BY JOETEY ATTARIWALA

CDR asked Senior Staff Writer, Joetey Attariwala, to sit down with Canada’s top soldier, General Wayne Eyre, Chief of the Defence Staff, for a one-on-one chat. This is the last interview we will have with General Eyre before his retirement this summer. Our wide-ranging conversation focused on all aspects of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), including perspectives on the recently released Defence Policy Update (DPU), titled “Our North, Strong and Free.” Here is that in-depth discussion.

CDR: General Eyre, thank you for taking the time to speak with me again, Sir. You’ve been in uniform for 40 years, and you’ve achieved the highest rank possible. How do you view the changes in the Canadian Armed Forces over your 40 years of service, and how do you hope the CAF will evolve as an institution after your departure?

General Eyre: It’s always good to speak with you, Joetey. So, I can tell you that it’s been 40 years that have been characterized by change. That would be the descriptor I would use. I joined in the Cold War and we were focused on the Soviet Union and preparing for that. And then, as a young offi cer, the Berlin Wall falling; we focused on the former Yugoslavia for a long time; and then 9/11 happened and all of a sudden we were focused on counterterrorism missions around the world and Afghanistan, which consumed almost a decade and a half of our institutional existence. And now the return of great power competition and confrontation.

DEFENCE POLICY UPDATE

CDR: So, the long awaited DPU has finally been released, what are your thoughts on it? General Eyre: So, let me first say that it is generally positive. We’ve been pushing hard for this for a while and so the strategic concepts that we have been advocating for have found a home in the policy update. The articulation of the threats – whether they be geopolitical, climate change, the rapid change of technology and their application, the impact on Canada, the Arctic in particular, the Chinese/Russian cooperation – that is great to see in the document. Likewise, many of the strategic pillars are also in the document — so throughout the policy you see a theme of foundational readiness and deterrence. The strategic pillars you see throughout the document, from my perspective, are correct. So fi rstly, fi xing the foundation — the readiness piece that we have to address urgently. You’ve heard me talk publicly about our declining readiness. Well, addressing that is in that document — people, maintenance, sustainment, ammunition, stockpiles, infrastructure — very happy to see that.

Also very happy to see the prioritization of geography, giving us a geographic focus, whereas in the past we have been all things to all people. Now we are quite clearly focused on fi rstly the Arctic, continental defence, so the approaches to the continent, our own domain awareness, our presence, our mobility, our reach, our responsiveness, and our striking power, and tying that Arctic region to such things as NATO’s northern flank, to the northern Indo-Pacific, because right after the continent comes those other two focus areas — Europe and the Indo-Pacific. And everything else, although the term is not used in the policy, the rest of the world is economy of effort. That doesn’t mean no effort, but that means we have a clear prioritization as to where we put our efforts.

The absolute necessity to reform procurement is in there, to accelerate it, to strengthen the defence industrial base and our defence supply chains are absolutely critical, as is the focus on research and development, and innovation. And really, what we need to do is shorten that pathway from innovation to acquisition.

And then finally, the other great thing that we see in there are the cyclical updates. Given the rapid changes in the security environment, updating our policy every four years, and moreover, something we’ve been advocating for for years, a National Security Strategy, which is announced in there, so that is good news.

You will notice on the capability side, there is a combination of those that are fully costed and fully funded, and they’re booked into the fiscal framework; and those for which there is an intent or commitment to procure, but they’re not costed yet and thus not part of the fiscal framework, but very clearly an intent. You would have heard the Prime Minister during the announcement talk very positively about the acquisition of a submarine replacement, so good news there. Also, you see the hooks for the growth of the Canadian Armed Forces once we reach our current authorized strength.

I will tell you that the success of this policy is going to be predicated on three things: One, a sense of urgency to implement. Two, is to take those capabilities that there’s a commitment for but are currently unfunded, and to rapidly bring them forward to get them funded. And then three, is to grow the Canadian Armed Forces so that we’ve got the people to match those capabilities, because right now there’s a mismatch. You would have heard the Minister talk publicly at the Senate committee about the number of 14,500 for the regular force. That’s the planning figure that we’re using for regular force growth, and that’s what we’re going to base our future force structure on. And then once we hit the current authorized strength for 71,500, we are going back to government to get the money to continue to grow — absolutely required for the success of this policy. I think, overall, good news, but the urgency in the implementation is there, and part of that urgency is going to be the acceleration of the procurement which it talks about. The reason that’s so important, as we take a look at the threats that are out there, these threats are going to continue to manifest, and we need to ensure that we’ve got the readiness and the capabilities in place to address those threats in a timely fashion. And so, if we have a mismatch between peak threat and peak capability/readiness, it’s not going to be good for the country. So, urgency, urgency, urgency, if that makes sense?

