The Canadian army clearly didn’t see the uproar over their new camouflage coming.
The Department of National Defense (DND) recently put a target on its back on X with a video showcasing the new design for its revamped combat fatigues, and the response was pretty much uniform mockery.
The short clip above shows the camera launched through a mesh of camo webbing before random beige and brown pixels combine under a falling maple leaf to become… whatever the hell this is supposed to be.
Is it meant to be someone with serious junk in the trunk molesting a baby reindeer? This seems improbably topical. A Lego moose firing explosive diarrhea? Maybe an NFT for a chronically underfunded military pivoting to crypto? A warning to the aliens from the ‘80s arcade game Space Invaders that Canada has its own crude digital firepower standing on guard?
Having the country’s famous arboreal avatar toppling over instead of standing tall was certainly a choice, although the DND deserve points for the comedic timing of releasing it while the Toronto Maple Leafs were in the midst of completing their customary first-round exit from the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Art, like Rorschach tests, is in the eye of the beholder, and everyone has their own interpretation. And, as the late war criminal Donald Rumsfeld might’ve put it, you go to war with the cluster of pixels you have, not the cluster of pixels you might wish you had.
(To Rummy’s credit, the GOP’s former Worst Donald Ever was one of 10 living US secretaries of Defense who put their John Hancock on an open letter released shortly before January 6 warning Americans about the clear and unpleasant danger posed by the modern day Benedict Arnold, although I doubt this got him far with the doorman up at the Pearly Gates.)
The design is part of an upgrade meant to fool enemies in the digital era. The DND explain:
The selection of the new Canadian Disruptive Pattern Multi-Terrain (CADPAT-MT) colour scheme was a data-driven process, as this pattern reduces the likelihood of detection from a greater range of technologies and in the widest range possible of operational environments. Technological advances in warfighting, namely the digitization and proliferation of surveillance and sensors, mean having soldiers less detectable to the enemy is increasingly important.
It isn’t the first time the army has raised eyebrows with its fashion choices. This is the same fighting force that rocked up to Afghanistan in 2002 with green, Vietnam-era jungle uniforms in a country that’s only two percent forested. Generals tried to defend their impractical tactical gear, arguing it would help Afghanis differentiate between the good members of the allied invasion to get rid of the Taliban (oopsie!) rather than ones from colonizing nations with a history of stealing resources and/or installing puppet regimes, before growing fatigued of being made fun of by all the other armies and springing for tan desert camo the following year.
A major part of the controversy was because many Canadians, including outraged veterans, thought the DND had actually REPLACED the long-standing coat of arms — three red maple leaves connected at the stem in front of two crossed swords under a ceremonial gold toque — forcing the military to hastily fire off a clarifying press release.
“The Canadian Army has not changed its official logo,” said spokesperson Alex Tetris Tétreault. “The icon launched today is a supplementary design only that will be used in the bottom left corner of certain communications products and in animations for videos.”
He also gave assurances the disastrous rebranding campaign was made in-house rather than costing Canadians an arm and a leg in consultation fees.
“The icon was developed without additional funds or involvement of external companies,” added Tétreault. “It was developed by DND’s internal graphic design team, and this icon comes at zero expense to the taxpayer.”
This also isn’t the first time the military has shot itself in the foot online. Two months ago, Veterans Affairs Canada were bombarded over a social media post on Good Friday wishing people a “happy March holiday season,” which of course the usual suspects took as a sigh their imaginary War on Christmas is now encroaching on Easter.
The Armed Forces are desperate to attract new recruits. Newish Defence Minister Bill Blair, whose name may be familiar outside the country as the Toronto police chief who engineered all the skull-cracking during the G20 summit meeting in 2010, admitted as much at a security conference in Ottawa earlier this year, saying:
Over the past three years, more people have left than have entered. That is, frankly, a death spiral for the Canadian Armed Forces. We cannot afford to continue at that pace. We’ve got to do something differently.
One of the things top military brass not currently under investigation themselves might consider doing differently is setting their sights on the inherent rape culture. A recent report found nearly 2000 active service members, or 3.8 percent, had experienced some form of sexual assault on the job, with only one in five reporting it because they figured it’s pointless, according to Statistics Canada. It won’t come as a surprise the soldiers were mostly female. The problem is so entrenched Hockey Canada officials are probably privately grateful their own problems in this department aren’t quite as bad, and earlier this year the feds introduced legislation to strip the military of their powers to investigate in-house sexual assaults, with cases prosecuted instead through the regular court system.
But for now the army is waiting for this lesser shitstorm to blow over, and their comms team is basically:
The Homer-disappearing-into-the-bushes gif is always handy in a jiff when writing about people hiding in embarrassment, but there’s an extra layer at play here since the guy who inspired the character actually served in the Canadian military and would probably have an opinion about its traditional herald playing second fiddle to an amorphous blob of bytes that wouldn’t pass muster as animation even on the cartoon’s early days on “The Tracey Ullman Show.”
Homer Groening, the pride of the misleadingly named town of Main Centre, Saskatchewan (current estimated population: 5), was a German-Canadian man who fought against his ancestral homeland as a bomber pilot during the Second World War before moving to Oregon to raise a family.
While Homer J. Simpson’s old man is perhaps best known for yelling at clouds, Matt Groening’s used to actually fly through them killing Nazis.
Which I’m betting is something not many of you saw coming either.
[CBC / AP / Forbes / Stats Canada / Canadaland]
