Stag Special

Women have been serving in Canada’s military for more than a century and today play a pivotal role in defending Canada’s safety and security.

Canada is a world leader in terms of the proportion of women in its military, and the areas in which they can serve. Currently, 15.9 per cent of Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members are women — the NATO average for women in the military is 11 per cent.

Among our allies, the CAF is highly regarded as being at the forefront for opportunities for women to serve their nation’s armed forces.

Women are essential to achieving our operational effectiveness and we are preparing new strategies and initiatives to increase women’s representation to 25.1 per cent by 2026. For non-combat arms occupations, women representation is already at 21 per cent.

During the past five years, the CAF has made significant progress in the number and proportion of women recruited:

• Enrolment of women in the Reserve Force has increased by 103 per cent since 2015;
• Enrolment of women in the Regular Force has increased by 63 per cent since 2015;
• Women make up 25 per cent of new Royal Military College recruits;
• Forty-one per cent of our recruiting growth is new women members;
• Women represented 17.4 per cent of the total recruitment in 2019.

The CAF offers 106 full-time and part-time occupations. In 2001, Canada became one of the first militaries in the world to welcome women to enrol in any and all CAF occupations, including operational trades, and serve in any environment.

Women have chosen to serve in 98 per cent of the occupations and are currently enrolled in 104 occupations out of 106 in the CAF.

In all trades, CAF members, no matter the gender, are selected for training, promotions, postings, and all career opportunities in exactly the same way — based on rank, qualifications, and merit.

The representation of women inside our entire Defence Team should also be highlighted. As of March 31, 2019, the Department of National Defence (DND) had 9,704 women in their workforce, with 77 in executive positions.

In total, women make up 40.3 per cent of DND’s workforce and 42.8 per cent of executive positions.

The CAF has made significant progress as an institution since 2017. We released the CAF Diversity Strategy, made changes to the construct of our dress committee, stood up a sub-committee specific to women’s dress, and integrated GBA+ perspective into policies, projects and programs across Defence.

The CAF participates in the Elsie Initiative for Women in Peace Operations, expanded parental leave, launched the Integrated Women’s Mentorship Network and the Women in Force program.

We know that more work needs to be done, but we are definitely heading in the right direction.

We must ensure these women — and all women — know we value their contributions to the safety and security of our nation.

They have and will always have a vital role to play in the CAF, adding to the diversity that is the strength of Canada’s population, and essential in our military’s effectiveness and mission success.