In late April, the Canadian military announced it had enrolled more than 7,000 new members in the last fiscal year – its highest number of new recruits in three decades.
That figure is a fraction of the total number of people who have expressed interest in joining the military. As of February, confirmed applications to the Canadian Armed Forces had nearly doubled year over year, rising from 21,700 to 40,116, according to figures shared with the BBC by Canada’s Department of National Defence.
Those numbers reflect applicants who submitted the required documents to confirm their eligibility. The total number of applications was far higher, reaching nearly 100,000 over the past year.
It is a big jump from 2019-20, when around 36,000 people had applied.
Travis Haines, a lieutenant colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces, told the BBC he believes the boost in recruitment is in large part tied to the military reducing bureaucratic hurdles.
Canada’s military has long been criticised for its inability to review and bring applicants on board quickly, and it has recently digitised some application elements – including allowing the submission of documents electronically – to speed up the process.
“There was always interest,” Haines said. “It was just hard to get through the system.”
Another significant recruitment change in recent years is the opening up of applications to permanent residents of Canada, rather than just citizens – a change that came into effect in 2022. Foreign nationals made up around 20% of last year’s new recruits.
Canada is now eyeing a major expansion of its military, with plans for a total of 85,500 regular service members and a mobilisation force of up to 300,000 reservists.
Duval-Lantoine said Canada has not pursued a mobilisation plan on this scale since 2004 – a sign the country is reckoning with the ongoing war in Ukraine, which she noted has endured in large part because of Ukraine’s military manpower.
Canada, like its European allies, is trying to prepare “for future wars by analysing the current one”, she said.