MONTREAL — It's getting heavy at the top of the Canadian military.

Numbers uncovered by QMI Agency show an alarming trend of rising salaries for our top brass that are unmatched by our allies.

The hungry administration is taking a bigger chunk of the Armed Forces' $20-billion budget every year -- at a time when equipment needs continue to make headlines. A quarter of our soldiers are executives, QMI found — a ratio unparalleled in NATO. Their salaries are sometimes double those of similar ranks in other western countries. For instance, the starting salary of a Canadian sergeant is $64,992. A French soldier of the same rank makes only $26,380.

Retired colonel Michel Drapeau, who served 34 years in the Forces, says he's concerned with the current situation.

"Not many countries, even the richest ones, could spend their money like the Canadian military does," Drapeau said.

The problem is not how much money we spend, he said, but rather that the amount is not reflected in the military's effectiveness.

Half of the Forces' budget is spent on salary — soldiers, personnel, and pensions — according to NATO's data. That's 15% more of the total budget than what the Americans and British spend.

There's only 14.7% for equipment spending, at a time when the government is struggling to replace Canada's aging naval fleet and rusting aircraft. Comparatively, the U.S. spends 24.7% of its military budget on equipment, France spends 28.6% and the United Kingdom 23.1%.

Canada's military budget is among the top 20 in the world, and yet there are 70 other countries with more soldiers.

According to numbers obtained by QMI Agency, there were 9,550 military employees working in the nation's capital in 2003. There are now more than 20,000. Even though the Canadian Armed Forces is much smaller than its American counterpart, the number of bureaucrats working at its Ottawa headquarters matches the number at the Pentagon.

Drapeau says Parliament isn't looking closely enough into military spending. He says the American system is much more efficient because Congress keeps a close eye on how the money is spent. "The problem is that we have a tight-knit military that operates in complete secrecy," Drapeau says.

Researcher Aude Fleurant of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute agrees.

Fleurant says he's seen in his own research a trend towards less transparency.

"It's now more difficult to access documents, whereas before they were easily available. The United States is more transparent," Fleurant says.

Besides high spending at the top of the ladder, there are several other spending practices within the Forces that have raised questions over the years.

One is a $5-a-day stipend for soldiers in jail in Canada. The initiative aims to better rehabilitate them for release. Military sources told QMI Agency that many inside the Forces are baffled by the existence of the program.

Canada's military spends about $700 million every year on education and training. But for the past 20 years, about 50 soldiers study abroad each year, racking up bills of tens of thousands of dollars. In one case, taxpayers forked over $246,888 in one year to send a military judge to the prestigious London School of Economics.

Only recently did the federal government adjust a provision that paid moving expenses for retiring military brass, even if they were moving within the same city.