[CaptainCrunch]

Forces readiness is pretty much at an all time low.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/fad...ters-1.6605961

Whatever the crisis of the moment happens to be, the military is supposed to be the force of last resort.
Increasingly, though, that word "last" is being replaced by "first" — and sometimes "only."
A former top national security adviser warned a parliamentary committee on Tuesday that successive federal governments have relied too much on the military to handle crises at home.
Richard Fadden's remarks were met with some nods of agreement around the table — and a slight wince from a representative from one the provinces that has been in the uncomfortable position of having to call for military-backed relief.

He said domestic emergency operations — such as cleaning up after storms and fighting forest fires — distract the military from the training it needs in an increasingly unstable world — a point the Conservatives have been hammering away on since the committee launched its study.

The problem, he added, is that in recent years the federal government has acted as if the military is the only tool it can turn to in a disaster.
"It is becoming too easy for prime ministers — not in particular this one, but prime ministers generally — to simply say, 'I'm going to send in the army,'" Fadden told the four-party committee, which is studying the military's domestic emergency preparedness.
"And we do this without talking to the provinces, municipalities and civil society about what they could and should do."
Fadden argued that the problem cannot be examined with a narrow focus on military response. He called on the federal government to undertake a thorough, independent review of all emergency response capacity across the country, both federal and provincial.

adden argued that disaster response robs the military of time it should spend training for international commitments during a period of heightened international tensions with Russia and, to a lesser extent, China."I am not a military person but I don't think you need to be ... the chief of the defence staff or the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs to realize that there is not enough operational training, there are not enough exercises right now," he told MPs.
"It is short of criminal to send our troops into potentially harm's way if they're not as trained as we can possibly make them. I don't think they're doing enough [training] today. And if they're chopping wood — which they may well need to do and do other things to fight forest fires and whatnot — they're not doing operational training."
It's the kind of talk that makes provincial government officials squirm in their seats.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/eyr...tive-1.6608107

The country's top military commander said Thursday that the Canadian Armed Forces' (CAF) problems with recruiting and retaining soldiers, sailors and air crew are going are get worse before they get better.
Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre issued a sweeping directive Thursday morning for what he described as the "reconstitution" of the CAF.
"The CAF will experience higher than normal attrition and lower than normal recruiting unless appropriate professional culture and personnel management modifications are implemented," the directive said. "As a result, CAF effective strength will likely continue to shrink over the very short term."

This has been a problem with Liberal and Conservative government, but the day and age that the Forces will always be there to execute their missions is coming to a close without a major boost in spending.

We're hitting rapid rust out, reduced capability, people aren't joining or staying, because our government puts them in harms danger without proper training or equipment.

There's poor leadership, bad optics.

Canada promised to adjust defense spending in terms of modernization and recruiting, but most of that never materialized, and Canada did the whole "But but we punch above our weight". Well the capability of that is pretty much fading into myth status.

We're non existent in peace keeping. We sent a wack of equipment to Ukraine (fine) but there's no strategy or spending to replace it.

Our ship building program is mired in scandal. The F-35 fighter jet replacement program is probably going to get punted down the road, and right now our forces really have no deployment capability.

Why would anyone sign up, yeah they're designing more unisex pajama like uniforms, and allowing long hair and beards etc. But at the heart of it, why would someone join an organization that's designed to put lives on the line, and has a government that doesn't ensure risk reduction.

Why would someone stay in and deal with awful senior leadership and a government that doesn't care, but deploys them out to the point of exhaustion?

We're non deploy-able, we're at the point where its questionable if we can deploy them for disasters, and Canada the country that liked to boast about fulfilling its peacekeeping duties is no where to be seen.

That sound you hear is the Canadian Forces smacking into the ground.