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Vance instead publicly asserted in February 2016, shortly after taking command of the Forces, that he wanted one in four service members to be women by 2026. At that time, barely 15 per cent of service members were women.

The latest figures provided by the Department of National Defence show at the beginning of January that had grown to 15.7 per cent.

“It’s not going up as fast as I thought it might,” Vance said.

But, he added, “we know for sure that there’s a healthier workplace with a better gender balance. We know that. So I refuse to abandon the percentage goal.”

The 25 per cent target was part of a push to make the Forces more reflective of Canadian society. It was given added importance given concurrent efforts to eradicate sexual misconduct in the military, which had been flagged only the year before as a significant problem in the ranks.

The Trudeau government has also made growing female representation in United Nations peacekeeping a foreign-policy priority.

Photo by Adrian Wyld/THE CANADIAN PRESS

The military has had noticeably more success with regards to representation of visible minorities, which grew to 8.6 per cent from 7.4 per cent in January 2017. The percentage of Indigenous People remained largely unchanged at 2.8 per cent.

Numerous measures and initiatives have been rolled out over the past three years to increase the number of women in uniform, including targeted recruiting campaigns, improvements to family support and the focus on eliminating sexual misconduct.