The Canadian Armed Forces are the unified military forces of Canada, including land, sea, and air commands referred to as the Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Navy, and the Royal Canadian Air Force. The CAF also operates several other commands, including the Canadian Forces Intelligence Command, the Canadian Joint Operations Command, and the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command. Personnel may belong to either the Regular Force or the Reserve Force, which has four sub-components: the Primary Reserve, Supplementary Reserve, Cadet Organizations Administration and Training Service, and the Canadian Rangers. Under the National Defence Act, the Canadian Armed Forces are an entity separate and distinct from the Department of National Defence, which also exists as the civilian support system for the forces.
The Canadian Army is the command responsible for the operational readiness of the conventional ground forces of the Canadian Armed Forces. It maintains regular forces units at bases across Canada, and is also responsible for the Army Reserve, the largest component of the Primary Reserve. The Army is headed by the Commander of the Canadian Army and Chief of the Army Staff, who is subordinate to the Chief of the Defence Staff. The Army is also supported by 3,000 civilian employees from the public service.
An aide-de-camp is a personal assistant or secretary to a person of high rank, usually a senior military, police or government officer, or to a member of a royal family or a head of state.
Field marshal is the highest rank of the Australian Army and was created as a direct equivalent of the British military rank of field marshal. It is a five-star rank, equivalent to the ranks in the other armed services of Admiral of the Fleet in the Royal Australian Navy, and Marshal of the Royal Australian Air Force. The subordinate army rank is general.
Andrew Brooke Leslie is a retired Canadian Forces Lieutenant-General and politician who served as the Chief of the Land Staff from 2006 to 2010 and as a Member of Parliament representing the riding of Orléans in the House of Commons, from 2015 until 2019.
The commander-in-chief of the Canadian Armed Forces exercises supreme command and control over Canada's military, the Canadian Armed Forces. Constitutionally, command-in-chief is vested in the Canadian monarch, presently King Charles III. Since the Letters Patent, 1947, were signed by King George VI, the governor general of Canada—presently Mary Simon—executes most of the duties of the sovereign, including in his role as commander-in-chief. Consequently, the governor general also uses the title Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian Forces. By protocol, the title used within international contexts is Commander-in-Chief of Canada.
Lieutenant-general is a Canadian Forces rank used by commissioned officers of the Canadian Army or Royal Canadian Air Force. Vice-admiral is the equivalent rank in the Royal Canadian Navy.
The relationship between the Canadian Crown and the Canadian Armed Forces is both constitutional and ceremonial, with the king of Canada being the commander-in-chief of the Canadian Forces and he and other members of the Canadian royal family holding honorary positions in various branches and regiments, embodying the historical relationship of the Crown with its armed forces. This construct stems from Canada's system of constitutional monarchy and through its 500 years of monarchical history, the relationship symbolically represented through royal symbols, such as crowns on military badges and insignia, coats of arms, royal portraits, and the grant of the royal prefix to various military units and institutions. The role of the Canadian sovereign within the Canadian Armed Forces is established within the Canadian constitution, the National Defence Act, and the King's Regulations and Orders (KR&Os) for the Canadian Forces.
Jan Arp is a senior officer in the Canadian Forces. Appointed in January 2007, he is Chief of Staff at NATO's Headquarters Supreme Allied Command Transformation.
Lieutenant General Kenneth James Gillespie is a retired senior officer in the Australian Army. Gillespie served as Vice Chief of the Defence Force from 2005 until 2008, then Chief of Army from 2008 until his retirement in June 2011.
The Order of Military Merit is a military honour for merit that is, within the Canadian system of honours, the second highest order administered by the governor in Council on behalf of the Canadian monarch.
Lieutenant General Peter John Devlin was a senior officer in the Canadian Army and is currently President of Fanshawe College. He served as Commander of the Canadian Army from 2010 to 2013.
