Diversity and inclusion in the Canadian Armed Forces is often seen as a legal imperative. This volume shows that it can be a strength and a necessary strategy to building a stronger organization.

This book will make a first contribution to identify the gaps in current practices and provide alternative mechanisms to conceptualize professionalism that is reflective of changing requirements, culture, and demographics of the contemporary military force.The military profession promotes the development, sustainment, and embodiment of ethos, which guides conduct across operational contexts, from times of national and international crises and security challenges (e.g., war, natural disasters, and peace support operations). It is imperative for military leaders to understand how ethos and doctrine shape professional frameworks, which guide the conduct of military members.

The Canadian Armed Forces has not always embraced diversity and inclusion, but its future depends on it. As the country’s demographic makeup changes, its military must adapt to a new multicultural reality and diminishing pools of people from which it can recruit. Canada’s population is increasingly urbanized, immigrant, and not necessarily Christian, white, or bilingual. To attract and retain CAF personnel, the military will have to embrace and champion diversity while demonstrating that it is inclusive. Using a number of cases to highlight both challenges and opportunities, Strengthening the Canadian Armed Forces through Diversity and Inclusion provides a timely look at an established Canadian institution in a rapidly changing world. The editors explore how Canadian Muslim youth, LGBTQ+ individuals, women, racialized minorities, Indigenous communities, and people of non-Christian faiths see their experiences in the CAF. While diversity is a reality, inclusion is still a work in progress for the Canadian Armed Forces, as it is for society at large.

While countries throughout the world rely on immigrants to support their populations and economies, access to the military is limited, denied to those who have not yet acquired citizenship. Precluding immigrants from serving in their host country’s armed forces is an issue of moral equity and operational effectiveness. Allowing immigrants to enlist ensures that the military represents the population it serves and encourages inclusivity and cultural change within the institution, while also creating a more effective military force. The Power of Diversity in the Armed Forces investigates how different countries approach the inclusion or exclusion of immigrants in their armed forces and offers immigrant military participation as a pathway to citizenship and a way to foster greater societal integration and achieve a more equitable, diverse, and inclusive military. By surveying international perspectives on immigrant and non-citizen military participation in twelve countries, The Power of Diversity in the Armed Forces introduces and examines a new way to unlock the power of diversity in military organizations globally.

In Canada and elsewhere, recent political, economic, and social shifts have brought gender to the forefront of politics as never before, from gender-based analyses and “feminist budgets” to the #MeToo, Idle No More, and Black Lives Matter movements. Detailing these gendered and turbulent political times, this book features state-of-the art scholarship from diverse contributors that encompasses both contemporary challenges as well as avenues for change now and into the future. This collection represents a complex treatment of both gender and politics, in which gender is examined in light of other collective identities and their intersections and politics refers to both institutional and movement and countermovement politics.