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Military Reserve Running 19 Per Cent Under Strength As Part-Timers Bail

Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 26 Jan, 2016 12:44 PM
    OTTAWA — The bottom appears to have fallen out of the military reserves with the latest government figures showing a shortfall of 5,293 part-time soldiers, sailors and aircrew.
     
    The numbers were released in federal departmental performance reports for the last budget year, which also show the military's medical branch has 367 unfilled positions — both uniformed and civilian.
     
    A handful of those vacancies are in the mental-health section, which was the subject of an intense recruiting campaign following a string of suicides in late 2013 and early 2014.
     
    The performance report, tabled as Parliament returned this week, also raises the flag about the army's non-combat vehicles, which have a serviceability rate of just 60 per cent — something National Defence claims does not affect its ability to operate and defend the country.
     
    In one of its final acts in power, the former Harper government last summer issued a tender for logistics trucks — a program a decade in the making that had become a political and fiscal football.
     
    Defence officials blame the drop in reservist numbers to 21,707 on a higher-than-expected departure rate and challenges in meeting recruiting quotas.

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