Military budget squeeze limits paid Remembrance Day participation in Ontario
Despite billions in new defence spending, military budget restraints are limiting paid Remembrance Day participation in southwestern Ontario. Leaked emails reveal commanders capped attendance at 50 reservists per unit, prompting complaints from troops. The military says soldiers can still attend ceremonies in uniform, but without being paid.
Southwest Ontario reservists told attendance capped at 50 per unit, can attend unpaid
Murray Brewster · CBC News
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A military reserve unit in southwestern Ontario has imposed a cap on the number of soldiers it is willing to pay to attend Remembrance Day services this year, CBC News has learned.
A series of leaked internal emails involving members of 31 Canadian Brigade show internal budget restraints imposed across the military have forced local commanders to limit paid attendance to 50 troops per unit.
The brigade, which is headquartered at Wolseley Barracks in London, Ont., has 13 units, which are sprinkled across the region, including St. Thomas, Waterloo and Hamilton.
The decision means 650 soldiers out of a total strength of 2,400 can participate in local ceremonies. Troops who contacted CBC News say maximum participation was encouraged in the past.
The reservists normally get a half-day's pay for ceremonial events, said one of the internal emails.
The decision is not going over well among troops, many of whom have reached out to CBC News.
Originally, it seems, the plan had been to fund fewer than 50 soldiers per unit. But in an Oct. 9 internal email, the brigade commander, Col. Blair Ashford, wrote that he had decided to increase the allotment and that it was a "defensible number" because it matched the number of soldiers that turn out for exercises.
He alluded to having to make a final choice between ceremonies and the one day a week of training units are expected to complete.
Talk of cutting training
"We cannot take from other buckets of money/time for ceremonial events — cancelling Thursday nights or weekend training to get time and money for ceremonial events," Ashford wrote.
He added that the continuing budget squeeze could mean "there is also the possibility that we will be cutting Thursday night training as well if we do not get our pressures relieved."
Last month, CBC News reported that the Canadian military was in the midst of another round of internal belt-tightening, despite an enormous influx of cash from the federal government.
It is a combination of past and current budget initiatives colliding with the expectations and demands associated with higher defence spending.
The Department of National Defence was told to focus its billions of extra dollars on priority areas, including the purchase of much-needed new combat equipment.
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The federal government is describing this budget as a 'blueprint' to defend Canada's 'sovereignty.' Defence Minister David McGuinty says it's 'hard to predict' whether Canada is on track for its NATO targets.At the same time, it is still subject to the demand for operations and maintenance reductions announced by the Trudeau government in 2023 and enacted in the 2024 federal budget.
As complaints from reservists filtered out and CBC News asked questions of the Department of National Defence, the chief of staff for the brigade — Lt.-Col. Anthony Ross — wrote a follow-up note on Oct. 27 describing the cap as necessary "in light of financial pressures."
He said it had come to his attention that some "personnel are speaking negatively to the media about this cap."
Ross emphasized that troops "are still free to attend ceremonies in uniform in the crowd on a voluntary unpaid basis."
A spokesperson for the Defence Department said Remembrance Day "holds a sacred place in Canada’s military tradition" and is a "deeply personal and solemn" occasion for troops.
Andrée-Anne Poulin said the 2nd Canadian Division, the parent unit of 31 Brigade, "has not issued a division-wide direction restricting members, including reservists, from attending or participating in Remembrance Day ceremonies."
She said the department stands behind the brigade commander, who is trying to balance operational and training requirements with ceremonial responsibilities.
"This means that there is no change to our usual posture on this sacred day," Poulin said.
"Members who are not otherwise occupied with operational imperatives, or officially tasked to support Remembrance Day ceremonies, are fully expected to take part in ceremonies in their local communities of their choosing."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Murray Brewster is the senior defence writer for CBC News, based in Ottawa. He has covered the Canadian military and foreign policy from Parliament Hill for over a decade. Among other assignments, he spent a total of 15 months on the ground covering the Afghan war for The Canadian Press. Prior to that, he covered defence issues and politics for CP in Nova Scotia for 11 years and was bureau chief for Standard Broadcast News in Ottawa.
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