Canadian military’s ability to battle forest fires will be limited this year, top general warns

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The Canadian military’s ability to help battle forest fires will be limited this year because of reduced readiness and the need to send troops to Latvia, warns the country’s top general.

Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre also complained that the use of military personnel in fighting wildfires in Canada has become, in some cases, “wickedly wasteful.”

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“I made it quite clear to other departments that our capacity to do what we did last year is not the same, especially with reduced readiness (and), increased deployments to Latvia,” Eyre told senior officers during an April 23 video conference. “We’re not going to have the same forces available…for the scale and duration of response.”

Eyre’s comments were made during a virtual town hall for military leaders to discuss the Liberal government’s updated defence policy.

National Defence declined a request from this newspaper to release the video, noting it was for internal use only. But a copy was leaked to this newspaper by military staff.

Canada plans to deploy up to 2,200 troops to Latvia as part of its NATO commitment. It currently has around 1,000 in that country.

Eyre said during the town hall video that he expects the military to be increasingly called out to help Canadians because of natural disasters that have grown in frequency and intensity.

But he believes the military should only be used in such instances as a last resort. He pointed out that disaster response capability has to be increased in other levels of government.

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Eyre also noted the Canadian Forces leadership is pushing back against natural disaster deployments. “We are being called in way too early in many of these cases,” he explained. “We take a look at last year with (our) response to wildfires — 131 days straight we were out there. Twenty-five per cent of our person-days were unemployed or under-employed. This is wickedly wasteful. So we are pushing back hard.”

There were a record number of wildfires last year in Canada, with one of the blazes prompting Canada’s first-ever evacuation of an entire capital city — Yellowknife. Smoke from the fires impacted air quality not only nationally, but in the United States as well. Federal officials have warned Canadians to prepare for another record-breaking season when it comes to wildfires.

Eyre said the military is also pressing to recover the costs it had to absorb because of the requests to provide support during natural disasters.

“We are pushing for cost recovery or cost avoidance in the first place,” he explained. “Because we are spending millions of dollars on this that can be better used in other places.”

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Eyre said the military wants the provinces to pay for the use of the Canadian Forces but he admitted that is “much easier said than done given the political environment.”

As deployments for natural disasters increase because of climate change, the military leadership has expressed reluctance to have troops on the front lines of efforts to help fellow Canadians. Generals, including Eyre, have argued that such domestic deployments hinder training needed for overseas missions or combat readiness training to deal with potential wars.

But provincial officials have argued the military brings unique capabilities and organizational skills to co-ordinate disaster relief as well as a large number of personnel that can be quickly mobilized.

Defence Minister Bill Blair, in an interview with the Canadian Press news service last year, acknowledged the military leadership is concerned about taking part in disaster relief missions at home.

But he said Canadians want to see the military come to their aid during natural disasters. He noted the armed forces will remain a key part of the government’s response to such incidents. “There is just something, I think, incredibly reassuring to Canadians when the Canadian Armed Forces show up and men and women in uniform are out in their communities and they’re sandbagging and helping people evacuate and get to safety,” Blair added.

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Despite his reluctance to commit military personnel to helping on the frontlines of domestic emergencies, Eyre acknowledged in his town hall video that climate change is prompting long-term security threats to Canada.

With files from The National Post and The Canadian Press

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