Canadian military's new recruitment tool faces rollout problems
The Canadian military has launched a new online recruitment portal to try to modernize the application process and address a personnel crisis.
But technical glitches emerged during the launch, prompting concerns that frustrated applicants may be discouraged from joining at a time when the ranks are short more than 14,000 troops and U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened Canadian sovereignty.
'Issues were discovered in early March, shortly after the new portal's initial rollout,' Department of National Defence spokesperson Derek Abma said in a statement to Global News.
DND acknowledged that initially, the new system was not able to handle the volume of traffic.
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One applicant who spoke to Global News described the portal as 'very slow and not remotely state of the art.' He asked not to be identified because of concerns it could jeopardize his application, and says it took dozens of attempts over multiple days to set up a profile.
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Given the military's 'recruitment challenges,' he thought the process would have been quicker.
'I applied two months ago and haven't heard a thing. I was hoping to be in uniform by summer, and it's clear that's optimistic,' he said.
'Any enthusiasm I had for re-enlisting has completely evaporated.'
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Abma said the problems have since been 'rectified' and that 'growing pains' are expected.
'We are aware that some users experienced error messages with the new online applicant portal. Our technical team has since worked to address these issues,' another spokesperson said.
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But more issues were reported in mid-April, not with the portal, but with an internal system used by military recruiters.
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'A limited number of internal Canadian Armed Forces' users experienced difficulty accessing' an internal system on April 15, due to 'unusually high demand within the department,' DND said.
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Charlotte Duval-Lapointe, vice-president of Ottawa operations at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, says the military didn't anticipate such a 'large number of applicants' after the switchover.
'All the glitches that are happening have been creating a lot of confusion and frustration for applicants … and can deter people from continuing to move forward with their application,' she said.
The problems with the rollout come as Prime Minister Mark Carney vows to secure Canadian sovereignty by 'strengthening our military' to counter what he has described as 'the greatest threats in a generation.'
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Since his inauguration, the U.S. president has mused about making Canada the 51st state, including in the Oval Office during Carney's visit earlier this month to Washington.
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Carney responded to Trump by saying, 'As you know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale.'
But the annexation talk has renewed questions about the readiness of the Canadian military as it faces what previous defence minister Bill Blair described as a 'death spiral' in recruitment.
To fix the crunch, Carney has vowed to update the recruitment process, bump pay for existing members and build more 'on-base' housing.
In an interview with the West Block last November, Gen. Jennie Carignan, chief of the defence staff, told host Mercedes Stephenson that boosting personnel is her primary focus.
'Going back to our full strength is priority No.1,' Carignan said.
The military's goal is to reach 71,500 regular forces members and 30,000 reserve members in the next four years.
The Canadian Armed Forces recently eased medical standards for new recruits and changed the rules around security screenings to fast-track the application process and widen eligibility.
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Duval-Lapointe says the portal is the first of its kind for the government of Canada and that switching from a largely paper-based system to a digital one is a huge endeavour that will require patience.
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'What they could have done is communicate to applicants better, saying 'We are rolling this thing out for the first time, there are going to be issues, here's a number or an email you can reach out to if you're encountering any issues.''
Global News asked DND if any application data was lost during the transition to the new recruitment system. DND responded that 'no completed application data was lost.'
The DND spokesperson added that the portal's technical issues did not slow the processing of applications.
Attracting new members and retaining current ones represent some of the biggest challenges for newly appointed Defence Minister David McGuinty, who takes over from Blair.
'There's a lack of resources. The portal can help fix some of that,' Duval-Lapointe said.
'(My advice is to) look further down the processes and the recruitment pipeline in order to make sure that all those little glitches get fixed before there are more bottlenecks.'
— with files from Sophall Duch
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