Military enrolment rebounds, but Canadian Forces still thousands short of 2017 target

The list of people who enrolled in the canadian river armed forces — both full-time and part time — surged in the endure fiscal year but despite the milestone the size of the Armed Forces has yet to reach targets set almost a decade ago.

Defence Minister David McGuinty announced Monday that 7,310 applicants were accepted into the regular force last year, surpassing the benchmark set by the Department of National Defence. It is apparently the highest number of people coming in off the street in more than three decades.

Later in the day at technical briefing, senior defence officials said there has also been an increase in the reserves, which surpassed its recruiting target by 137 per cent. 

Despite the healthy surge, the military, overall, remains a few thousand troops short of goals set out in the 2017 defence policy of having 71,500 regular and 30,000 reserves.

McGuinty said there are 67,827 full-time military members, 3,600 short of achieving that target. The reserves currently sit at 25,054 — a delta of 4,946 troops.

The Defence Department set a goal of reaching the 2017 “authorized strength” targets by 2029.

“If this keeps up this year, we will achieve this target earlier than 2029,” McGuinty told reporters on Parliament Hill.

Canada's military hits highest recruitment intake in over 30 years, defence minister says

The release of the numbers came ahead of a House of Commons committee called to examine last year’s report by the auditor general, which was highly critical of the department’s efforts to get people in uniform and keep them there.

Auditor Karen Hogan’s report found that while interest in joining was high, the recruitment process was plagued by inefficiencies and a lack of clear accountability. Aside from not meeting recruiting targets in previous years, the audit found training bottlenecks, excessive processing times and delays forced many applicants to withdraw.

Specifically, the auditor found that the recruitment time took as many as 270 days, when the standard should be between 100 and 150 days.

Senior defence officials said Monday that wait time has been reduced to 134 days.

Last year, the Liberal government delivered a sweeping pay and benefits increase, which defence officials and McGuinty believe is contributing to both attracting and retaining people.

Despite the optimism, the attrition rate within the military increased to 8.5 per cent, which, while on par with other allied militaries, is higher than the year before.

The military will up its recruiting goal in the coming year to 8,200 full-time members, but officials conceded they are struggling to get training space for those additional members.

Senior reporter, defence and security

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