Liberals spending $2B to boost military pay and benefits this year
Military members to get raises ranging from 8% to 20%
The Liberal government announced its long-promised pay increase for members of the Canadian military on Friday, unveiling a graduated series of salary top-ups and incentives that will help the lowest-ranking soldiers, sailors and aircrew the most.
Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered the news during a media availability at the country's largest military airbase in Trenton, Ont., fulfilling a leadership and campaign promise.
The pay and allowance increase will cost $2 billion per year and the pay bumps are retroactive to the beginning of the fiscal year in April. The spending is part of an additional $9 billion for defence that Carney announced earlier this year to meet Canada's NATO commitment.
"These increases in paying incentives will help us to revitalize and transform recruitment and retention to bolster force readiness, and to ensure that members in uniform have the confidence and certainty that they need," Carney said.
"It's a generational shift. And we're proud of it."
Senior defence officials, speaking on background at a technical briefing prior to the prime minister's announcement, said the last comprehensive overhaul of the pay and benefits system took place a generation ago in 1998.
Several weeks ago, Defence Minister David McGuinty had suggested the pay increase would be 20 per cent across the board. Carney had also suggested the same, raising a great deal of expectation in the ranks.
On Friday, Carney defended the decision not to issue an across-the-board increase.
Deb Lowther, CEO of VETS Canada, a Halifax-based charity that helps both former, and sometimes current, members of the Canadian military, was pleased with what she saw. The economy, especially since the pandemic, has hit the lowest-ranking members hard.
"We are supporting more and more serving members who are coming to us in crisis," said Lowther. "Just as an example, we've just opened a food bank in Halifax — a veterans' food bank — but we have five clients who are still serving. So there's struggles there and we see it every single day. So this will help a lot."
Lowther added, however, the government now needs to pay more significant attention to the transition system for those members who choose to hang up their uniforms. There are, she said, some significant gaps.
The way the new system unrolls, the lowest ranks of the regular force — private, ordinary sailors and aviators — will get a 20 per cent boost (reserves will get 13 per cent). Non-commissioned members, junior officers up to the rank of naval commander or lieutenant-colonel, will receive a 13 per cent pay hike. For officers of the rank of colonel and above, the increase will be eight per cent.
To recruit and hold on to people, there will be a bonus of $10,000 to complete basic training, an additional $20,000 when training is completed and another $20,000 once they have completed their first term of service.
Higher deployment bonuses
The Department of National Defence is also increasing a series of posting and hardship allowances, as well as creating new ones.
For example, members of the military are paid a bonus when on deployment overseas or at sea.
Given the frequency troops have been asked to carry out domestic operations, the department is now introducing an allowance for deployments at home and in the Arctic.
Troops forced to live away from their families will get a bigger stipend as part of the changes. Military members who are asked to move frequently will get a higher allowance.
The department is also delivering a targeted benefit to encourage and retain members who conduct training.
The military has struggled to recruit, train and retain members. Defence officials on Friday acknowledged that they are short 12,722 personnel — both regular and reserve force.
An internal report assessing the military effort to retain troops, obtained by CBC News, said 76 per cent of Canadian Armed Forces occupations were in critical shortfall. The report, entitled Evaluation of CAF Retention, was dated April 2025, but relied in some cases on data from 2024.
Defence officials on Friday provided a lower number in terms of the overall critical shortfall, suggesting only 40 per cent of the occupations within the military are staffed at below 75 per cent.
They acknowledged, however, certain jobs are under a lot of stress.
The internal documents show maritime technicians, army signal operators and air force technicians are among "the most stressed trades."
Gaëlle Rivard Piché, of the Conference of Defence Associations Institute, gave the plan a favourable review.
"I think this makes a job with the Canadian Armed Forces more attractive for the average Canadian," she said, "especially when we consider the lack of employment opportunities in the current economy."
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