As part of CDR’s Ontario themed issue, we asked Ottawa Bureau Chief, James Careless, to sit down with Brigadier-General Oberwarth, Commander of the Army’s 4th Canadian Division (4 Cdn Div) and Joint Task Force (Central). Here is that conversation.
BY JAMES CARELESS
On July 6, 2024, Brigadier-General C.I. Oberwarth was appointed as Commander of the Canadian Army’s 4th Canadian Division and Joint Task Force (Central). The 4th Canadian Division (4 Cdn Div) is one of the five major formations that report to Army headquarters in Ottawa. 4 Cdn Div is charged with providing combat ready land forces to the Canadian Armed Forces in accordance with assigned tasks, to conduct general purpose training in preparation for various land operations, and to provide support services to other organizations as directed or as mutually arranged. It includes all Regular and Reserve Force units in Ontario, with the exception of a portion of Northwestern Ontario, which falls under 3rd Canadian Division (3 Cdn Div).
Brigadier-General Oberwarth enrolled in the Canadian Armed Forces in June 1994. He graduated from The Royal Military College with a degree in Military and Strategic Studies and was subsequently commissioned as an officer in active service. After serving on many missions — whose details he covered in his interview with CDR — BGen Oberwarth served with Canadian Army HQ as Business Planner and the Strategic Joint Staff as Director General Operations. His senior command tours included command of the Canadian Army’s Infantry School and the Combat Training Centre. BGen Oberwarth is also a graduate of the Joint Command and Staff Programme and the National Security Programme, and holds a Masters of Defence Studies.
CDR: Please tell us about your career prior to your current role as Commander of 4th Division.
BGen Oberwarth: I am an infantry officer by trade. I was commissioned out of the Royal Military College of Canada in the late ‘90s into the Royal Canadian Regiment and was posted to Gagetown New Brunswick for my first Battalion assignment.
I have served in the 2nd and 3rd Battalions. I’ve experienced deployments to Bosnia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, two tours to Afghanistan, and a year in Congo. Recently, I had the pleasure to serve for two years as the Deputy Command General – Operations with America’s First Corps [1 Corps] out of Washington State. Much of that time was spent in the Pacific working with allied and partnered nations and learning from the most capable military force in the world, the US Army.
The common thread that I have enjoyed from my first days in training to today is that I have always been motivated, pushed, counselled, mentored and inspired by world-class soldiers, NCOs, and officers. It has been an incredible journey.
EARLY YEARS
CDR: Let’s go back: What motivated you to join the CAF?
BGen Oberwarth: I grew up in a military environment. My father was a soldier and I spent my youth living in a military community. As a child, I experienced six different postings with my family, two of these amounted to eight years in Baden Solingen, Germany where my father was a non-commissioned officer with the Army of the Rhine or the 4th Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group.
These years in Germany were extremely formative for me. Everyday on your way into school you would see soldiers out doing PT or rolling the tracks (M113s). The bus route to school passed right next to the runway and it was not uncommon to see F-104s (during my first time in Germany) and later CF-18s taking off and landing. It was a very exciting time.
Dad would go to the field for weeks at a time and come back with stories of vast manoeuvres or more simple stories of working with soldiers to achieve difficult tasks. I understood that the life of a soldier was tough, that it demanded commitment, discipline, and drive. I loved everything about it.
CDR: As 4th Division Commander, what are your duties, responsibilities, and priorities?
BGen Oberwarth: The 4th Canadian Division is intensely focused on our Army’s priorities of modernization, reconstitution, and readiness. And, while we always work toward achieving each of these objectives simultaneously, our main focus in this coming year will be readiness.
Beginning in the summer of 2025, the 4th Division is responsible for force-generating nearly 2,000 soldiers for back-to-back rotations to Latvia. That’s two times 2,000 soldiers in a 12-month period. Meanwhile, we will sustain our domestic support tasks.
My job is to work through our Brigades, our Division Support Groups and bases, our divisional Canadian Rangers, and the Training Centre to keep our soldiers fit, focused, training and engaged on these priorities while remaining nimble enough to respond to domestic tasks.
CDR: What are the major challenges you hope to address as 4th Division Commander?
BGen Oberwarth: The “One Army” team in the 4th Division creates a lot of opportunities for our Army and for Canada. At over 13,000 people, there is very little that we cannot do in support of Canadians at home and abroad when we are suitably organized, trained, resourced, and focused.
We are scheduled to be the first Division to deploy back-to-back rotations of nearly 2,000 soldiers per rotation since the Afghanistan War days. We will need every single soldier’s commitment to this task to be successful. So, the Division Sergeant Major and I are driven to energize our teams to lean into this challenge. It is a big lift and will take a lot of hard work and innovation but I believe we are up to the task.
READINESS
CDR: There have been serious concerns expressed by senior CAF commanders with respect to overall readiness, state of equipment, and availability of trained personnel in the Armed Forces. What is your assessment of these challenges in 4th Division?
BGen Oberwarth: The Canadian Armed Forces is facing numerous challenges in terms of procurement, recruiting and retention. However, despite those challenges, the Canadian Army will remain dedicated to upholding the necessary capabilities to execute its mandate of defending Canada’s population and interests at home and abroad.
