Canada’s top general takes on U.S. senator in defending womens’ role in combat units

By Michael Tutton, The Canadian Press on November 23, 2024.

Chief of Defence Staff Jennie Carignan arrives to appear as a witness at a House of Commons standing committee on Veterans Affairs in Ottawa on Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

HALIFAX – Canada’s top general firmly rejected the notion of dropping women from combat roles – a position promoted by president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary – at a security forum underway in Halifax today.

Gen. Jennie Carignan, chief of defence staff, was responding to Republican Senator James Risch’s comments yesterday at the Halifax International Security Forum about Peter Hegseth’s opposition to women in fighting units.

Asked about Hegseth’s record of opposing women in these roles, Risch told the roughly 300 delegates “the jury is still out” on how to deal with the “unique situations” that having women in combat creates, adding it was ultimately up to the military to decide on the issue.

Carignan said that after 39 years as a combat officer who has risked her life for her country, she “can’t believe that in 2024 we still have to justify the contribution of women … in the service of their country.”

She also said, to a standing ovation, that she didn’t want anyone to leave the forum with an idea that women are “a distraction to defence and national security.”

Hegseth, a former military officer who is a regular Fox News commentator, has said in his book and in interviews that he believes men and women should not serve together in combat units.

On Nov. 7, he told a U.S. podcast that having women in combat roles hasn’t made the units more effective or lethal, and “has made fighting more complicated.”

He has said women have a place in the military, but not in special operations, artillery, infantry and armoured units.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 23, 2024.