‘Toxic leadership,’ housing, pay spur members in leaving Forces
Top adviser outlines problems
Canada’s soldiers are leaving because of toxic leadership, a top adviser to the chief of the defence staff has warned.
Canadian Forces Chief Warrant officer Bob Mccann highlighted his warning April 23 in an appeal for changes in how leaders deal with lower ranks.
Job dissatisfaction and repeated moves across the country have been cited in past military reports as the top reasons personnel leave.
But Mccann, who advises Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre on issues relating to non-commissioned members, said members weren’t quitting just because of being moved.
“A lot of our members leave this organization not necessarily because they are not going where they want to be,” he explained to officers in a virtual town hall. “They leave because of toxic leadership or bad leadership. This is one aspect that we need to address.”
National Defence declined a request to release the video. But a copy was leaked to Postmedia by military staff increasingly frustrated with attempts to clamp down on information that could be considered embarrassing to the senior leadership or the Liberal government.
During the town hall, Eyre noted Canada had become a more urbanized country while the vast majority of bases are away from population centres.
“Enticing members and families who grew up in these larger urban centres to move to these remoter locations is going to be an ongoing challenge, one that we cannot fix by building bases in downtown Toronto, for example, because that is just not reasonable,” Eyre said. “So cracking the code on this is going to be increasingly important.”
Brig.-gen. Virginia Tattersall outlined problems with housing in a June 14, 2023, briefing, noting personnel who stayed in one location “have a significant financial advantage relative to members who move most often.”
“Increasingly, members will release (from the Canadian Forces) rather than relocate to an area they cannot afford or taking a loss on an existing home,” Tattersall’s briefing noted.
Canada is in the midst of a housing crisis, but some members of the military are particularly vulnerable. Personnel who are moved are exposed to “higher prices and rates more often,” Tattersall’s briefing said.
“Average cost to purchase or rent housing now exceeds incomes of several CAF working-rank levels,” she added.