The Canadian military has tightened regulations on personal grooming after coming under fire from members unhappy with lax standards introduced nearly two years ago.
Revised rules regarding hair and beard length come into effect today.
One expert said the latest restrictions, announced last month, may not fully quell the social and political debate that has raged in horse racing since decades-old grooming standards were dramatically relaxed about two years ago.
The nation’s soon-to-retire top general, Gen. Wayne Eyre, has supported relaxing grooming rules and said no one should put undue importance on the changes.
Members of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) must limit beard length and volume to 2.5cm or less. Men and women must keep their hair tied back and away from the face and collar. Hair tie-back jewelry must be black or a similar color to CAF personnel’s hair.
In September 2022, CAF lifted nearly all restrictions on hair length, hair color, nail length and facial tattoos for its members. The changes were introduced along with new gender-neutral uniforms.
“This has made some people very uncomfortable, and it’s different for different generations,” Ayer said in a recent interview. CBC’s Rosemary Barton Live.
“The new generation [this]”So we’re venturing into a little bit of unknown territory here, and we have to be willing to experiment. If it doesn’t work, we’ll adjust.”
The backlash is associated with a “decline in trust in leadership.”
The changes drew criticism from both within and outside the military, with some saying they would allow for stubble and disorganization that would undermine the efficiency and morale of Canadian troops.
The extent of the backlash was revealed in an internal Department of National Defense (DND) study obtained by CBC News, which looked into service members’ attitudes toward lax grooming standards.
“Despite support from the chain of command and colleagues, the majority of the CAF public is not in agreement with the changes to CAF’s dress code and this lack of agreement is associated with reduced trust in the leadership,” the survey, dated March 15, 2024, stated.. The survey was conducted between November 2023 and January last year.
![Lt. Alex Roy, a Navy military public affairs officer, shows off one of the longer hairstyles permitted under relaxed grooming rules.](https://i.cbc.ca/1.7250135.1719602601!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/lieutenant-n-alex-roy.jpg)
![Lt. Alex Roy, a Navy military public affairs officer, shows off one of the longer hairstyles permitted under relaxed grooming rules.](https://i.cbc.ca/1.7250135.1719602601!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/lieutenant-n-alex-roy.jpg)
The majority of CAF members surveyed (44.2%) disagreed that the new regulations are good for the military, while about a third (33.4%) agreed.
When service members were asked whether they thought relaxing grooming rules strengthened the identity the military wants to project, 54 percent said “no.”
Most of the resistance to the new rules came from one branch of the military.
The military strikes back
“A majority of uniformed personnel in the Army believe the policy change is not a good thing for the Royal Canadian Air Force,” the survey said, which also found that the relaxed rules were more widely accepted in the Navy and, to a lesser extent, the Air Force.
Some of the biggest complaints came from junior officers responsible for the day-to-day enforcement of the rules, the study found.
But the survey found that “many members who identify as a minority sexual orientation (68 percent)” said the changes were beneficial and made them proud to serve.
The survey also found that “members who self-identify as people of color are more likely to support the substantive benefits of the changes.”
In a statement, the Ministry of National Defense (DND) played down the significance of the changes that came into effect today, saying the dress code is continually reviewed but that feedback from the survey was “one of the reasons for this revision.”
Charlotte Duval-Lantoine, a defense researcher who specializes in social issues in the military, said the relaxed standards have undoubtedly caused divisions among service members.
“There’s been a lot of noise about what the impact of the dress code would be,” said Duval-Lantoine of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs. “I’m not surprised to see this. Demographically, most military people [small-c] conservatives.”
She said it’s important to look at the context at the time the rules were relaxed: The military’s sexual misconduct crisis was at its height in September 2022, which she said fostered an atmosphere of skepticism within the military.
“When you see the attire, the dress code, the changes of that magnitude that were happening at that time, it’s hard not to believe that this happened due to political and social factors outside of the military,” she said.
In autumn 2022, suspicions that the relaxed rules were part of some kind of social policy agenda erupted in the veterans community, where Lt. Gen. Michel Maisonneuve criticized the changes when he received the Vimy Award from the Defence Association Conference Institute.
“I believe that in the military, the uniform has become a means of individual expression rather than a symbol of collective pride and unity. The uniform is no longer uniform,” Maisonneuve told the audience of current and retired defense officials, who responded with a standing ovation.
Another former senior officer who was involved in discussions at Personnel Command when the reforms were first proposed in 2016 rejected the claim that the changes were a response to a trend toward social justice.
![Canadian soldiers have a Canadian flag badge on their uniforms.](https://i.cbc.ca/1.7166045.1719603570!/cumulusImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/canadian-armed-forces.jpg)
![Canadian soldiers have a Canadian flag badge on their uniforms.](https://i.cbc.ca/1.7166045.1719603570!/cumulusImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/canadian-armed-forces.jpg)
Retired Brigadier General Scott Clancy said the changes began as a thoughtful attempt to figure out how to best reflect changes in Canadian society, but acknowledged the military is still grappling with the issues.
“The Canadian military is still figuring out who we are culturally,” said Clancy, the former air force officer who acknowledged that the military loudly opposed reform six years ago.
“In this context, the demographics of the Canadian Armed Forces population, particularly the overwhelming proportion of men, mean that they are not experiencing a cultural change.”
It was difficult to make the case within the Royal Canadian Air Force that individual achievement was more important than attitude, he said, especially in the Army, which has fewer standards for evaluating soldiers than the more professional branches of the military.
“I’m a pilot, and I didn’t care if people had different color nails or different color hair,” Clancy said, “It really mattered that they were good technicians and could do the job.”
The internal investigation showed military personnel were divided on the issue and recommended further investigation because internal disagreements over so-called operational effectiveness “suggested potentially unintended consequences” for the military’s warfighting readiness.