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Canadian Alliance
2002-05-25

Expansion Of JTF2 Dangerous

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE      February 7th, 2002

OTTAWA:  “The government’s recent decision to more than double 
the size of Canada’s current special forces unit, the Joint Task
Force 2, is a dangerous one,” warns Leon Benoit, MP.

The Official Opposition Defence Critic is convinced that the 
secretive JTF2 should not be enlarged. “With the degree of 
secrecy under which this unit currently operates – which has 
been increased by this Liberal government – enlarging the unit 
to that extent would give the government too much power to 
intervene in foreign affairs with little accountability,”  says 
Benoit. “Their mandate is hostage rescue and special operations 
– not large missions. Additionally, the government is already 
proving that they are not accountable to Canadians for the 
actions of the JTF2 at its current size; if it grows to more 
than 1,000 troops the government will have a large, extremely 
well-trained military force about which it will tell Canadians 
nothing. To me, this is a very serious issue,” he states.

“Another issue that must be discussed is personnel levels.  
Obviously, you can’t just grab some guys off the street and 
throw them into special ops,” Benoit says. “The JTF2 is made up 
of Canada’s most elite soldiers and in order to double its size,
a large number of the best troops will be pulled from units 
across the country, who really can’t afford to lose any more 
soldiers as it is”. 

“A far more reasonable approach would have been to establish a 
force similar to what we had with the Canadian Airborne 
Regiment, before the Liberals disbanded it,” Benoit says. “That 
type of rapid-response regiment would be able to fill a great 
number of roles in today’s environment and would be less 
secretive and more accountable.”

Benoit says that with the effective strength personnel levels 
already dropping well below 55,000, the Canadian Forces simply 
can’t sustain an across-the-board loss like this.

“The JTF2 do not participate in day-to-day missions,” he 
explains. “So, when our troops are committed to peacekeeping 
duties, we’re going to have even fewer of them available, 
creating more over rotation and even more frequent deployments 
of those left in the ranks.” 

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