The Montreal Gazette has a dramatic front page today, pointing to an inside feature by freelancer David Sachs. Sachs takes a look at the demographic makeup of the Canadian Forces and finds that the CF -- mostly white and male -- doesn't look like much like contemporary Canada and, given various projections, certainly won't look like Canada in the next decade or so. Right now, about 15 per cent of the Canadian population are visible minorities and, yet, just three per cent of CF members are visible minorities. That ratio's even worse when it comes to CF leadership. Not a single one of the 75 most senior generals and admirals in the CF, as of March 1, 2006, was a visible minority. And of the 14,235 men and women who were officers in the CF at that time, just 352 or 2.5 per cent were visible minorities. It gets worse looking at non-commissioned officers: There are 47,784 of them in the CF and just 863 or 1.8 per cent are visible minorites. (More on the officer class below). Sachs writes:

Beyond the implications for the maintenance and expansion of our armed forces, there are implications for public support of our military missions, and for the social cohesion of our nation. How far can a military diverge from the population it serves before it is seen as a mercenary force, or at least, a distinct military caste? How does the widespread lack of connection with our soldiers affect public opinion on military matters?

The piece is not necessarily a criticism of the CF; rather it explores some of the factors that have made the CF look the way it does today -- Esprit de Corps publisher Scott Taylor figures 30 per cent of those serving now are from military families and are following dad's footsteps -- and explores some of the ways the CF is trying attract more visible minorities, aboriginals, and women.

Notably, the piece quotes "Capt. Ken Charles, a national diversity officer and himself an immigrant from St. Lucia" to support this statement: "No soldiers or representatives of minority communities interviewed claimed that racism was in any way apparent in the Canadian military. Capt. Charles says the only incidence of racial bias he’s encountered in the military was on a visit to the United States, when someone there assumed he was a driver."

Last year, I received a briefing note through an access-to-information request that had been prepared for then Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor by Vice-Admiral Greg Jarvis. Jarvis would retire a few months after filing this report but was, at the time, Chief of Military Personnel.

Jarvis found that, after general officers, the whitest group of officers in the CF are Air Force pilots. There are 1,952 pilot officers in the CF but just 24 or 1.2 per cent are visible minorities. Just 11 or 0.6 per cent of pilot officers are aboriginals, and 70 or 3.6 per cent are women.

It's not much better in the rest of the Air Force, so far as officers go. Of the 1,365 officers in Air Operations, just 23 or 1.7 per cent were visible minorities; 12 or 0.9 per cent were aboriginals; and 174 or 12.7 per cent were women.

Visible minorities are best represented among the officer class in "Engineering", where, of the 833 officers, 40 or 4.8 per cent are visible minorities.

Among the non-comm officer class, the Military Police is the least diverse, with just 16 or 1.3 per cent visible minorities among the 1,245 non-commissioned officers. Non-commissioned officer musicians are the most diverse, with 9 or 3.9 per cent visible minorities among this group of 233.