Special Operations

Department: National Defence
Program code: BUN07 (ND)
Core responsibility: Operations
In Departmental Plans: 2018-19 – 2026-27 · New since an earlier plan

What it does

The Special Operations program employs forces in situations that pose an imminent threat to national interests that require specially selected, trained, and equipped personnel, to thrive in operational environments where political or physical risk is high.

Source: the department's Program Inventory, via GC InfoBase.

History and lineage

First appears in GC InfoBase's actual spending by program in 2018-19. The data does not record when a program was created; it may be older than its first appearance here, which is limited by the sources (program spending starts in 2010-11, Departmental Plans in 2018-19).

Bars: spending by fiscal year (dark: actual; light: actual restated on the 2017-18 program structure; outlined: the latest plan's forecast; grey: related programs). Bands: each program in the lineage over the years it has data.

Program	Relation	Years with data	Actual spending over those years
Special Operations	This program	2018-19 – 2028-29	$422M

No earlier or later program in the same department has a similar name.

Significant changes in scope and budget

Detected from the data: renames between plans, programs it appears to replace, merge with or split into (matched by name), year-over-year changes in spending of at least 25% and $5M, or in employees of at least 20% and 25 FTEs, linked budget measures, and results indicators added or dropped.

Year	What changed	Source
2020-21	Spending $26.2M, against $55.4M in 2019-20 (−53%).	Actual spending (GC InfoBase)
2021-22	Spending $35M, against $26.2M in 2020-21 (+34%).	Actual spending (GC InfoBase)
2022-23	Spending $47.2M, against $35M in 2021-22 (+35%).	Actual spending (GC InfoBase)
2023-24	Employees (FTEs) 155, against 0 in 2022-23 (—).	FTEs (GC InfoBase)
2023-24	Indicators added: % of Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) Operational Tasks that are achieved; % of requests made under the Canadian Forces Armed Assistance Directions (CFAAD), the Canadian Forces Assistance to Provincial Police Force Directions (CFAPPFP) or MOUs for support to the RCMP that are satisfied; % of the Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) Expeditionary Operational Tasks that are enabled by the Global SOF Network; % of Requests for Assistance that are satisfied	Departmental Results Framework (GC InfoBase)
2023-24	Indicators dropped: % of Canadian Forces Armed Assistance Directive (CFAAD) specifications satisfied; % of Request for Assistance specifications satisfied; % of the Chief of the Defence Staff designated tasks achieved; % of the Chief of the Defence Staff Tasks, in regions or domains where Allied presence is uniquely Special Operations Forces, that are enabled by the Global Special Operations Force Network	Departmental Results Framework (GC InfoBase)
2023-24	Spending $92.3M, against $47.2M in 2022-23 (+96%).	Actual spending (GC InfoBase)
2025-26	Indicators added: % of Requests for Assistance requiring Canadian Special Operations Forces Command (CANSOFCOM) support that are satisfied	Departmental Results Framework (GC InfoBase)
2025-26	Indicators dropped: % of Requests for Assistance that are satisfied	Departmental Results Framework (GC InfoBase)
2025-26	Planned spending $78.8M, against $111M in 2024-25 (−29%).	Latest Departmental Plan
2026-27	Planned spending $115M, against $78.8M in 2025-26 (+46%).	Latest Departmental Plan

Success criteria

The program's indicators from its department's Departmental Results Framework: the target set in each year's plan, and the result reported the following year. Source: GC InfoBase.