Canadian Armed Forces establish Canadian Joint Forces Command
Government Release
December 4, 2025 – Ottawa, ON – National Defence / Canadian Armed Forces
On November 25, 2025, the Honourable David J. McGuinty, Minister of National Defence, officially established the Canadian Joint Forces Command (CJFC), a new Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) command designed to strengthen leadership, coordination, and accountability for joint military capabilities across the CAF.
Lieutenant-General Darcy Molstad and Chief Warrant Officer Donovan Crawford have been named as the inaugural CJFC command team.
CJFC will bring together people, systems, and expertise from across the CAF to build and manage the joint capabilities needed to protect Canada and meaningfully contribute to our allies and partners. This new command reflects a shift toward integrated defence operations, enabling the CAF to respond effectively across all domains—land, sea, air, cyber, space and information environment.
Just as the Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army, and Royal Canadian Air Force develop and manage their respective capabilities, the creation of CJFC will enable the same standard for joint capabilities across the CAF.
Quotes
“The establishment of the Canadian Joint Forces Command marks a significant step forward in modernizing our military. I’m incredibly proud of the dedication, professionalism, and vision our members have shown in bringing it to life. This new command will allow the Canadian Armed Forces to be better integrated, agile, and ready to meet the complex challenges of today and tomorrow.”
The Honourable David J. McGuinty, Minister of National Defence
“The establishment of the Canadian Joint Forces Command reflects our commitment to building a future-ready force as part of our ongoing transformation and modernization efforts. I am extremely proud of the teams whose hard work and expertise made this possible. The future is joint, and by consolidating leadership and integrating joint capabilities, we are enhancing our ability to deliver joint effects across all domains.”
General Jennie Carignan, Chief of the Defence Staff
“The creation of the Canadian Joint Forces Command is a critical step in strengthening our delivery of integrated capabilities. A unified command better enables Canada’s defence posture to remain agile, efficient, and ready to meet current and future challenges. I’m grateful for the exceptional collaboration across the Defence Team that brought us to this milestone.”
Stefanie Beck, Deputy Minister of National Defence
“I am honoured to lead the Canadian Joint Forces Command as we begin this important mission. The Canadian Joint Forces Command will foster a culture of integration and agility, keeping our joint capabilities coherent, accountable, and ready to support Canada’s defence objectives.”
Lieutenant-General Darcy Molstad, Commander, Canadian Joint Forces Command
Quick facts
Joint capabilities are military functions and resources that span multiple domains, such as land, sea, air, cyber, and space, and are used collectively by different branches of the armed forces. Examples include logistics, health services, joint doctrine and joint force development.
Joint capabilities are essential for modern defence operations. They enable the CAF to operate cohesively across domains, respond rapidly to complex threats, and collaborate effectively with allies and partners. By integrating these capabilities, Canada enhances its operational readiness, efficiency, and strategic flexibility.
Multiple studies identified gaps in how CAF joint capabilities are generated, developed, managed, and sustained. CJFC addresses these gaps by centralizing leadership and accountability for joint capabilities, improving coherence and innovation, and supporting interoperability across domains and with allied and partner forces.
CJFC integrates several specialized organizations: the Chief of Combat Systems Integration, the Canadian Forces Military Police Group, the Canadian Joint Warfare Centre, the Director General Health Services and the Canadian Forces Health Services Group, the Chief of Joint Logistics, and the Joint Information and Intelligence Fusion Centre.
Noah Note: I’m not gonna lie I forgot this was a thing. This has been the plan for a long while, and has been a much identified gap in the CAFs ability to conduct Joint Operations and collaborate on resource and Information sharing. It is a much needed consolidation.
This move directly aligns with the goals set out as part of the Operational Sustainment Modernization and Joint Logistics Modernization. It will help set up CAF to better implement new, emerging capabilities such as those laid out by Pan-Domain Command and Control and Joint Fires Modernization. It will also help mitigate dependency Issues outlined in Inflection Point 2025 and better support the Canadian Armies ongoing restructuring.
It will better align us organizationally with allies like Australian the Headquarters Joint Operations Command, the UK Cyber & Specialist Operations Command, and the new Bundeswehr Joint Force Command.
Consolidating is always worrying to people, I get that. People always worry about the implementation of such massive reforms, and the truth is that this won't be the last one we see, far from it. We are already seeing massive shifts across the board.
The modern battlespace is a network-centered, dynamically-challenged enviornment. We often talk about porjects like PDC2 and JFM from a digital approach of needing to rapidly onboard, process, and discern data. We often talk about the need for imporvements to things like Machine Learning are needed in a battlespace that operated in the Real-Time, rapidly-changing environment such as those we see in Ukraine.
However very rarely do we talk about those same issues from a capability and organizational standpoint. The same changes in networking and data will inevitably effect the need to coordinate and collaborate between various L1s and L2s. Thats where the value of this comes in. Its no longer a nice-to-have. The CJFC represents the modern need for an organization that can survive and handle the demands of the modern battlespace.
With that also comes the opportunity to better manage resources, enable more steamlined planning between organizations, and speed up modernization and procurement projects. Of course all that only comes from good mandate and proper support, something we always have to wait and see on.
This is a necessary step though. Its the minimum needed for the conflicts we will see in the 2030s. Ukraine has shown the need for how quickly things can fall apart when coordination of strategic resources and support networks isn't prioritized. We don't want to have to learn those lessons, and set up the proper organization in the middle of that same potential conflict.
More is coming. More is in the pipeline. We can only wsit to see ehat that will look like, but one thing is for certain. The CAF of last year is gone, and the CAF of next year will look fsr different than even now.
So does this superseded CJOC and other directorates or is just part of everyone else now?
Adding to my previous post, Einstein is supposed to have said "Idiocy is repeating the same thing in the hopes of a different outcome." That applies to adding another bureaucratic layer.