Question:
If Canada wants to be seen as supportive of women Veterans, why are so many sounding the alarm?
Answer:
Because support and reform are not the same thing, and recent evidence shows the gap between them is growing.
While Canada continues to make visible commitments to women Veterans, there is a quiet rollback in attention to the system-level changes needed for real, lasting progress. The areas most affected—service-related injury and illness prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and fair adjudication of claims—are hard to fix and easy to delay. When these reforms stall, the impact shows up in poorer long-term health outcomes and wellbeing for many women Veterans.
Rollbacks are rarely announced as a single dramatic shift in priorities. Instead, they unfold through many small, easily dismissed changes: roles left vacant, mandates softened, report findings selectively cherry-picked, timelines stretched, and women-specific measures folded into broader frameworks where they lose visibility and force.
On their own, each change can be explained away. Taken together, they amount to a loss of hard-won ground for women Veterans, layered onto military and veteran systems that were never designed with women’s service and health realities in mind.
Warning Signs of a Quiet Rollback
The following examples show continued erosion of women-specific evidence, advice, and accountability. Viewed together, they reveal a familiar pattern: advice goes in, but action does not come out.
• Invisible No More. The Experiences of Canadian Women Veterans, tabled June 12, 2024: Still no public implementation plan for the report’s 42 recommendations.
• Women Veterans Research Plan: Identified as a priority since at least 2019, yet still without a published strategy, roadmap, or dedicated funding.
• Women Veterans Council: In January 2026, Lindsay Shields of Petawawa was one of the five Council members with a CAF background to publicly resign citing a “persistent challenge within Veterans Affairs Canada in translating stated intent into concrete, sustained action.”
• Women Veterans Forum: The promised annual event was cancelled for fiscal year 2025–26 without explanation, despite funding continuing for other non-women-specific advisory bodies and commemoration events.
• Women, Peace and Security Ambassador: No successor was appointed after the inaugural term ended in March 2025, despite strong support for continuation.
Why Women Veterans Notice Quiet Rollbacks First
Women Veterans tend to spot these shifts early because they sit at the crossroads of defence institutions, health systems, workplace safety rules, and federal benefits programs. Throughout their service, many had to fight for basics others took for granted: equipment that fit, health care that reflected women’s bodies, reporting systems that worked, and fair decisions on service-related injuries and illnesses. That experience sharpens awareness when systems stop responding.
A predictable pattern follows. Those affected raise concerns. Institutions respond by delaying, diluting, or deflecting. As the cost of speaking up grows through emotional labour and online hostility associated with repeated, unresolved engagements, many step back—not because the problems are fixed, but because pushing for change becomes unsustainable. The rollbacks continue, quieter.
Why These Quiet Rollbacks Matter
These rollbacks affect far more than recognition or benefits for Canada’s almost 100,000 women Veterans. When injuries and illnesses are not properly recognized, diagnosis is delayed, treatment suffers, and prevention opportunities are lost. Higher medical release rates increase the risk of difficult transitions, lower income, chronic illness, and worse long-term outcomes. The system also loses the chance to learn and improve training, equipment, and care for those still serving.
There are broader consequences as well. Trust and credibility matter for recruitment, retention, and readiness. When women Veterans leave with unresolved injuries and a sense of being institutionally betrayed, that damage does not stay contained. It undermines confidence in the military and RCMP as federal uniformed employers worth committing to.
The Cost of Ignoring a Quiet Rollback
Many government activities appear to support women Veterans, but the hardest of reforms needed continue to stall. Gaps remain hidden until harm becomes unavoidable. The cost shows up in preventable injuries, missed diagnoses, poor care, difficult transitions, and lost trust.
If Canada truly wants to support women Veterans, progress must be judged by results and outcomes, not by announcements and photo ops. The alarm is being sounded not just for today’s women Veterans, but for those who will serve next—and who should not have to fight these same battles again.
