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OTTAWA — The Trump White House’s online trolling campaign against Canada now includes publicly shaming members of Canada’s youth cadet corps.

In an X post Monday evening, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth posted an image from the Vernon, B.C. Cadet Training Centre’s Instagram account, depicting a female officer in the Cadet Instructors Cadre (CIC) presenting a medal to a young girl wearing the uniform of a Canadian army cadet.

“This is real,” read Hegseth’s tweet, complete with a Canadian flag, ostensibly making a comment about the CIC officer’s weight and the gender of the two women in the photo.

🇨🇦 (this is real) pic.twitter.com/Ucx2FNdi1q

— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) September 1, 2026

The photo tweeted by Hegseth was taken during an awards ceremony at a Cadet summer training session — multi-week training courses held every summer at Cadet Training Centres (CTCs) in Vernon, B.C., Greenwood, N.S., and Trenton, Ont.

The Canadian Cadet Program is this country’s largest federally funded youth program, with up to 60,000 active cadets, aged between 12 and 17, belonging to over 1,110 local cadet corps and squadrons nationwide.

Members of the Royal Canadian Sea Cadets, Army Cadets or Air Cadets are overseen by CIC officers, sub-component members of the Canadian Forces reserve, assisted by community volunteers and senior cadets.

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Reaction to Hegseth’s post was swift.

“Cadets do great work, and are not members of the military,” wrote Conservative MP Garnett Genuis in reply to Hegseth’s post.

“158 members of the Canadian military gave their lives in Afghanistan after your country was attacked. Canada and the US have a great history of fighting together for freedom and justice. It’s history worth remembering.”

United States Marine Corps veteran and commentator Ron Filipkowski was likewise critical of Hegseth’s post.

“Just a vile, insecure scumbag and a disgrace to the U.S. military,” he wrote.

Joe Varner, a senior Macdonald Laurier Institute Fellow and policy director for former defence minister Peter MacKay, told the Toronto Sun that Hegseth’s tweet was a new low for the Trump White House.

“It was a petty tweet by a man that typically doesn’t like women in uniform,” he said.

“(Cadets) are trained in citizenship, leadership and other life skills, and the CICs that lead these cadet corps are community volunteers — they’re moms, fathers, university or high school teachers, they are community volunteers largely. They’re not deployable, they’re not combat troops.”

Varner also found Hegseth’s tweet interesting, considering the problems experienced by the U.S. military in keeping their troops in fit, fighting shape.

“The U.S. Defence Secretary should know that 68% of his country’s military are considered to be overweight or obese,” he said.

Varner, himself a former reserve officer in the CAF, had nothing but praise for the officer depicted in the photo.

“God bless her for taking the time to work with Canadian youth, and being proud enough to do it wearing the uniform of the Canadian Forces,” Varner said.

bpassifiume@postmedia.com
X: @bryanpassifiume