New parents quickly develop a keen understanding of the gains to be had from anything that helps avoid waking the baby. Peace and quiet for one thing. A period of calm. A moment to think.
In Canada’s case, the baby is the current U.S. president. The president, as we know from repeat experience, is easily upset. When the president gets upset, he gets cranky, makes a lot of noise and causes untold disturbances. If you can, you want to avoid getting him upset.
Former high-ranking officers of the Canadian Armed Forces are mounting a defence of the planned acquisition of 88 American F-35 fighter jets, hoping to put an end to the ongoing courtship between the Canadian government and the Swedish firm Saab.
According to information obtained by Radio-Canada, a dozen former high-ranking officers of the Royal Canadian Air Force sent a letter to the federal government to reiterate the benefits of acquiring a full fleet of F-35s to meet Canada’s military needs.
Canada is apparently considering acquiring a mixed fleet of fighter jets. But this decision is being considered without any real strategic thinking.
Economic considerations seem to be taking precedence over military imperatives, even though several experts and military leaders strongly recommend a single fleet of F-35s, which is considered more consistent with continental defence needs.
OTTAWA—The latest media crap storm to hit the Canadian Armed Forces is clearly the responsibility of the very senior leadership tasked with steering Canada’s military institution away from such pitfalls.
It started with a startling headline in the Oct. 31 edition of The Ottawa Citizen: “Canadian military wants mobilization plan in place to boost reserves to 400,000 personnel.”
Defence Minister David McGuinty says Canada isn’t ruling out diversifying its fighter-jet purchases from more than one company in order to fulfil capability requirements.
“We’re grateful for any forthcoming offer that comes forward,” McGuinty told CTV Question Period host Vassy Kapelos in an interview airing Sunday. “If anybody walks into Canada tomorrow from a sovereign wealth fund or with a joint venture in mind or is looking to set up a company in Canada to create 10, 20, 30, 40, 50,000 jobs, game on.”
What a load of BS.
Canadians did not need a leaked report, an auditor’s warning, or a parliamentary inquiry to tell them the Armed Forces are in trouble. All it watching them march, or rather, failing to do so.
The now viral CTV clip from the November 11, 2025 Remembrance Day ceremony in London, Ontario shows uniformed Canadian Armed Forces personnel attempting a solemn parade march.
The new Canadian military march video is out!
IDK about you but I could watch this walking, talking sh!tshow all day.pic.twitter.com/wCq5ADtAso
— John Ʌ Konrad V (@johnkonrad) November 15, 2025
Why do I imagine CAF deciding military style marching was too heteronormative colonial ding dong whatever.
Canada’s top soldier appears to be having second thoughts about recruiting public servants to augment reserve forces, adding they are already doing enough for defence.
Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan and defence deputy minister Stefanie Beck signed a document on May 30, 2025, launching a plan to boost both the reserves and what is known as the Supplementary Reserve.
Ottawa must be fearing a Nepal style insurrection one reader suggested.
The federal Liberals want to increase the size of Canada’s military reserves by 10-fold to nearly 300,000 from just under 30,000. And one of the Department of National Defence’s (DND) primary methods for achieving that goal is to encourage more enlistment into the part-time Armed Forces by federal and provincial civil servants.
The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Gen. Jennie Carignan made headlines after it was reported that a new defence department directive is looking at how to mobilize Canada’s public servants as soldiers.
The directive, signed by the CDS back in May of this year, outlines how public servants at the provincial and federal level could potentially volunteer for the Supplementary Reserves (Supp Res) to help swell its ranks from the current level of 4,300 to 300,000.
If we go to war, a lot will depend on the reserves. The CAF can’t treat them like an afterthought
The Canadian Armed Forces’ greatest enemy is ignorance — or a certain national cluelessness — and this is especially true for the reserves. From military reporters to regular full-time Canadian Armed Forces members, many don’t know what a reservist actually is or does. Let me offer a few ideas for reflection, based on my 500-page study of 30 years of unvarying reserve problems, Relentless Struggle.
As the Second World War came to a close, Elmer Friesen and his brother, Alvin, received a letter from their Mennonite church in Aberdeen, Sask.
They could return to the church, it said, but not without publicly apologizing to the small rural congregation. They had been expecting the ultimatum since first being given the choice at the outset of the war: Serve and renounce your membership to the church, or don’t participate at all.
But the appeal to pacifism – a core belief of the church – didn’t land with the Friesen brothers.
The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) stands at a decisive moment in its history. Around the world, rivalries are resurfacing, alliances are being tested and the international order that Canada helped build through sacrifice and service is fracturing. This is Canada’s moment not only to reinvest in its military, but to reclaim the warrior ethos that once defined those who wear the uniform.
The Canadian Forces is counting on public servants to volunteer for military service as it tries to ramp up an army of 300,000 as part of a mobilization plan, according to a defence department directive.
Federal and provincial employees would be given a one-week training course in how to handle firearms, drive trucks and fly drones, according to the directive, signed by Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan and defence deputy minister Stefanie Beck on May 30, 2025.
Related …
DND expansion plans are wildly unrealistic
Have the senior leaders of the Canadian military lost all connection to reality?
Their unpublicized plan to increase Canada’s military reserves to 400,000 people, as reported by the Citizen’s David Pugliese , is wildly out of synch with their own organization’s recruitment capabilities, the attraction of serving in the armed forces, and the country’s needs.
Get your elbows up, boys. Canada’s back! Mark Carney is going to make Canada Great Again and pull the military up by its bootstraps. Hooah!
Chief of the Defence Staff and weepy DEI-hire General Jennie Carignan signed a directive to increase the size of Canada’s reserve forces from 25,561 to 400,000. For those rubbing their eyes at that number, that is a 16-fold increase.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has now climbed into two submarines on two continents – one on a production line in Germany, the other in the water in South Korea – yet the 2025 federal budget, which allocated more than $80 billion toward defence, made no mention of funding towards the much-needed vessels.
The Royal Canadian Navy is in the market to buy 12 conventional diesel-electric powered submarines and the federal government has narrowed the competition to two companies: ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) and Hanwha Ocean.
