This announcement was made in Toronto on November 14 (PTI) after Canada published its Immigration Levels Plan for 2023–2025. Now Canadian Military will accept the applications of permanent resident of Canada. According to CTV News, this comes five years after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) stated that they will be updating their “outdated recruiting procedure” to include applicants who have been permanent residents of Canada for at least ten years. Permanent resident of the Canada now will be a part of Canadian military.

Prior to this change

Before this, the only way for permanent residents of Canada to join the Canadian Armed Forces was through the Skilled Military Foreign Applicant (SMFA) entry program. The news broke just before Remembrance Day, amid concerns that the Canadian military is having trouble filling thousands of open posts.

What are the advantages for Indians?

Moreover, eight million immigrants with permanent residency were residing in Canada as of 2021, making up around 21.5% of the total population. People of Indian descent will benefit the most from this. Canada set a new record of 405,000 new immigrants in one year, and over 100,000 were Indians. According to CIC News, an official notification about the policy shift is forthcoming from the Department of National Defense (DND). Anita Anand, Canada’s Minister of Defense, stated in March that with the global geopolitical scene shifting due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the CAF needed to expand. In September, the Canadian Armed Forces issued a dire warning that it was struggling to find enough new members to fill the thousands of open jobs. According to the Toronto Star, Canada’s regular army is around 12,000 personnel short of its “full strength” of 100,000 members. Indigenous people comprise only 2.7% of the Canadian military, while visible minorities account for less than 12%. With roughly a quarter of the population expected to retire from the labor field by 2030, immigration goals in Canada have skyrocketed. Due to a combination of factors, including declining birth rates and an increasing death toll, Canada is experiencing a severe shortage of workers. The majority of immigrants to Canada enter the workforce at a younger age when they are more likely to be physically active, making them ideal candidates for enlistment in the military, according to experts on immigration. The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) have been reluctant to accept permanent residents of Canada because of the extra work and potential dangers that would come with accepting them into the ranks. However, he argues that recruiting non-citizens is nothing new and that it has been practiced for years by numerous other countries. Military service provides “either a gateway to citizenship or an accelerated road to citizenship” in certain countries, including France, but “because Canadian citizenship is pretty easy to gain for permanent residents, it’s not obvious that would give a huge incentive in the Canadian instance,” he added.

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