To nobody’s surprise, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has replaced outgoing Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre with a key mover involved in the Liberal government’s woke military “culture change” agenda.
Lt.-Gen. Jennie Carignan will become the first woman to hold the top position in the Canadian Armed Forces after being appointed its new chief of the defence of staff. The change in leadership comes during a recruitment crisis for the CAF.
Carignan enrolled in the CAF in 1986 and in 2008 she became the first woman to lead a combat force in the Canadian military. She is currently serving as the military’s chief of professional conduct and culture – a role invented by the Liberal government to rid the military of systemic racism and harassment.
She received the Meritorious Service Medal and the Governor General’s Order of Military Merit. Carignan has been deployed to Afghanistan, Bosnia and Syria and led a NATO mission in Iraq in 2020.
The position was created in the wake of the CAF’s sexual misconduct crisis, which saw several high-ranking leaders forced to resign from their posts following accusations in 2021.
Former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour conducted a report following the scandal which made several recommendations to reform the culture of the CAF.
Carignan’s office published a military guiding document last year which aimed to overhaul the toxic culture of the military, which it claimed to be rooted in “colonialism,” “patriarchy,” and “heteronormativity.”
First reported on by the Epoch Times, an access-to-information request revealed that the 2023 document said that the CAF’s culture “cannot avoid being influenced by a legacy of colonialism, inherited as part of Canada’s colonial origins and still at work in many aspects of Canadian society today.”
“Along with patriarchy, heteronormativity, and other systems, it has informed and influenced our organization’s norms and power structures.”
It went on to identify the CAF members who benefit from these systems as being “typically male, white, heterosexual, and cis-gendered.”
According to the document, those who oppose the new changes being ushered in do so to protect their “historical privilege and advantage” and there are ”still too many” members who hold this viewpoint.
Trudeau announced the appointment of Carignan on Wednesday, calling it an “extraordinarily important choice” while speaking with reporters in Montreal.
“Particularly in these moments of complicated geopolitics and increased threats, particularly to our Arctic,” he added.
“Making sure that we have the right person to lead our Armed Forces in this pivotal time was something that I think Canadians appropriately felt that we needed to take seriously, which we did.”
The Chief of the Defence of Staff is appointed by the Governor General on recommendation from the prime minister.
Carignan will officially assume the position in a ceremony on July 18, taking over during a very rocky period in the CAF, which has had to rebuild its ranks following years of declining recruitment and poor retention.
The CAF remains short of about 16,000 troops, and has consistently lost more members than it has been able to recruit in recent years,
Defence Minister Bill Blair called the current state of the CAF a “death spiral” in March.
Morale within the CAF has become so bad that Canadians are no longer able to comment on posts made by the current Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre’s X account in April after the CAF turned off the ability to reply.
The decision was taken in response to negative comments being made about unpopular policies he’s enforced in the CAF.
The CAF closed the comment section in January as critical comments began to pour in from people who believe Eyre is ushering a “woke” agenda into the CAF.
