The Canadian Army Reboot Has Arrived

Key Points and Summary – The Canadian Army is showing the most positive signs of life in decades, with recruitment at a ten-year high, long-overdue pay raises boosting morale, and a surge in new funding.

-Operationally, the force is reasserting its presence in the Arctic. However, this momentum is fragile. A closer look reveals an institution still plagued by “yawning vulnerabilities.”

-Only about half the force is mission-ready, critical equipment shortages persist, and major modernization programs, like new air defenses, are years away.

-The Army is moving in the right direction, but it is not yet modern, resilient, or ready enough.

The Canadian Army Is Back? 

In some ways, the Canadian Army has finally turned the corner. Recruitment is up, overdue pay increases are rebuilding faith in service, new money is coming at levels unseen in decades, and exercises in the North are an earnest new reflection of Canada’s Arctic sovereignty.

For the first time in years, the Army has momentum: an awareness that a long-neglected institution may yet have a fighting chance.

Indicators of that progress are not superficial. Recruitment is at a ten-year high, with close to 7,000 new soldiers joining in the last twelve months. Attrition had long outpaced enlistments, hollowing out the force.

Now the trend has been arrested, a marker of the public’s renewed confidence in the profession of arms. Pay and compensation are being addressed as well. Soldiers are finally receiving the meaningful raises they have long deserved: twenty percent for junior privates, thirteen percent for lieutenant-colonels and below, and eight percent for colonels, all retroactive to April 2025. This is no token boost to the pay cheque. It is a direct response to the morale and retention crisis, the Army’s most pressing vulnerability and one that has done more damage to this institution than any foreign enemy.

Budgets are brighter as well. Ottawa has promised to meet NATO’s two-percent of GDP spending goal three years ahead of schedule. Billions of dollars are now flowing into the Army and its sister services, as well as its networks of suppliers and bases across the country. For the first time in a generation, defence planning is not completely bound by austerity. The Army is no longer restrained by the scarcity of resources but by the challenge of turning them into combat-credible capacity.

Operationally, the Army has also demonstrated early returns on its newfound funding. Training in the North is more robust than in years, with Operation Nanook 2025 seeing large-scale, joint patrols across Baffin Island and the Northwest Passage. The display of presence was more than window dressing: there is evidence that Canada can once again sustain a meaningful, operation in the Arctic. Canadian Rangers have long been crucial allies in this endeavour, training regular soldiers in Arctic survival and navigation across difficult terrain. Sovereignty is being practiced again, after years of faltering. In the future, long-promised icebreakers pledged under the trilateral pact with Finland and the United States should offer a sturdier foundation for northern operations, one that anchors the Army’s own growing capacity to operate in the Arctic.

In force design, new thinking is also emerging. A cyber command is being created, and land-based electronic warfare, once long neglected, is being reconsidered. These are promising first steps that signal the Army is conscious of the multi-domain realities of modern warfare. They are tentative but welcome, hinting at an institution beginning to emerge from its Cold War “peacekeeping”  posture.

Taken as a whole, these facts represent the most positive constellation of developments in years. Recruitment pipelines are opening. Morale is on the rise, and pay is finally commensurate with the burdens of service. After decades of neglect, a government that had for so long ignored defence is now spending at levels that, if sustained, could turn around the story. Partnerships with European allies in Finland, Germany, and Sweden have improved procurement options while shoring up Canada’s Arctic posture. The Army is moving, and moving in the right direction.

Not Completely Ready for Action…

Optimism is thus warranted, but not yet fully justified. A closer look at what has not changed reveals the fragility of the current moment. Arctic operations are one such area. Climate change is making frozen landscapes less reliable and therefore less predictable. Supply lines have been strained by unreliable ice, grounding aircraft and overwhelming maintenance support systems. Logistics have in some ways become the Achilles heel of the Rangers, for all their new support. Supply lines once largely predicated on a reliable network of ice roads now waver. For all the undeniable progress of recent years, the Rangers remain indispensable as a force uniquely capable of navigating a regular Army not yet adapted to Arctic conditions. Symbolic presence has improved, but the resilience to sustain it remains just out of reach.

Recent Canadian Army readiness statistics tell the story of a force that has gotten better, but has a very long way to go. In a 2024 readiness assessment, for example, only just over half of all of the Army’s deployable elements (somewhere around 54 per cent) were mission-ready, leaving large swaths of the Army unavailable for operations and in turn raising questions about the mobility of the force and combat capacity of the Army as a whole. Regular public reporting has also brought to light shortages of fundamental kit. Soldiers have been issued new sleeping bags which are too thin to be used in the typical Canadian winter and during Operation Nanook in early 2025, a Chinook helicopter was out of service for three days because a part had to be flown in from near Ottawa. These are the anecdotes that tell of the continuing shortfall in Arctic readiness and logistics. They are not modest shortfalls on the margins of the Army’s ability to defend the country. They are yawning vulnerabilities that undermine combat effectiveness and raise serious questions about Canada’s ability to honour its defence commitments at home and abroad.

Modernization indicators are troubling as well. The arrival of new equipment and capabilities is underway, but still off in the somewhat distant future. Ground-based air defence systems – an urgent need in an era of drones and cruise missiles – will not begin to arrive until the end of the decade. The Army’s Leopard 2 tanks, the backbone of the armoured force, are being kept in the field only through stopgap service contracts. And artillery systems are outdated. Procurement timelines, now infamous in Canadian defence circles, remain stretched, slowing the pace of modernization across the entire service.

The problem runs deeper. Procurement culture remains risk-averse and focused on not making mistakes rather than on timely delivery of capabilities. Training pipelines are still under strain. The anticipated improvement to soldiers’ quality of life that will accompany overdue pay raises is not matched in other critical services like infrastructure at bases, medical or family support services, all of which will be necessary to drive the retention rates the government is expecting. The political push on defence, while welcome, may not survive the next electoral cycle. Institutional reform will be necessary to ensure that today’s funding surge is not wasted.

What Happens Next? 

So, to close the circle: Yes, the Canadian Army is stronger than it was a year ago – indeed, it is in a better position than at any point in the past few decades. But it is not yet modern, resilient, or ready enough. The decisive question is whether Canada consolidates its recent hard-won gains into lasting strength, or if it slides back into the familiar cycle of neglect and disappointment.

About the Author: Dr. Andrew Latham

Andrew Latham is a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities and a professor of international relations and political theory at Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN. You can follow him on X: @aakatham. He writes a daily column for National Security Journal.

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