Ottawa’s newly released defence plan crosses a dangerous line

The new defence plan looks simple on paper. The risks are anything but

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Canadians have grown used to bad news about the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), but the newly revealed defence mobilization plan is in a category of its own.

After years of controversy over capability, morale and leadership challenges, the military’s senior ranks now appear willing to back a plan that misunderstands emergency law, sidelines provincial authority and proposes to place untrained civil servants in harm’s way. To many observers, that raises serious questions about leadership judgment.

The document is a Defence Mobilization Plan, normally an internal framework outlining how the military would expand or organize its forces in a major crisis. The fact that this version advanced with senior leadership support suggests a worrying interpretation of their legal responsibilities and the limits of their authority.

The nine-page plan was dated May 30, 2025, but only reached public view when media outlets published it. One article reports that the plan would create a supplementary force made up of volunteer public servants from federal and provincial governments. Those who join this civil defence corps would face less restrictive age limits, lower fitness requirements and only five days of training per year. In that time, volunteers would be expected to learn skills such as shooting, tactical movement, communicating, driving a truck and flying a drone. They would receive medical coverage during training but not pensionable benefits.

The plan was circulated to 20 senior commanders and admirals, including leaders at NORAD, NATO, special forces and Cybercom. The lack of recorded objection can reasonably raise concerns about how thoroughly its implications were reviewed.

The legal context explains much of the reaction. The Emergencies Act places responsibility for public welfare and public order emergencies on the provinces and territories unless they request federal help. Emergency response is primarily a provincial role because provinces oversee policing, natural disaster management and most front-line public services. Yet the document seems to assume federal and military control in situations where the law does not allow it. That is a clear break from how the military is expected to operate.

The Emergency Management Act reinforces that civilian agencies lead domestic emergencies and the military is a force of last resort. Under the law, this means the CAF is deployed only after provincial and local systems have been exhausted or cannot respond. The plan, however, presents the military as a routine responder, which does not match the legal structure that sets out federal and provincial roles.

Premiers have often turned to the military first during floods and fires, but those political habits do not remove the responsibility of senior military leaders to work within the law and respect their mandate.

Capacity is another issue. Combat-capable personnel take years to train, and the institution is already well below its authorized strength. Any task that diverts resources from readiness weakens national defence, yet the plan proposes to assign the military new responsibilities and add a civilian component to meet them.

The suggestion that the military and its proposed civilian force should routinely respond to climate-related events is hard to square with the CAF’s defined role. It raises the question of whether this reflects policy misjudgment or an effort to apply military tools to problems that are normally handled by civilian systems.

The plan also treats hazards unrelated to warfighting as if the military is responsible for them. Every province and territory already has an emergency management organization that monitors hazards, coordinates responses and manages recovery. These systems use federal support when required, but the military becomes involved only when they are overwhelmed. If Canada wants to revive a 1950s-style civil defence model, major legislative changes would be needed. The document proceeds as if no such changes are required.

Its training assumptions deepen the concerns. Suggesting that tasks such as “shooting, moving, communicating, driving a truck and flying a drone” can be taught in a single five-day block does not reflect the standards of any modern military. These skills take time to learn and years to master.

The plan also appears aligned with the government’s desire to show quick progress toward NATO’s defence spending benchmark of two per cent of GDP and eventually five per cent. Its structure could allow civil servants’ pay and allowances to be counted toward defence spending, raising questions about whether the plan supports spending optics rather than preparedness.

Any civil servant who joins this proposed force would be placed in potentially hazardous situations with minimal training. For many Canadians, that level of risk will seem unreasonable.

The fact that the plan circulated through senior military leadership without signs of resistance raises concerns about accountability at the highest levels. That the chief of the defence staff reconsidered the plan only after public criticism reinforces those concerns.

Many members of the military and the public may interpret this episode as senior leadership appearing more aligned with political priorities than military ones. Whatever the motive, the plan risks placing civil servants in danger through a structure that appears poorly conceived and operationally weak. The consequences for public trust and institutional credibility are becoming difficult to ignore.

David Redman had a distinguished military career before becoming the head of the Alberta Emergency Management Agency in 2004. He led the provincial response to the devastating floods of June 2005 and the team in developing the 2005 Provincial Pandemic Influenza Plan. He retired in 2013. This essay was submitted by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.