Editor’s note: Minister Bill recently estimated the military is short up to 16,500 members. However, Gen. Wayne Eyre, told CBC News in a recent interview that the CAF requires an additional 14,500 people on top of the 16,500 to fulfill the directives of the DPU.

CDR: It absolutely does. And the second part of my question — is there anything that you didn’t see in there that you would have liked to see?

General Eyre: So, there is no commander in history who has had everything that they wanted in terms of capabilities and amounts of those capabilities. So yes, it’s going to continue to build on numbers, on amounts. The numbers of the types of capabilities, the capacity, we can always use more of. We got to get there fi rst with the foundation so that’s the big piece. More in R&D, absolutely, more in infrastructure, that’s going to be needed, but this provides us with a good foundation from which to build, as promised in the document.

PROCUREMENT SYSTEM

CDR: One of the promises was to fix defence procurement. Do you think that’s actually possible? It’s been talked about for decades, but nobody seems to have been able to do it. General Eyre: Well, it takes will. I’ll give you an example: Last week, I was in Borden, and Borden in the First World War became one of our central training bases for our air capability. In a period of four months, the country was able to build the airstrip, build the infrastructure, build the accommodations, get the aircraft and start training. So, where there’s a will, there’s a way. Look what we did in 1939 to rapidly mobilize the economy of the country. It takes will to be able to do that, and that means decisions and choices. So yes, I think it’s possible.

CDR: I certainly hope that happens, General. I noticed a dichotomy from the DPU briefi ng which said the CAF will continue to do annual cost savings. To me, that is incongruent — you’re getting new money through the DPU, but you’re also being asked to cut. How do you continue to cut a billion dollars from the defence budget year after year and not impact the institution?

General Eyre: So, the analysis for that is ongoing, and you’re right, we’ve got to better understand the implications of those cuts that came in the fall versus what increases we have here. Our Assistant Deputy Minister Finance team is working through that now and trying to ensure that we have rapid understanding, because we’re already in this fi scal year so that our L1’s understand what they have to spend this fiscal year and going forward.

CDR: I appreciate that the government of the day dictates where the CAF deploys, so from a purely expeditionary perspective, where do you believe the CAF needs to focus more capabilities from a warfi ghting perspective?

General Eyre: The policy update gives us that in terms of the geographic regions for focus. Firstly, the Arctic — our backyard. As we take a look at the threats, more and more, we’re talking about a globally integrated threat environment, and the Arctic is part of that. As I mentioned upfront, it’s the northern flank of NATO. And as we take a look at climate change, with increased access to that region comes increased interest, and with increased interest comes increased opportunity for tension, for miscalculation, and for conflict. We might not see this within the next year or next decade, but if the norm of territorial sovereignty is not upheld, as we see a challenge in Ukraine, our own tenuous hold on sovereignty up there – again, in the decades and generations ahead – could come under threat. So having that focus on the Arctic is increasingly important, and it will be increasingly important as part of our strategic culture. All services need to be focused on that.

As we take a look at Europe, all services will continue to be focused there, but in particular, our commitment to a brigade in Latvia is going to be of signifi cant focus to the army. Ensuring the readiness of that brigade to fight is going to continue to be super important. And thus, a number of the capabilities that we see in the policy update, both costed and committed, are incredibly important. I know we’ve got some urgent operational requirements that are going in, but my sense is that many of these capabilities we’re going to have to accelerate to be able to maintain that ability to fi ght and win in that environment. The Indo- Pacific is the other region we will continue to focus on through the implementation of the Indo-Pacifi c strategy. And so what this policy gives us is the bridging maintenance funding to be able to ensure that the Halifax class frigates are able to continue that deployment rate until we get CSC in place. So, we’re going to continue to execute on what we’re calling Operation HORIZON — so the frigate deployments, the exercises, the training, the capacity building — that’s going to be very much the focus of our Navy going forward. All services are going to be focused on the Arctic, the Navy more Indo- Pacific, the Army more Europe, the Air Force on all of them.

CDR: You mention a land focus in Europe for the Army. Do you feel it’s time to have permanent basing in Europe again?

General Eyre: We have looked at that, and as we build up to a multinational brigade level in Latvia, we have to be very mindful of the absorption capacity of the local economy as well. The model we have, I think we’re going to have about 120 members that are permanently posted over there, and the rest will be on a persistent rotational basis or a surge basis. It’s a fine balancing act of having too much of your force decisively committed in one location that doesn’t give you the flexibility to deploy elsewhere, versus being right there all the time. It’s a model that will continue to develop in the years ahead, but that’s where we’re initially starting.

