During a recent exercise in Alaska known as Exercise Global Resolve 26, more than 60 Canadian soldiers with the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment reportedly suffered frostbite while practicing light infantry tactics in the arctic environment.
Several of the soldiers had serious enough injuries to be hospitalized in Fairbanks, while another 30 had to leave the exercise.
The Canadian Army did not make the incident public until soldiers started contacting news outlets. Details are circulating on social media citing 60 to 70 injuries.
Brian Rushfeldt, a long-time conservative activist in Canada, calls it "despicable" that the Liberal government would send its own soldiers to the Arctic for training and not properly equip them for cold weather service.
"Some of them had frostbite and suffered from frozen fingers, frozen faces, frozen feet," he laments.
But even at its best, Rushfeldt says the Canadian military has never been properly equipped in general.
"We were worried about Russia coming over the top of the earth, over the North Pole and coming into Canada that particular way. We weren't equipped to defend," he tells AFN. "We did put up a radar system up there, which of course helped. But as far as our military, in my lifetime, it has been extremely, extremely weak."
Canada's regular army is relatively small, with about 23,000 active personnel, plus reserves. In a major global conflict, Canada would rely heavily on allies. It does not have the same scale of heavy tanks, missile systems, or air support as larger militaries like the U.S., Russia, or China, and its defense budget is moderate, which limits expansion and some high-end technology acquisition.
A total of 495 Canadian Army soldiers participated in the training.
