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Scott Taylor: Canada has the wrong army

Timing of restructuring drive puzzling

Last October, Canadian Army Commander Lt.-Gen Michael Wright released a new directive entitled Inflection Point 2025 aimed at completely restructuring Canada’s ground forces.

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A key rationale for this transformation was Wright’s observation that “the army we have is not the army we need.”

Those familiar with the current woefully understrength and dangerously ill-equipped state of the Canadian Army will be forgiven if that statement could be attributed to Captain Obvious rather than the current commander.

The timing of the restructuring impetus is a little puzzling. According to Inflection Point 2025, “The modernization effort is driven by the increasing risk of high-intensity conflict, rapid evolution of warfare technologies, and the impact of climate change.”

For those keeping track, Canada first deployed a forward-based battle group into Latvia in 2017 as part of NATO’s Operation Reassurance to deter Russian aggression. That was nine years ago.

Russia did invade Ukraine in February 2022. That was four years ago. Yet it was not until late 2025 that an “increasing risk of high-intensity conflict” prompted the start of a modernization plan? Better late than never, I suppose.

The basis of Wright’s blueprint for a new army is to reorganize........

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