TOXIC BUREAUCRACY

CDR: What do you believe is the greatest threat facing the CAF today?

General Eyre: I would say that the greatest threat facing the CAF right now is bureaucracy. Our inability to get things done because of excessive toxic bureaucracy that is way too risk averse does not allow us to implement at speed and at scale. Whether that’s procurement, whether that is security clearances, whether that is the recruiting process, it is such an albatross around our neck as we try to get things done. And so, I think that is the greatest threat. It addressed everything else that we talked about that we need to do with urgency — procurement, recruiting, getting people in the door.

I will tell you on the recruiting side, I was briefed several days ago, that I’m cautiously optimistic that we have turned the corner. If we take a look at last fiscal year, so fiscal year 23/24, based on end February/early March data, we have, for the first time in three years, grown the CAF – both on the regular force side where the forecast was a growth of 214, and on the reserve side where it’s a growth of several hundred. Now, these numbers are a projection based on several weeks out before the end of the fiscal year and it’s going to take several weeks more before I have a fi rm answer. So that’s a positive indicator.

The other positive indicator is we are starting this fiscal year with more people in the recruiting pipeline than we have had in the last three. So, at the end of the fiscal year two years ago the recruiting pipeline was almost empty. So we didn’t start last fiscal year that well. This year, we are starting off much better. The month of February had the greatest number of applicants for a single month that we have seen in the past five years. The last data point I’ll give you, again using end February/early March data, our attrition rate is down to 7.0%. Historic norm is 7.1-7.2%. Fiscal Year 22/23 was up to 9%, so our attrition rate has dropped as well — another very positive indicator. And in fact, our attrition rate is amongst the lowest of our closest allies. So again, positive indicators. All that means though, is we can’t take our foot off the gas. We have to continue to focus, to continue to bring in the multitude of initiatives on recruiting that are ongoing, the pilot projects that Military Personnel Command are going through, and continue to work on retention because we’re far from being out of danger.

CDR: Natural disasters are more frequent and that means the CAF is called upon more often. How is this affecting readiness, and do you think it’s time for a domestic response force that’s under the umbrella of the CAF to handle such events?

General Eyre: So, your first part of the question, is it affecting readiness? Absolutely. We did a study on the impact of last year’s fi re season where we were deployed for 131 days straight, and it was pretty significant in terms of missed training, and courses that were delayed or canceled altogether. I think we had over 3,000 leave periods — individuals who are supposed to be heading off on leave with their families — that had to be canceled/adjusted. And so, there’s a personnel tempo impact here, an impact on families, which has an intangible impact on readiness. And so, yes, readiness is impacted. I have no doubt that we are going to continue to be called upon to address the increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters.

However, we have to be that true force of last resort, and far too often we’re seeing us as a force of first choice because it is a political necessity for premiers to be seen to be calling the military because we provide that psychological comfort for the population to see us there because there is no cost recovery, and it’s basically free for the provinces. A domestic response force is required, but not under the Canadian Armed Forces. It needs to be under the municipal and provincial authorities, so they provide that interim capability that responds or supports first responders before we are called upon to act. That’s a responsibility for public safety to put that together. I know they’ve been working on some initiatives but that’s where I believe we need to go so that the Canadian Armed Forces can focus on the other existential threats to this country in the security environment.

LOOKING AHEAD

CDR: What advice will you share with your successor?

General Eyre: The advice is, be true and forthright in your advice. Do what is right, and remember this is all about serving the country, and serving those in uniform to ensure that they are prepared and set up for success to defend the country.

CDR: What is your most fond memory of serving in uniform?

General Eyre: My fondest memory — it’s all about the people. It’s the camaraderie, it’s the teamwork, it’s working together. You know, I hear from those who are retired, and the thing they miss the most is just that, the camaraderie. I have no doubt that will be the aspect that I miss the most as well. You know, I have many, many fond memories of my service. We’ve had some very, very tough times, and some very enjoyable times as well. And as I refl ect on it, and as I share this same message with the new generation, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat, and I am envious of those who are about to, or just starting to embark on their journey in the Canadian Armed Forces, because it’s just that, it’s a journey. It’s an adventure, an adventure of service, and one that I would recommend to all.

CDR: Thank you for taking the time to speak with me, General. You have always been kind and forthright. I and the CDR team wish you all the best for your retirement.

General Eyre: Thank you, Joetey. I want to thank CDR for all the work it has done to share our message.

CDR: Thank you, General. Take care.