{"id":616503,"date":"2026-04-20T12:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T12:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/616503\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T12:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T12:44:08","slug":"canadian-military-signs-7300-recruits-beating-goal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/616503\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian military signs 7,300 recruits, beating goal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Members of Task Force Grizzly attend ‘Operation Nanook-Nunalivut,’ an annual series of drills held in Yellowknife in February.Carlos Osorio\/Reuters<\/p>\n

The Canadian government says more than 7,300 people signed up to join the military over the last year, beating Forces recruitment targets for a second year in a row.<\/p>\n

This rise in recruits follows significant defence spending increases as well as what Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s government calls the largest pay raise for Canadian Armed Forces members in a generation.<\/p>\n

Figures released by Defence Minister David McGuinty\u2019s office Monday show the Canadian Armed Forces surpassed its regular force recruiting target for the fiscal 2025-26 year ended March 31.<\/p>\n

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Over that year, the Forces enrolled 7,310 new members, exceeding a target of 6,957 recruits.<\/p>\n

The regular force is the full-time, professional military \u2013 members who serve as their primary career and are paid year-round. As of Feb. 28, the regular force stood at 66,726, according to the Department of National Defence.<\/p>\n

The latest numbers are up from the earlier 2024-25 fiscal year, when the military enrolled 6,706 new members into its regular force, surpassing a target of 6,496 recruits. The earlier figures come from an October 2025 statement from Mr. McGuinty. <\/p>\n

The government says the current fiscal year\u2019s recruiting target is 8,200 for the 12-month period ended March 31, 2027.<\/p>\n

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Last October, the federal Auditor-General in a report<\/a> warned Canada is not recruiting enough Forces members to meet its operational needs.<\/p>\n

Last November, the Prime Minister, saying that Canada could no longer rely on the United States for protection, used his first budget to deliver a defence<\/a>-spending increase of more than $84-billion over five years \u2013 believed to be the biggest short-term cash infusion for the military since the Korean War. <\/p>\n

The federal government\u2019s spending for the 2025-26 fiscal year represents the first time in roughly 35 years that Canada has devoted 2 per cent<\/a> of its Gross Domestic Product to defence. The last time was the end of the Cold War.<\/p>\n

~More to come<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Members of Task Force Grizzly attend ‘Operation Nanook-Nunalivut,’ an annual series of drills…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44,714],"class_list":["post-616503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}