By Newell Durnbrooke
Questions are being asked about the current state of the Canadian Forces/DND public affairs branch.
That comes in the wake of the bungled roll-out of the mobilization plan that had been drawn up by Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan and defence deputy minister Stefanie Beck.
They signed the document on May 30, 2025, launching the plan to boost both the reserves and the Supplementary Reserve. At this point, there are 4,384 personnel in the Supplementary Reserve, but, in the case of a national emergency, that would be boosted to 300,000, according to the document issued by Beck and Carignan.
But despite writing in the plan about the importance of educating both the public and news media of this initiative, there was no public affairs plan produced to support the initiative.
The lack of a plan was highlighted when the Ottawa Citizen got a leaked copy of the mobilization document and started reporting on it. A series of articles were published and the newspaper reported the Canadian Forces was counting on public servants to volunteer for military service as it tried to ramp up the reserves as part of the mobilization plan.
The response from Carignan and the office of Defence Minister David McGuinty was predictable, and disastrous.
Carignan claimed the Ottawa Citizen reporting wasn’t accurate. “It is not focused directly to public servants,” she said in a Nov. 11 interview with CTV. “Our public servants are already contributing extensively to the work we are doing in defence.”
McGuinty’s office spread the word among media outlets that the newspaper’s articles were false.
So in response, the Ottawa Citizen published screen-shots of the actual report, including the portions directly focused on the public servants to be recruited. With that, Carignan looked pretty foolish.
McGuinty and Stefanie Beck stayed out of the limelight and let Carignan take the hit to her reputation.
Then Carignan started giving media interviews to the Globe and Mail and CBC in which she confirmed what the Ottawa Citizen had already reported.
That left former Canadian Forces public affairs personnel shaking their heads in disbelief about how unprepared Carignan and their former branch was.
There was a hilarious last minute attempt by everyone’s favourite “disinformation expert” Marcus Kolgawho appears to have tried to provide cover for Carignan. Kolga, who is with the U.S.-funded Macdonald–Laurier Institute think tank and who is closely aligned with the Canadian Forces, went after the Ottawa Citizen claiming its articles were “hysterical” and “alarmist.”
Kolga even suggested the Citizen was pushing a conspiracy theory that conscription was in the works. Pretty heady stuff except the Citizen articles clearly and repeatedly pointed out that the planned force was voluntary.
Kolga’s attempt to go after the newspaper ultimately flopped.