No matter what environment I’ve found myself in over the course of the past 30 years, Canadian soldiers have always made do with what they had and not necessarily what they wanted to have. Whether living in a building with a mud roof in Afghanistan — where it was abundantly clear inside that it was raining outside — or occupying a position on the edge of old lava fields near the Danakil Depression on the border of Ethiopia and Eritrea, Canadian soldiers have been counted on to plant their feet and make their trench their home; I’ve seen it and I’ve lived it.
Ours is a life of service and Canadians get to decide what we bring to the fight. But it’s up to us to figure out how to win with what we’ve got. As I continue to tell our soldiers — metaphorically of course — if all we’ve been given is a knife, then we had better be great knife fighters.
While having the right tools for the job is essential, what is critical to the success of our operations beyond vehicles and weapon systems are the soldiers. We are building physically and mentally tough teams to compete on the global stage. I am determined to provide 4th Division soldiers with the best instruction and environment to train in to get them ready for operations.
CDR: The CAF is increasingly called on by the government to deal with natural disasters. What strain do such duties put on 4th Division, and how do they affect its state of readiness and repair?
BGen Oberwarth: The Canadian Army and the 4th Division will always respond in support of Canadians when called upon to do so by the Government of Canada. We do this without fail and without reservation. And, while a large-scale call-out can have a temporary impact on our training cycles, our Immediate Response Units or Global Response Task Force elements are assigned on a rotational basis to mitigate such impacts to future operations.
OP REASSURANCE
CDR: Now for some operational details. What are the 4th Division’s contributions to Op REASSURANCE?
BGen Oberwarth: The 4th Division has contributed personnel and equipment to Op REASSURANCE numerous times since the start of the mission in 2014. As of 2017, this contribution included approximately 600 CAF members to the NATO enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) Battlegroup in Latvia on a rotational basis.
As a result of commitments made by NATO in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Canada signed a joint declaration with Latvia to grow the NATO battalion-sized eFP Battlegroup into the Canadian-led NATO Multinational Brigade in Latvia with a contribution of up to 2,200 persistently deployed CAF members by 2026.
The 4th Division will assume responsibility for bolstering the Brigade in June 2025 with the core of these soldiers coming from 2 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group (2 CMBG) in Petawawa, ON, with reinforcements from our incredibly dedicated and capable 31,32, and 33 Reserve Canadian Brigade Groups (CBG), all based out of Ontario.
CDR: What can you tell us about 4th Division’s inclusion in training at CAMP WORTHY?
BGen Oberwarth: CAMP WORTHY was a key element of our Reserve Summer Training (RST) Program. Conducted from 16 to 30 August 2024, it enabled 4th Division’s Armoured units to refresh their skills and was the culminating event in enabling several newly recruited armoured crew members and junior leaders to obtain essential trade qualifications.
TRAINING EXERCISES
CDR: Now please tell us a little about 4th Division’s participation in Exercise STALWART GUARDIAN.
BGen Oberwarth: Exercise STALWART GUARDIAN 2024 (SG24) and ARROWHEAD GUARDIAN 2024 (AG24) formed the 4th Division’s culminating Reserve summer collective training (CT) exercise, which took place in August 2024 in various locations. This year’s iteration included multiple components and involved soldiers from all of 4th Division formations: ARROWHEAD GUARDIAN under the lead of 31 CBG saw nearly 1,000 members training at the US Army National Guard Camp Grayling in Grayling, Michigan, while soldiers from 32 and 33 CBGs conducted training as part of STALWART GUARDIAN at the 4th Canadian Division Training Centre in Meaford, ON, and CAMP WORTHY in Petawawa, ON.
Both exercises provided realistic and demanding training across a wide range of scenarios to test the soldiers’ ability to operate as a larger formation in a dynamic, simulated combat environment, in preparation for large scale combat operations. It is important to note that we will continue to grow these exercises in the coming year with a large concentration occurring in Petawawa in the summer of 2025.
CDR: What are some other Operations/Exercises that 4th Division is part of, that we may not have touched on?
OP UNIFIER & IMPACT
BGen Oberwarth: The 4th Canadian Division is set to contribute to Operations (Op) UNIFIER and IMPACT starting in the summer of 2026.
Under its domestic mandate, the 4th Division operates as the Regional Joint Task Force for the central region of Canada, meaning that we are ready to respond at all times to requests for assistance from the Provinces and Territories through the Federal Government, such as for disaster relief operations under Op LENTUS, and previously under Op VECTOR and Op LASER as part of the CAF’s efforts against COVID-19 in Canada.
Additionally, the 4th Division recently concluded the Grey Wolf Program, an 8-week military course that combines Indigenous culture and teachings with military training. The program runs annually from July through August and grants participants the CAF Army Reserve Basic Military Qualification (BMQ) upon completion.
CDR: Clearly, you have a lot on your plate! So, overall, what do you hope to achieve during your term as 4th Division Commander?
BGen Oberwarth: My goal and the goal of the Division Sergeant Major is to work through the Division to ensure our soldiers and teams are achieving personal and collective readiness objectives every single day. This, paired with a need to fulfill reconstitution efforts while modernizing the force, means we will be busy, but we are up to this task.
Canadians are counting on us every day to be at the forward edge of battle in the service of our nation. We will succeed.
CDR: Thank you.
James Careless is CDR’s Ottawa Bureau Chief
