Changing the face of Canada’s military
‘We are not where we need to be’ on goal of adding more women to ranks, top leader says
OTTAWA— Canada’s military is looking for a few good women.
More than a few, actually. The armed forces is embarking on an aggressive, decade-long hiring spree to boost the number of women in the ranks to finally meet its goal of having women make up 25 per cent of its personnel.
But getting there won’t be easy, says the officer in charge of making it happen.
“It’s great that we now have these tangible, in-year goals. They will be difficult,” said Lt.-Gen. Christine Whitecross, commander of Military Personnel Command.
“(It’s) a fairly large effort for the next 10 years, but frankly it’s the right thing to do . . . we are not where we need to be,” Whitecross told the Star.
Gen. Jonathan Vance, the chief of defence staff, last month issued a directive to raise the number of women in uniform by 1 percentage point a year over the next 10 years. If successful, that effort would finally achieve the armed forces’ longstanding but elusive goal of 25 per cent.
Those changes might sound like a modest hike, but in reality it will require a significant increase in the number of women accepted into the ranks each year — up to 1,700 of the 4,200 new recruits enlisted annually, Whitecross says.
That’s a big hike. In the first three quarters of the current fiscal year, the armed forces enrolled 735 women, making up15 per cent of the overall enrolments. That is up from 640 women accepted during the same time last year.
Making that happen will mean changes in how the military sells itself to would-be recruits, targeting women interested in science and technology, and shaking up human resources policies.
But Whitecross said the real challenge is making women aware of the variety of careers that are available, knocking down the stereotype of the military as a largely male, fighting-in-the-mud, front-line soldier.
“The military, as you might imagine, is not the occupation of choice for a great number of our youth,” Whitecross said.
“We still need to get in and educate people about the opportunities, the fact that it’s not just combat arms,” she said.
Indeed, no military occupation is off-limits to women. Submarines were the last all-male bastion and that restriction was dropped in 2001. Combat is open to both genders.
The military will get some help from Kingston’s Royal Military College. The school experts to graduate 222 students this year, 21 per cent of them women — up from the 15-percent share in last year’s graduating class.
And the school has set a goal of having women make up 25 per cent of its incoming class of cadets this September — a target it expects to meet.
“This year I’m hoping it’s going to be a telltale sign for the future,” Whitecross said.
Recruiters will also adjust how they operate to better search out prospective candidates with no prior connections to the military. In the past, many women who enlisted often had a family member who also served.
The senior officer said the military will also be working to better balance women in occupations across the military, beyond logistics, administration and the medical branch, fields were women tend to concentrate now.
Whitecross noted how women are working in growing numbers in technical trades such as mechanics, plumbers and carpenters in the civilian workforce and said a similar trend must happen in the military.
The new efforts to recruit women will keep the pressure on the defence department to reduce harassment in the ranks, a serious problem flagged by an independent report in 2015 that condemned the military for a “sexualized culture” it said was conducive to sexual harassment and misconduct.
It’s a problem that Whitecross concedes could hurt recruiting women who fear they could be entering a toxic workplace.
“It is an issue. I do have parents coming up to me and saying, ‘Are you truly an employer of choice, do you treat your people with dignity and respect?’ ” Whitecross said. “I understand that. I’m a parent myself.”
But she said the military has been upfront about efforts to transform the culture, including Vance’s formal mission titled OP Honour to “eliminate harmful and inappropriate sexual behaviour.”
“It’s allowing us to be very transparent and honest about what’s happening today and how change is coming,” Whitecross said.
“We’ve got to get better at the way we treat people. That is the underlying truth,” she said.
Yet just this month came news of another alleged incident of sexual misconduct, this time within the elite ranks of Canadian Special Operations Regiment.
The alleged incident happened while Canadian special operations forces soldiers were deployed to Jamaica in November 2015 for an exercise.
The military said the victim of the alleged “inappropriate sexual behaviour” was offered counselling, emotional support and other services and that military police are continuing their investigation.