2025-2026 Departmental Plan released

The 2025-2026 Departmental Reports were released yesterday. These reports lay out the plans and goals for the 2025-2026 year, as well as provide updates on where current initiatives are standing.

The Department of National Defence report is sadly a bit outdated before it's even released! These reports are obviously done well in advanced, and as such does not include the recently announced $9 billion dollar top-up announced last Monday.

These reports are the best way to get some metrics within the DND, and the picture they paint is both bleak, but hopeful. There are movements in the right direction in some aspects, but aging equipment, lack of funding at the time, and struggles with personnel continue to hamper improvement efforts.

As always I highly recommend going through the full reports as they are quite long and extensive and I wont be going through everything. We will though take a look at some of the major points.

Servicibility and availability remains an issue

One of the most daunting and worrying numbers coming out of the report are those related to servicability and availability, primarily within the Navy and Army.

The Air fleet saw good news on key indicators from the 2022-23 to 2023-2024 period, with the % of aerospace key fleets that are serviceable to meet training, readiness, and operational requirements going up from 43.88% last report to 48.9 percent. This is still a far cry from the 70% goal that everyone shares, but will improve as new, modern assets come online in the next few years.

Its an advantage in these statistics that the RCAF has. They have things on contract and most key platforms are set to be replaced between now and 2032. This is compared to, say the navy, who wont be seeing major replacements start to funnel in for another decade.

Speaking of the army and navy? Things are a bit less optimistic with the navies key fleets dropping from 51.2% to 45.73% and the army dropping from 56% to 49% respectively from the 2022-2023 to the 2023-2024 period.

We also have some more broader goals to hit key metrics compared to last year with all three fleets being given a timescale out to March 2032. The Land and Air fleet are all aiming for a 70% rating while the navy, given their more distant timeline for mew assets, is aiming for 60% servicability.

These percentages were present in the last report, although were aiming for a far more ambitious March of 2025 timeline. This new date, to me, is far more realistic and understandable, especially as the Army and Air Force will both be well on their way to revitalizing their respective fleets.

Outside of fleet availability though things are recovering, although many still lag. The % of force elements that are ready for operations in accordance with established targets, for example, is up to 67% this year, but lags behind the 2021-2022 number of 71%, so while up, there is still work to be done.

Availability also remains a concern. While positions are being filled, the % of occupations with critical shortfalls has skyrocketed from 61.7% in 2021-2022 to 72.9% in 2023-2034. This is a far cry from the no more than 5% target expected by 2032, and a very worrying increase even with our established issues.

Speaking of people as well, only 30.4% of members asked feel that the Canadian Armed Forces provides a reasonable quality of life for service members and their families, a decrease of just over 12% from last year.

Only 57.7% of Canadian Armed Forces members feel positive about their job. Another decrease from 60.9%, and another worrying trend especially when combined with the views on quality of life.

It's not good…. I dont want to day it thay way but when looking at the defence team in general you get a fairly bleak feeling. The % of people who have said they've been victims of discrimination, abuse and assault is up across the board despite the decrease in harassment reports.

The % of public service employees in the Defence Team who have completed mandatory harassment training has gone down from 74% to only 54.5% in a single year. That isnt the kind to trend you want to see when your goal is 100.

If the CAF wants to retain people it needs to have a culture that is open and provides people a sense of belonging. I try to stay out of cultural stuff. It isnt my area, and we have others (Hi Charlotte!) who do a far better job.

Yet after years of hearing from the victims of assault, and hearing people prance around and claiming that it's all gotten better, these statistics paint a gloomy and highly dissapointing figure to me. They are not something to be proud about. Far from it.

It's shameful that these issues are still ao prevalent, that mentalities are so bleak across the board. The institutional challenges will not dissappear with money. They will also not be fixed by just a mere pay raise.

I dont want to be overly negative with this report. Yet these numbers are just disheartening to see. Obviously change takes time. We can't expect a year or two of development to lead to mass turnaround in trends that have been building for decades.

There is good in this report. Operation numbers remain stable and growing, acquisition and procurement numbers are steadily going up and getting close to their goals. Yet when you see things like the % of infrastructure in fair or better condition dropping below 60? It makes you frown a bit.

I dont want to say that everything is shit. I dont want to present as if things are crumbling with no attempt to fix it, and to credit these issues are very clearly identified and solutions discussed for the year.

We also have a $9 billion top-up that will soon come into play, critical funding that many of these goals need to be accomplished. The problems are known but fixes can't come from money alone.

It will help. It will be a defining need for several catagories, but it wont be the thing that tips us in the direction we need to sustain and improve on those numbers. Eventually the gains that financial investment brings will hit their ceiling.

Again, I highly encourage you read the report in full. It is quite long and detailed, and I hope many of you can come through not upset or depressed but with a bit of clarity to how things are developing, and what is being done. There is no better place to get that inside look.