How to Make Teens Join the Military
I joined Canada’s army in 1984, when I was 18 years old. As a kid who’d loved Star Trek, the military seemed like the next best thing to Starfleet. I needed a summer job after my first year of university, so I joined the army reserve, where I grew to love solving problems, working in teams and leading people. But when it came time to look at enlisting in the regular force, the long-term commitment gave me pause. I spent a long time reading the nine-year contract. Nine years was half of the life I’d known. What finally got me to sign was the mice type in the contract, revealing that if I wanted, I could leave after three years. That still felt like a long time, but I’d been accomplishing very little as a university student on a starvation budget. I could do three years.
I’ve been reflecting on that experience a lot lately, and what it reveals about the state of Canada’s military in 2025. Like me, a lot of Canadians have also been thinking about defence, which is not something we often do outside of wartime. But with world events turning increasingly fractious, we’re feeling more vulnerable than we have in a generation. More than a million Ukrainian-Canadians are worried about their families, who are under assault by Russia. Our own land is under threat for the first time in 200 years, including our Arctic territories, which are being sized up by Russia, China and even our closest ally. The U.S. president has spoken openly of erasing our borders.
As national defence has returned to the forefront of the national conversation, so has the state of our military—an institution Canadians remain proud of, even if we’ve allowed it to decline to a point where it can no longer stand on guard for us. Our warships need replacement. Our fighter jets are 40 years old, effective only against foes whose planes are even older. The roughly 2,000 Canadian soldiers stationed in Eastern Europe to deter Russian aggression can’t defend themselves from air attacks. These problems aren’t new. When I joined up in 1984, I was issued a Browning pistol made in Toronto at the end of the Second World War. Its aim was so inaccurate that I joked a bayonet would double its effective range. Today, half of our equipment is down for repair on any given day. Replacing it is a Sisyphean task; our military procurement system is good mostly at providing generational employment for bureaucrats. (Which is handy since it takes a generation to buy gear for our troops.)
But equipment isn’t even the biggest problem our military faces. The biggest problem is what former defence minister Bill Blair called the “death spiral” in recruitment, as old soldiers retire faster than new soldiers can join.
The “authorized strength” of Canada’s armed forces is 71,500 full-time regular troops and 30,000 part-time reservists. We’re currently 9,000 short of those numbers—which ought to be doubled anyway. At its current strength, our military can’t possibly defend Canada and contribute meaningfully to our obligations abroad. But we aren’t able to hire and train recruits fast enough to replace those who leave in exhaustion and despair: up to nine per cent of soldiers leave annually, because soldiering is hard on people. The average Canadian Forces member today is 36 years old, with a family and financial obligations. They move constantly, which makes it hard for spouses to stay employed. And frequent overseas tours tear families apart.
Our generals have tried to attract more people. They’ve loosened dress, fitness and medical standards. They’ve opened recruitment to permanent residents, not just citizens. They now accept recruits as old as 60. But none of it has worked, because attraction isn’t the problem: in 2023, 70,000 Canadians applied to the military, but only 4,000 were hired. The real issue is the slow, broken, “career or bust” staffing dogma that prioritizes recruiting career soldiers and that has dominated our military since the end of the Cold War. Under this system, it can take 18 months between a recruit’s application and their basic training; in the interim are aptitude tests, medical screenings, security clearances and selection for one of 100 specialized trades. Many would-be soldiers give up and move on, even as the experienced soldiers expected to train them leave. That’s the death spiral.
What we need instead is a new National Service Plan to fill our military with fit young warriors. I’m not talking about conscription. We’ve tried that before; it was divisive and of arguable merit. A voluntary plan, with strong incentives, will be enough to build the strong, combat-ready military Canadians want. In the first place, that means recruiting young people for shorter periods of time—rather than insisting on long contracts that might deter them. The NSP would bring in high school graduates before they go to college or university. They would sign on for two years of military service: longer than a gap year, shorter than a degree program. This would have been a no-brainer for 18-year-old me, and I’m sure it would be today for many young Canadians.
Instead of selecting recruits for 100 different specialty trades, we should focus on basic combat and naval trades that provide essential foundations for later specialization. That will streamline recruiting, selection and initial training. This is similar to the “throughput” model many of our allies use. Finland, Sweden, Norway and others have built a large base of citizen soldiers with basic military skills developed during short periods of service, who later return to civilian life but can be mobilized in wartime. If we must one day defend Canadian territory, we’ll do it with citizen soldiers.
The first six months of NSP service would be spent on basic training, to be employable as a combat arms soldier in the infantry, armoured corps or artillery or as a sailor. Every member of Canada’s military should be able to fight on the ground with a rifle or keep a warship in action. It’s too small to do things any other way.
After training, these soldiers would be posted to an operational unit for a year of overseas duty, perhaps with a brigade group in Europe or in a ship at sea. People join the military for adventure and service. The best years of my career were spent overseas, not sitting around a base, tightening tracks on armoured vehicles. Like many soldiers, I retired when operational service became too elusive, and soldiering too boring.
The last six months of NSP service would include demobilization from operations and basic leadership training. Good leaders would be promoted. The best of the best would be offered full-time positions in the regular force, possibly to carry on as career soldiers, and would help train the next crop of recruits. Some could transfer to specialist trades in the army, navy or air force, and get more training for higher pay.
Those who don’t join the regular force would be released with vouchers for four years’ worth of post-secondary tuition while they serve part-time with a reserve unit. This would provide our reserve force with leadership-trained warriors, while student soldiers would get good part-time income. When they graduate, some may want to serve as officers in the regular or reserve force, and they’ll be well-prepared to do so.
This program wouldn’t cost much. New recruits currently start at $43,000 per year, which rises to $63,000 by the end of their initial training. Soldiers in the NSP could earn less—they’ll be young, with no expenses. Their housing will be covered, and they’ll be deployed much of the time in locations with few places to spend money. The NSP can hold back enough salary to fund their education and make a significant RRSP contribution on release.
The benefits to our military are clear. Recruiting will be simpler when we don’t have to select for 20-year potential among 100 occupations. Creating a mass-production model focused on combat trades will generate new warriors rapidly and keep operational units full. It will allow higher-ranking career soldiers with families to get more down time between operational tours. That means less exhaustion, less attrition, and the end of the death spiral.
Within a few years, we could double the size of our military, getting us very near our two per cent of GDP commitment to NATO. The NSP will be a boon to our reserve force, allowing it to grow faster and sustain itself. It will create a growing population of Canadians with critical military skills needed for mobilization. Finally, it will benefit Canadian society at large, by pumping proud Canadians, great team workers and trained leaders with international experience into the workforce, where they’re sorely needed.
There will be pushback from those in the military’s senior ranks who are committed to the status quo. But Canadians will support a plan like this—and with bold leadership, it will work. My own career is proof enough. After ensuring I was only committed to three years of military service, I eventually stayed for 14 years.
Mark Towhey is a former Canadian army officer. He now works as a management strategist who advises business and political leaders.
