Against a backdrop of U.S. President Donald Trump threatening to annex Canada, a challenging trade war and dismal labour prospects for young Canadians, some students are looking to the military for their future careers. There’s been good news for the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), which received recent federal funding boosts and seen rising applications since 2022, according to a recent auditor general’s report. Yet that same report flags ongoing challenges, including that just one of every 13 applicants is successfully recruited. A recent poll also found young adults the least interested in volunteering for Canada’s military. Students — all familiar with military service via family or friends — told CBC News why the CAF has captured their interest and where they’re at with recruitment.Olivia Vernelli, 17’Honouring my dad’s memory is a huge reason why I want to follow this path,’ said Olivia Vernelli, a Grade 12 student and army cadet in Petawawa, Ont. (Marcie Lane)For Grade 12 student Olivia Vernelli, military service is a family tradition she’s eager to continue, following the footsteps of her great-grandfather, grandpa, her mother and her father, who died in Afghanistan when she was six months old. “Carrying on that legacy and honouring my dad’s memory is a huge reason why I want to follow this path,” said the high school senior and Royal Canadian Army cadet from the military base community of Petawawa, Ont.An open house at the Royal Military College — where Vernelli saw thousands of similarly minded peers — sealed the deal. “Everyone’s there to [study] different things,” she said, “but everyone’s there for the same reason: they wanna fight for the freedom of Canada and they want to serve. Having now applied to the Kingston, Ont., school, she encourages teens consider the CAF. “Talking to current members, visiting bases or even joining cadets can give you a taste of the military life and help you decide if that’s the right path for you.”Adam Yeo, 22Co-op placements in corporate environments have underlined for Toronto student Adam Yeo that ‘an office job is just not for me.’ (Craig Chivers/CBC)With a father who served in South Korea’s Marine Corps and a childhood of barbecues with his dad’s veteran buddies, Adam Yeo’s interest in military life was piqued early on. Later, being a Royal Canadian Sea Cadet introduced “the cadence of the military lifestyle” to the University of Waterloo mathematics student, while corporate sector co-op placements helped him realize “an office job is just not for me.” Youth unemployment is on Yeo’s mind, given many recent-graduate friends “struggling to find jobs — and it kind of sucks to see that most of them … aren’t even aware that military service is an option,” he said in Toronto. New recruits carry gear during basic military training at the Canadian Forces Leadership and Recruit School in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., in 2024. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)After grad, Yeo wants to apply to the CAF to be an infantry officer, hoping to advance into work with different countries, buoyed by his keen interest in foreign policy and international relations as it intersects with Canadian security and defence.”Canada is a country that’s going to be more and more geopolitically relevant in the future,” he said. “It would be really cool just to be a part of that vision.” Ariane Lehoux, 20Law student Ariane Lehoux plans to follow up her Université de Sherbrooke studies by training to become a military lawyer. (CBC)An event introducing women to roles within the CAF cemented Ariane Lehoux’s plan to join the military, bolstering the influence of the Quebec student’s grandfather, who was in the Navy, plus family and friends already in the armed forces. She’s had stops and starts so far — including an interruption to her application when she moved — but Lehoux remains motivated by a drive to serve Canada and help others. Once she finishes law studies at Université de Sherbrooke, she plans to become a military lawyer.”People have this view of the army that’s like all soldiers and tanks and stuff like that,” Lehoux said, noting that there are military roles for engineers, social workers, psychologists and doctors.She says the CAF should be more present in spaces where young people spend time, whether it’s TikTok or high school fairs where they learn about art schools, vocational institutes, police and firefighter training, and college and university programs. “Why should they consider [the CAF] among all the other choices and things that they can do in their lives?” she points out. “How can they be interested in something that they don’t know?” Jonathan Thibault, 22Montreal electrical engineering student Jonathan Thibault has felt frustrated with the recruitment process, including encountering an online portal and database he found filled with error codes and connection issues. (Kevin Archambault/CBC)Jonathan Thibault knows all about military life, since both parents, his younger sister and one of his best friends are with the Canadian Armed Forces. That’s meant multiple people to answer questions about his own path, which he envisions as doing physical, hands-on work with the CAF.Yet , the Montreal electrical engineering student has been frustrated by the recruitment process. His first attempt to enroll after high school in Gatineau proceeded relatively quickly — spanning about five months and a few in-person visits to the recruiting centre in Ottawa, he says — though he says he was ultimately declined over a past instance of asthma. A Canadian Armed Forces military recruitment office staffer is seen in Ottawa signing in new recruits in 2023. (Jean-François Benoit/CBC)After changes to CAF recruitment parameters, a move to Montreal and being advised to wait through a database update, Thibault reapplied. Nine months on, he’s “just barely past the medical testing” stage, he says. Facing error codes online, having to re-sign and resubmit documents, and asked to complete the same form repeatedly have all been deterrents. “It was just a terrible, unfinished mess. I couldn’t connect to the portal half the time…. It’s been kind of a bummer,” Thibault said, noting how much worse it must feel for those less tech-savvy or unfamiliar with the paperwork. Juggling school projects, upcoming finals, a part-time job and living on his own, recruitment is now on the back burner. “I’ll get to it when I have time. I just don’t put as much thought in it as I used to,” he said.CAF recruitment is undergoing “growth and transformation right now,” and there’s ongoing work streamlining and improving efficiency, online interactions and response times, says Cpt. Joshua Register, detachment commander for the Canadian Forces Recruiting Centre in Vancouver. Cpt. Joshua Register is an infantry officer with the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Regiment and detachment commander of the Canadian Forces Recruiting Centre Vancouver. (Canadian Forces Recruiting Centre Vancouver )It’s not the same as applying for a job at a civilian workplace given the medical and background checks needed plus a “very involved interview process” for every CAF applicant, he said. It might take upwards of 50 hours of processing time from application to being hired, with the Regular Officer Training Plan — which offers an undergraduate degree plus an officer’s commission — a particularly competitive program to access. “Frankly, that’s the amount of work that we need to do to make sure that we’re getting the right applicants who fit all of the requirements that it takes to be in the military,” Register said. He adds, however, that it helps to be motivated and engaged. “The more invested a person is in joining … the faster we’ll get through,” he said. “We’re always happy to talk about where your application’s at and what you could do to maybe speed up the process.”Not everyone should go through the military and, even for those just exploring an interest, “when they push the recruiting centre door, they are not exactly sure what they’re going to do,” said intelligence and security consultant Eric Sauvé. Defence and security consultant Eric Sauvé, a former Canadian Armed Forces officer, was once a young man inspired by Canadian peacekeepers deployed abroad. He went on to serve for more than two decades. (Submitted by Eric Sauvé)That was the retired CAF infantry and intelligence officer’s own experience, back when he was a curious young man stirred by Canadian peacekeepers deployed abroad.He thinks recruitment must appeal to young hearts and minds who are the right fit and much needed by the CAF. They just need to be enrolled in a timely manner, have meaningful experiences and see incentives to stay onboard, he says. While young people do consider salary and opportunity, “you also need to get them excited … you need to light a flame,” he said from Gatineau, Que.”People need work-life balance. People want to go try different things. So it’s the job of the military to adapt to the reality and not the other way around.”
Military family inspires some young Canadians to enlist, despite recruitment hurdles
