According to the latest immigration plans of 2023-2025, the Canadian armed forces (CAF) announced that permanent residents who have lived in Canada for a minimum of 10 years would be eligible to enlist in the army which could help with the struggling recruitment levels of the military. The decision has come five years after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) had announced the change of their “outdated recruitment process”.
According to the Royal United Services Institute of Nova Scotia, a non-profit organisation of retired and active CAF members, the permanent residents were previously only qualified to apply under the Skilled Military Foreign Applicant (SMFA) entry programme which was open to individuals who reduced training costs or fill a special need such as a trained pilot or doctor but now, the candidates must be Canadian citizens with at least 18 years of age (or 16 with parental approval) and must have completed grades of 10 or 12 depending on whether they chose to serve as officers with the same rules being applied to long-term/ permanent residents as well.
During September, the Canadian armed forces (CAF) issued an alert on a significant lack of recruits to fill thousands of open posts as it received approximately half the candidates per month that it needed to reach its objective of recruiting 5,900 new members this year.
Christian Leuprecht, a professor at the Royal Military College of Canada conveyed to a news agency, that it makes sense as the CAF had previously enjoyed the luxury of limiting its recruitment to nationals as there were enough applicants but is not the case anymore, as the CAF had restricted permanent residents from joining the ranks as it entailed extra costs and dangers such as those related to obtaining security clearances, but he also argued that many other nations had done the same for years and hiring of non-citizens was by no means a novel idea. He further stated that countries like France used military service as a gateway or accelerated pathway to citizenship but after taking into consideration how simple it was for permanent residents to obtain a Canadian citizenship, it has not been confirmed if it would offer a significant incentive in the current Canadian scenario.
Anita Anand, the defence minister made a statement in a press conference held in March that the Canadian armed forces (CAF) needed to grow to meet global demands which was triggered by Russia’s on-going, unprovoked invasion over Ukraine and further added that time was of the essence when so much was at stake for Canada and the rest of the world as multiple countries faced their greatest threat to international peace and stability since the end of the Second World War.
Canada has released the latest Immigration Levels Plan for 2023-2025 that targets about 5,00,000 new permanent residents per year by the end of 2025 which would widen the pool of candidates the military could choose from.
The newest Statistics Canada data showed that one in five people coming to Canada were born in India which made it the top country of birth among recent arrivals with about 1 lakh Indian citizensa receiving permanent residence in Canada in 2021.
A quarter of Canadians as reported by the census of 2021 were landed immigrants or permanent residents and they made excellent candidates for the military because they immigrated to Canada when they were still young workers who could engage in more physical activity. By opening recruitment to permanent residents, the plans will help change the demographic makeup of the military which now includes 16% women and less than 12% visible minorities with white males making up the remaining of the population.
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