Canada’s Armed Forces to recruit permanent residents in the military, Indians to benefit

Ottawa: Canada’s Armed Forces (CAF) announced that permanent residents will now be allowed to recruit into the services, as the army faces a shortage of personnel. This information was by Armed forces in a social media post.

Permanent residents in Canada include a large number of Indians and the CAF’s decision is likely to generate employment opportunities for them.

The announcement came five years after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) announced changes to the “old recruitment process”. The move will allow permanent residents living in Canada for 10 years to apply.

Earlier, permanent residents could apply only under the Skilled Military Foreign Applicant (SMS) programme, according to The Royal United Services Institute in Nova Scotia.

Now, candidates seeking recruitment to the Army must be Canadian citizens who are above 18 years of age (or 16, provided they have parental consent) and must have a grade 10 or grade 12 education degree to apply for recruitment to an officer position.

These rules will also apply to permanent residents. The Indians will get benefits from this rule as so many Indian-origin have obtained PR in the past many years. About 1 lakh Indians became PR of Canada in 2021.

The CAF had in September expressed concern over thousands of posts falling vacant. It will have to appoint 5,900 members every month this year to recruit even half of these posts.