Good morning.
I am Dr. Grazia Scoppio. I'm joining this meeting from Kingston, Ontario, situated on the traditional homeland of the Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Anishinabe people. I'm thankful to these nations for their care and stewardship of this shared land.
For over 20 years, I've been conducting research on military personnel, including recruitment of a diverse force, gender issues in the armed forces, immigrant participation in the military and indigenous people in the military. In recent years, the Canadian Armed Forces, or CAF, has made strides in its efforts to increase the diversity of its personnel, changing policies and improving organizational culture to become more inclusive and equitable. On the other hand, there are still challenges. I will highlight here only a few of the issues concerning indigenous members of the CAF, and I look forward to discussing them further during the meeting.
Representation rates of indigenous members in the CAF are slowly increasing and currently stand at about 3% of CAF members. However, this rate is still below the CAF recruiting goal of 3.5% and lower than the overall indigenous population in Canada of about 5%. Indeed, the CAF is still not meeting its overall recruiting targets. As documented in many reports, as recently as in the 2025 Auditor General of Canada's report, the recruiting system is very slow, and more than 50% of applicants, including indigenous individuals, withdraw from the process.
Indigenous programs, namely the CAF indigenous entry program, the indigenous leadership opportunity year, or ILOY, and the indigenous summer programs, such as Bold Eagle and Raven, are effective means of attracting indigenous youth, although all position are not filled, and there are challenges in retaining participants once they complete the programs.
There are also issues stemming from the CAF organizational culture. It has not been inclusive towards indigenous members, despite the creation of supports such as CAF indigenous advisers. Also, there is a mandatory indigenous cultural awareness course via distance learning for all CAF members, which ends up being a check in the box without much learning.
Other issues concerning indigenous members of the CAF include early attrition and a lack of support for travel to attend funerals in remote indigenous communities for family members, which may not fall under the CAF guidelines. Additionally, some indigenous members have experienced discrimination and racism during their military service. This is also the experience of other racialized groups in the CAF, as evidenced by the recent formal apology delivered by General Jennie Carignan, the chief of the defence staff, to current and former CAF members who suffered from the impacts of systemic racism, racial discrimination and racial harassment during their military service.
Despite these challenges and barriers, many indigenous members choose to join the CAF to serve Canada with loyalty. This provides them with a pathway to economic and social mobility, and a fulfilling military career.
Increasing the meaningful and respectful participation of indigenous members in the CAF is extremely important for many reasons, including to reflect the diversity of the Canadian indigenous population, to enhance the CAF's presence in the north and to promote reconciliation. To paraphrase the words of General Carignan, the CAF can do better and must do better.
Thank you. Meegwetch.