment costs covered, he says he would like to see Veterans Affairs generally improve the support it offers veterans, including offering more personalized assistance in the transition to civilian life.
He describes his experience with the Canadian Armed Forces’ transition program as taking in “information via fire hose,” with overwhelming seminars and a lack of personal guidance to navigate the process.
“There’s little services and ceremonies,” said Muir. “But ultimately you have to go back to you being a small cog in a large machine.”
“I felt like I was going to become Army Surplus, just like the items in the store that sit there after their function has been superseded by newer models.”
“I think it’s absurd,” said Fascinato. “We have to pick up the proverbial sword and shield, or in this case pen and pad of paper, and seemingly wage this never-ending battle for access to care that shouldn’t be this difficult to get.”
This article was produced through the Breaking Needles Fellowship Program, which provided a grant to Canadian Affairs, a digital media outlet, to fund journalism exploring addiction and crime in Canada. Articles produced through the Fellowship are co-published by Break The Needle and Canadian Affairs.
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