Major General Peter Warwick "Gus" Gilmore, is a retired senior officer of the Australian Army. A graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon, he was commissioned into the Royal Australian Infantry Corps in 1983 and spent much of his career in special forces. He commanded the Special Air Service Regiment (2001–02), led the first contingent of the Australian Special Operations Task Group in Afghanistan (2001–02), was responsible for the Coalition Advisory Support Team in Iraq (2005–06), and commanded International Security Assistance Force Special Operations Forces (2009–10). Following promotion to major general he held a succession of senior appointments, including Special Operations Commander Australia (2011–13), Deputy Chief of Army (2013–15), and Commander Forces Command (2015–16). His final appointment was as Head Military Strategic Commitments Division from 2016 to 2019.
Lieutenant General Sir John Gordon Lorimer, is a retired senior British Army officer, who served as the Chief of Joint Operations and the Defence Senior Adviser to the Middle East and North Africa. He was appointed Lieutenant Governor of the Isle of Man on 29 September 2021.
Lieutenant-General Omer Lavoie, CMM, MSC, CD was a senior officer in the Canadian Army and the Canadian Armed Forces. He was the commander of the 4th Canadian Division until the summer of 2014. He was promoted to major general in January 2016, and appointed commander of 1st Canadian Division. He served as battle group commander of the 1 RCR Battle Group, Task Force 3-06, from July 2006 to February 2007 in Kandahar, Afghanistan. In 2021, he retired from the Canadian Army.
Lieutenant General Gregory Charles Bilton, is a senior officer in the Australian Army. He was seconded to the United States Army Pacific as Deputy Commanding General – Operations from 2014 to 2017, served as Deputy Chief of Joint Operations from 2017 to 2018, and was Commander Forces Command from December 2018 to June 2019. He assumed his current appointment as Chief of Joint Operations on 1 July 2019.
Major-General David Craig Aitchison is a former Canadian military officer, who most recently served as the commander of the Canadian Defence Academy. He is the former Director of Army Staff and Director of Infantry for the Canadian Forces, the former Commandant of the Infantry School, the former Commander of the Combat Training Centre, and former Deputy Commanding General for Operations with US Army Alaska. MGen Aitchison holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of New Brunswick. a master's degree in Defence Studies from the Joint Command and Staff Program at the Canadian Forces College, as well as a master's degree in Military Art and Science from the United States Army School of Advanced Military Studies. Aitchison was promoted to Brigadier General, while serving as Chief of Staff for the Combined Joint Forces Land Component Command - Operation INHERENT RESOLVE (CJFLCC-OIR). He was promoted major-general in June 2020 and took command of the Canadian Defense Academy in August 2020.
Lieutenant General Simon Andrew Stuart, is a senior officer of the Australian Army who has served as the Chief of Army since July 2022. He was commissioned into the Royal Australian Infantry Corps from the Royal Military College, Duntroon in 1990. He has commanded the 8th/9th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (2008–10), Joint Task Force 631 (2010) and Combined Team Uruzgan (2012–13), and deployed to East Timor as part of Operations Warden, Tanager and Astute and to Afghanistan and the Sinai Peninsula. He was Force Commander, Multinational Force and Observers in the Sinai from 2017 to 2019, and Head Land Capability from 2020 to 2022. He succeeded Lieutenant General Rick Burr as Chief of Army on 2 July 2022.
Trevor John Cadieu is a retired senior Canadian military officer. He reached the rank of lieutenant general and was slated to become army commander, but released from the military following allegations of sexual misconduct almost 30 years before, and after months of delay in court proceedings. Cadieu maintained the allegations were false but needed to be investigated thoroughly to expose the truth. In 2022, he travelled to Ukraine to join the fight against the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. In October 2023, the charges were stayed by an Ontario judge, ruling that unreasonable delays by military police to disclose information to Cadieu and another accused party led to unreasonable delay in the trial, denying justice to the accused, the complainant, their families and the public as a whole.
Major General Wade Bradley Stothart, is a senior officer in the Australian Army. He joined the army via the Australian Defence Force Academy in 1987 and was commissioned into the Royal Australian Infantry Corps. He has commanded the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (2007–09), ANZAC Battle Group (2008) and Combined Team Uruzgan (2013), and deployed on operations to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Timor-Leste as part of Operations Tanager and Astute, and to Afghanistan and Kuwait. He was appointed Head People Capability in December 2021.
Major-general 