‘We’re almost there’: military aims for 3% of personnel to be Indigenous

The Canadian Armed Forces is aiming for 3 per cent or more of its personnel to be Indigenous, says Canada’s chief of defence staff.

In an interview on Aug. 20, Gen. Jennie Carignan said that recent recruitment initiatives have been successful.

“We are almost there, and gaining a lot of positive results with the improvement and the recruiting that we’ve done,” she said.

Last fall, on behalf of the Canadian Armed Forces, Carignan apologized to former and current military staff and their families who experienced racial discrimination and harassment.

By that time, the military had addressed 31 of 38 recommendations laid out in the Minister of National Defence Advisory Panel on Systemic Racism and Discrimination – Final Report, in 2022. These items include negotiating compensation for First Nations communities who had land seized for bases and collecting data on recruitment performance to see what areas may need more resources.

Carignan says the military continues to identify systemic issues, such as how members are promoted, as well as how they are deployed and able to accesses growth opportunities.

“It’s a higher vigilance that we have to apply,” she said. “It’s a constant work and constant dialogue, constant intervention. We can never say the work is done, ever. So the work has continued.”

Carignan couldn’t recall the number of Inuit that are part of CAF, and she didn’t detail recruitment programs geared toward Indigenous groups.

According to an employment report for the 2025 to 2026 fiscal year, 3.3 per cent of enrolments were Indigenous.