Let’s stop pretending the Canadian Rangers are real soldiers

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What can be worse than a country that refuses to protect itself? How about a country that deliberately deceives its people into thinking that they are protected by a viable military force when, in fact, they are not.

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For the last few years, our highly publicized, vaunted northern Canadian Rangers have been basking in a public affairs love-in fuelled by our politicians and generals’ desperation to appear to have a serious standing military presence in the Arctic when, in fact, we do not. In reality our Canadian Rangers are a non-combat capable, largely untrained militia auxiliary component of the reserves. They are the only substantial component to our otherwise token military presence in the Arctic.

The need to generate this new “militia myth” of a crack, mostly Indigenous, special service northern sovereignty protection force is understandable. Unlike even smaller NATO allies such as Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, we here in the Great White North have no combat-capable unit operating in the Arctic. Nothing even remotely resembling well-trained, equipped and winter operations-ready units like the famed Finnish Jaeger Brigade or the Danish Sirius Patrol in Greenland, the Swedish Norrbotten Brigade or the Norwegian Ranger Battalion GSV exist in Canada’s North.

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But this has not prevented a public affairs storm of cheesy accolades. Writing in a style and tone more appropriate for a personal love interest, Brig.-Gen. David Millar, as commander of Joint Task Force North in 2009, described the Canadian Rangers as “our guiding light, our pathfinders, those eyes and ears and hearts and soul of the North that provide us protection.” Likewise, Gen. Wayne Eyre, our chief of the defence staff, described the Canadian Rangers as “a vital part of the security solution.”

Wiping away tears of pride in our alleged version of crack, elite “pathfinders” making up the vital component of Canada’s security solution against the aggressive ambitions of Russia and China, let’s look at what it takes to become one of Canada’s so-called “guardians of the North.”

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Do you have what it takes to become a Canadian Ranger? Actually, you probably do. Almost every adult reading this now would qualify as a Canadian Ranger should they live in a region of the North that has a Ranger patrol unit. Quite unlike combat-capable reserve units here in the south, Rangers are considered “trained upon enrolment.” In the words of Whitney Lackenbauer, certainly the Canadian Ranger’s most prolific academic propagandist, Rangers are a “post-modern militia” where “service is predicated on what someone can bring to the force more than what he or she can be taught.”

In other words, just be yourself and you, too, can be a Canadian Ranger!

When undertaken, basic instruction with the Rangers lasts all of 10 days. The main articles of the Ranger “uniform” are the distinctive Ranger hoodie and ballcap. Only recently have the Ranger’s Second World War-era Lee Enfields been replaced. Ranger Patrol leaders are elected.

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And with only four years of part-time, non-combat auxiliary service, members of certain Ranger units are entitled to receive Canada’s Special Service Medal. That’s something combat-trained reserve soldiers, sailors and aviators here in the south are not normally entitled to receive in the course of their regular part-time service.

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Certainly, there may be some utility to this unconventional approach if the new Ranger has hands-on knowledge and a skill set that could be useful in areas such as search and rescue. But lacking a coherent training program and much of the corresponding professional and people skill vetting that goes with that, how might “trained upon enrolment” unfold when less savoury and useful individualistic attitudes and ambitions mix with the Canadian Rangers’ unconventionally permissive disciplinary culture.

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For example, the only known attempt on a prime minister’s life by a member of the Canadian Armed Forces was by a Canadian Ranger — Corey Hurren, who in 2020 crashed his weapon-laden truck onto Rideau Hall property, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lives, but he was arrested before he could confront anyone.

Thankfully, most of what we have been getting from our Canadian Ranger post-modern militia has been useful auxiliary service during natural disasters, search and rescue operations and support whenever our emasculated professional military might make a temporary token presence in the Arctic. So in the end, we should respect our Rangers for the non-combat auxiliary support they provide to our real military.

Let’s just not deceive ourselves in thinking the Canadian Rangers are anything akin to combat soldiers trained and ready to defend Canada.

— Smol is a retired military intelligence officer who served in the Canadian Armed Forces for more than 20 years. He is currently completing a PhD in military history. Reach him at [email protected].

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