Here’s the solution to Canada’s military recruitment crisis

The CAF typically scapegoats the security clearance processing as reason for the bottleneck in the process. More scrutiny is justified to carefully vet officers and candidates for occupations such as intelligence specialists. But the vast majority of non-commissioned members really only need a cursory “reliability” status that can be contracted out to firms that specialize in background checks to examine police records, credit history, etc. Medical screening is another typical problem area requiring that candidates submit a medical evaluation report provided by a physician. Understandably, for the one in five Canadians without a regular family doctor, this is a challenge. Solutions involving walk-in clinics and medical screening by the CAF itself could perhaps offer relief. At the same time, the CAF should re-examine the decision not to require a physical fitness evaluation, which, of course, provides a strong indicator as to the physical acceptability of candidates for military service. Finally, the IT systems used for application processing have proven unequal to the task. The OAG report highlights many of the deficiencies of the systems used and a lack of integration between them to effectively and efficiently accept and process applicant data. Clearly, a more modern digital system is required that serves both the applicant and the reviewers/approvers to facilitate faster processing of applicant files. Yet the real problem lies in the long periods of silence between steps, when applicants feel effectively “ghosted” as their file sits in a queue. These prolonged periods of inactivity stretch timelines and cause many promising candidates to drop out before ever being awarded an initial contract. No amount of slogans or advertising will convince young Canadians to fight their way through a bureaucratic labyrinth to fight for their country. Solving the problem After years of tinkering have failed to fix the problem, it’s time to consider a bold solution: contract out military recruiting to the private sector while keeping full control over who gets enrolled. The British Army did exactly this more than a decade ago. Despite chronic issues with the contract and disappointing results, the U.K. Ministry of Defence has learned valuable lessons and is revising the program with a new tri-service approach and a new contracted service provider. The idea is sound, and the CAF has the advantage of learning from the U.K. experience to get it right the first time. Here’s how it works: the military still sets all standards—medical, physical, educational, security, and trade-specific—and makes every final decision about who is accepted. What changes is everything in between. A private company manages the front end: running the online application portal, collecting documents, scheduling appointments, coordinating background checks, and maintaining regular contact with candidates. This civilian team becomes each candidate’s case manager, ensuring steady communication, clear instructions, and predictable timelines. Crucially, outsourcing doesn’t remove the military from the process. Candidates still meet, speak with, and are evaluated by serving members at key stages: interviews, aptitude assessments, fitness testing, and trade selection. Uniformed recruiters remain responsible for assessing suitability, answering career questions, and ensuring candidates understand military life. The civilian partner simply keeps the administrative engine running in the background.1Private contractors could be incentivized to hire veterans as file managers, gaining the added benefit of real-world military experience, mentorship, and credibility. The model would also relieve the CAF from diverting scarce personnel into recruiting manager positions, allowing those members to return to higher-priority tasks, in particular making sure there are enough qualified instructors for training pipelines that are also under strain. If we want to fix recruitment, incremental tweaks won’t cut it. The system must be upended. Bringing in private-sector capability for the administrative pipeline is a practical solution to an urgent problem. The CAF would retain full authority over standards and selection, while candidates finally get the timely, transparent experience they deserve. Canada is embarking on a major transformation and expansion of our military to meet NATO commitments—first, to hit 2 percent of GDP on defence spending this year and then 3.5 percent by 2035. Uncrewed combat systems—drones for air, land, and sea—are included in the mix, but so are 12 new submarines, scores of crewed aircraft, and an expanding army with new weapons platforms. It takes years to decades of training and experience to prepare the crews of these systems to be able to engage in high-paced combat situations and win. It will be a foolhardy endeavour, indeed, to acquire such expensive machines only to park them along the fence and watch them rust for lack of skilled soldiers.