'Large proportion' of military disliked relaxed rules on personal grooming, survey finds

The Canadian military has tightened up regulations on personal grooming after getting an earful from members who were not happy with the relaxed standards introduced almost two years ago.

The revised rules on hair and beard length come into effect today.

One expert says the newest set of regulations, announced last month, may not entirely quell the social and political debate that has been raging in the ranks since the decades-old grooming standards were dramatically relaxed almost two years ago.

The country's soon-to-retire top military commander, Gen. Wayne Eyre, has championed the relaxed rules on personal grooming. He said no one should make too much of the revisions.

Those serving in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) must now keep their beards to 2.5 centimetres in length and bulk. And hair — for both men and women — must be tied back and away from the face and off the collar. Accessories used to tie hair back must be black, or similar to the CAF member's hair colour.

In September 2022, the CAF abandoned almost all restrictions on members' hair length, hair colour, nail length and facial tattoos. The changes were introduced along with new gender-neutral uniforms.

"This has made some profoundly uncomfortable. You know, based on the generation they come from," Eyre said in a recent interview on CBC's Rosemary Barton Live.

"A newer generation is completely at ease with [this], and so we are treading a bit into the unknown here. And we have to be willing to experiment. If it doesn't work well, we adjust."

The changes triggered a backlash both inside and outside the military from critics who said they permitted a degree of scruff and untidiness that compromised the effectiveness and morale of the Canadian Armed Forces.

The depth of that backlash was made clear in an internal Department of National Defence (DND) study obtained by CBC News. The study surveyed members' attitudes toward the looser grooming standards.

"A large proportion of the CAF population does not agree with the changes to the CAF dress policy, despite chain of command and peer support, and this lack of agreement is associated with lower confidence in leadership," said the survey, dated March 15, 2024. The survey was conducted between November 2023 and last January.

Most (44.2 per cent) of the CAF members surveyed disagreed with the suggestion that the new regulations were good for the military, while roughly one third (33.4 per cent) were in favour.

Members were asked if they felt the relaxed grooming rules reinforced the identity the military wanted to project — 54 per cent said "no."

Most of the resistance to the new rules came from one branch of the Forces.