THE Military launched a new online recruitment portal to try to modernize the demand process and treat a staff crisis.
But the technical problems emerged during the launch, which aroused concerns that the frustrated candidates can be discouraged to join at a time when the ranks are more than 14,000 soldiers and US President Donald Trump threatened Canadian sovereignty.
“Problems were discovered in early March, shortly after the initial deployment of the new portal,” said spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense, Derek Abma, in a statement to Global News.
DND recognized that at the start, the new system was unable to manage the volume of traffic.
A candidate who spoke to Global News described the portal as “very slow and not at a distance from the point of art”. He asked not to be identified because of the concerns he could compromise his request, and said that it took dozens of attempts over several days to set up a profile.
Given the “recruitment challenges” of the army, he thought that the process would have been faster.
“I applied two months ago and I heard nothing. I was hoping to be in uniform in summer, and it is clear that it is optimistic,” he said.
“Any enthusiasm I had to re -enroll completely evaporated.”
Abma has said that problems have since been “corrected” and that “growth pains” are expected.
“We are aware that some users have experienced error messages with the new online candidates portal. Our technical team has since worked to solve these problems,” said another spokesperson.
But other problems were reported in mid-April, not with the portal, but with an internal system used by military recruiters.
“A limited number of internal users of the Canadian Armed Forces had difficulty accessing” an internal system on April 15, due to “an unusually raised request within the department,” said DND.
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Charlotte Duval-Lantoine Vice-President of Ottawa operations at the Canadian Institute of World Affairs, said the soldiers did not provide for a “large number of candidates” after the change.
“All the seeds that occur have created a lot of confusion and frustration for the candidates … and can dissuade people from continuing to move forward with their candidacy,” she said.
Problems with deployment come as Prime Minister Mark Carney promises to secure Canadian sovereignty by “strengthening our soldiers” to counter what he described as “the greatest threats of a generation”.
Since its inauguration, the American president has thought about the creation of Canada 51st stateIncluding in the oval office during Carney’s visit to Washington at the start of the month.
Carney answered Trump saying, “As you know in real estate, there are places that are never for sale.”
But the annexation speech has renewed questions about the preparation of Canadian soldiers when he faces what the previous Minister of Defense, Bill Blair, described as a “Death Spiral” in recruitment.
To repair the crunch, Carney has promised to update the recruitment process, pay the existing members and build more housing “on the basis”.
In an interview with the West Last November, General Jennie CarignanThe defense chief of staff, Mercedes Stephenson told Mercedes that stimulating staff was his main objective.
“Coming back to our full strength is priority 1,” said Carignan.
The army’s objective is to reach 71,500 members of the regular forces and 30,000 reserve members over the next four years.
The Canadian Armed Forces recently attenuated medical standards for new recruits and changed the rules for security screening to speed up the request process and expand eligibility.
Duval-lentoine says that the portal is the first of its kind for the government of Canada and that the transition from a system largely based on paper to a digital system is a huge company that will require patience.
“What they could have done was to communicate better to the candidates, saying:” We deploy this thing for the first time, there will be problems, here is a number or an email that you can contact if you encounter problems. “”
The launch of the new recruitment system is part of a broader upgrade, explains Alex Salt, researcher in emerging military technology at the Canadian Institute of World Affairs.
“The Canadian army is undergoing a very wide digital modernization process.”
“It was very frankly a huge business. Canada, in general, has lagged behind many of our nearest military partners, in particular the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, “said Salt.
Global News asked DND if application data had been lost during the transition to the new recruitment system. The MND replied that “no finished application data has been lost”.
The DND spokesperson added that the technical problems of the portal have not slowed down the processing of applications.
Attracting new members and the conservation of currents represent some of the greatest challenges for the newly appointed Defense Minister David McGuintyWho succeeds Blair.
“There is a lack of resources. The portal can help repair part of it,” said Duval-Lantoine.
“(My advice is to look further in the processes and the recruitment pipeline to ensure that all these small problems are repaired before there are more bottlenecks.”
– with sophall duch files
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