Auditor says military recruitment is falling behind, base housing is in bad shape

Federal Auditor General Karen Hogan says many of the living spaces used by Canadian Armed Forces members across several bases are in "poor physical condition" and ripe for overcrowding.

In an audit report released Tuesday morning, Hogan looks at living conditions on three Canadian Forces bases: Esquimalt in British Columbia, Gagetown in New Brunswick and Trenton in Ontario.

Hogan’s report said the aging base housing is often in a serious state of disrepair, with deteriorating walls, a lack of drinking water and malfunctioning sewage systems.

“The exercise found that 25 per cent of quarters needed major repairs or did not meet the operational needs of National Defence or the needs of the Canadian Armed Forces members staying in them," the report said.

It added that the department is not meeting its own spending goals on infrastructure maintenance.

The audit looked at both living quarters managed by individual bases and houses managed by the Canadian Forces Housing Agency.

The audit said the agency does not have enough residential housing units to meet the military's needs — just as the Canadian Armed Forces is looking to add more than 6,000 new members by April 2029.

The military had just 205 residential housing units available in the spring, with 3,706 applicants on waiting lists.

Discussion groups Hogan's office arranged with service members also heard from many who were unhappy with a 2024 policy change that gives new recruits priority access to the available residential housing stock.

It found National Defence did not evaluate the potential impacts of the policy change and whether it could undermine efforts to retain longer-serving members.

“Given the number of new members that need to be added to bring the Canadian Armed Forces up to full strength and the fact that the stock of residential housing units did not grow substantially during the past two fiscal years, there is a risk that longer-serving members will be at a lower priority for residential housing units,” the report said.

In a separate report on recruitment, Hogan said the military is not bringing in enough recruits to meet its operational needs — and National Defence doesn't always know why potential recruits ultimately abandon their applications.

"The Canadian Armed Forces continued to have challenges attracting and training enough highly skilled recruits to staff many occupations such as pilots and ammunition technicians," Hogan said.

Only one out of every 13 Canadians who applied online to join the armed forces over the three year audit period was successfully recruited.

The CAF received 192,000 online applications from 2022 to 2025, but 54 per cent of applicants voluntarily withdrew within two months of applying.

The military has committed to recruiting more permanent residents. While that figure did increase over the audit period, only 2 per cent of permanent residents who applied were recruited, compared to 10 per cent of applicants who were Canadian citizens.

The CAF's target timeline for recruitment is between 100 and 150 days. The audit found the recruitment process actually takes twice as long, and the security screening backlog increased over the three-year audit period from 20,000 to nearly 23,000 potential recruits.

The Canadian Armed Forces did surpass its recruitment target in the last fiscal year by 210 people. But the report warns the armed forces doesn't have the capacity to train everyone it brings in if it also meets its recruitment targets. That pressure has forced the CAF to hire temporary instructors.

The audit warns future training is in jeopardy due to a training instructor shortage likely caused by "insufficient incentives and a demanding workload," combined with persistent equipment shortages.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2025.