Canada’s top general strongly rejected the idea of dropping women from combat roles — a position promoted by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary — at a security forum in Halifax on Saturday.
General Jenny Carignan, chief of the defense staff, was responding to Republican Senator James Risch’s comments yesterday at the Halifax International Security Forum about Pete Hegseth’s opposition to the presence of women in combat units.
Asked about Hegseth’s record of opposing women in these roles, Risch told the roughly 300 delegates that “the jury is still out” on how to handle the “unique situations” created by the presence of women in combat, adding that it was ultimately up to For the army to decide that. Decide on the issue.
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Carignan said that after 39 years as a combat officer who risked her life for her country, “I cannot believe that in 2024 we still have to justify a woman’s contribution…in serving her country.”
She also said, to rapturous applause, that she didn’t want anyone to leave the forum with the idea that women were a “distraction to defense and national security.”
Hegseth, a former military officer and regular commentator on Fox News, has said in his book and in interviews that he believes men and women should not serve together in combat units.
On November 7, he said on an American podcast that having women in combat roles did not make units more effective or lethal, but “made combat more complex.”
He said that women have a place in the army, but not in special operations, artillery, infantry and armored units.
& Edition 2024 The Canadian Press
