• Thanks for stopping by. Logging in to a registered account will remove all generic ads. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.

Cutting the CF/DND HQ bloat - Excess CF Sr Leadership, Public Servants and Contractors

Technoviking said:
re: 1.  That's what his or her section commander is for.
re: 2.  That's what his or her section commander is for.

re: both.  That's why we have a National Defence Act, Queen's Regulations and Orders.

Now, re: 2, please show me one iota of evidence that suggests that the CF needs a diversity?  It needs a common sense of purpose, irrespective of the background, culture or ethnicity of its members.
Click to expand...

Does it enhance a section's ability to interact with the locals if they have a native speaker integral, or is it preferable for them to rely on locally-engaged pers?  If we are engaging in COIN, I'd argue integral resources are a better fit than hired.


And re: QR&O:  Who writes them for the section commanders?  Do they magically appear from on high, carved into stone tablets?  Should we have non-military personnel write them all?  Or do we need military engagement, and have some military personnel spend enough time to understand and work with the system to understand our needs and influence that battle space?
 
dapaterson said:
Does it enhance a section's ability to interact with the locals if they have a native speaker integral, or is it preferable for them to rely on locally-engaged pers?  If we are engaging in COIN, I'd argue integral resources are a better fit than hired.
Click to expand...
It helps if we have soldiers shooting centre of mass when required.  (By "shooting" I mean not just with their weapons, but also metaphorically shooting, as in engaging).  We don't need a frigging ADM (Multiculturalism) to do COIN.
dapaterson said:
And re: QR&O:  Who writes them for the section commanders?  Do they magically appear from on high, carved into stone tablets?  Should we have non-military personnel write them all?  Or do we need military engagement, and have some military personnel spend enough time to understand and work with the system to understand our needs and influence that battle space?
Click to expand...
We don't need a fucking Language Czar in our military, or a diversity dude, or whatever.  We need command direction, and yes, that ultimately comes from the civilians in DND, based on direction from the Government.
We have laws and orders and directives.  Those orders and directives enforced by commanders is all we need.  Yes, we need a certain level of bureaucracy, but if we have a fucking LCol whose job is "diversity", then we've jumped the shark on that.


My  :2c:

 
Well, we do need people to manage those programs.  Not because the NDA says so, but because other government legislation says so.  We can't just ignore things like the Official Languages Act or the Employment Equity Act that affect all government departments.

So you put someone in charge.  As these are pan-department programs that impact everyone to some extent, it should be someone with some seniority and experience.

As odious as that sounds to some, it is a necessity of Defence Management.

However, I find it a stretch to argue that the Employment Equity Act gives Infantry Sections an edge in foreign missions.  People don't join front line units because of some fluffy Government program.
 
The problem A problem is that we have mandarins where we should have minions.
 
I have some sympathy for the Technoviking's position. In a long albeit undistinguished military career I learned very, very early on that orders not only must but should be obeyed and after a few reminders in the first few weeks of my career that lesson stayed firmly implanted in my mind.

I obeyed, without 'help' from anyone else, about 99.9% of the orders I ever received. I'm pretty sure I disobeyed a few because I never even knew they existed but, generally, when I disobeyed any order it was a conscious decisions and I knew why I was making it and I understood the potential consequences. I didn't like funny coloured ascots so I wore an olive drab cotton mesh scarf with my combat uniform; both the CO and the adjutant cast disapproving glances but neither chose to make an issue of it; years later we were faced with an order from on high that I thought was extremely ill conceived, in fact downright wrong. I left my office and went into the general work area where my deputy was getting people organized to obey the order and said, in a loud voice, something like "No need, Jacques; we only ever had one item of even remote interest and since I just shredded it, we need not waste everyone's time in a fruitless search for that which doesn't exist."

By the way, I do agree with promoting diversity and while I am not a fan of the whole official languages industry I have done my bit to obey the laws because that's what good soldiers do - even when, as in the case of technical documentation (a molehill issue in the early 1980s), the rules promoted waste and inefficiency and  were counter-productive.
 
E.R. Campbell said:
....years later we were faced with an order from on high that I thought was extremely ill conceived, in fact downright wrong.
Click to expand...
I did however find a journal article, which I had photocopied earier but misplaced. I'd like to thank the entire CF (minus your shop, I guess  ;)  ) for downing tools that day to help me find that paper.  ;D
 
milnews.ca said:
Especially when TV himself only did four colours
Click to expand...

Ironic: nice 'rainbow effect'. Do the Village People have a Viking on staff now too?  ;D
 
Its not the generals


Its an amazing number of officers above Capt to Col at Fort Fumble

Check Outlook on the Din

Search for Maj

Clip into the To box of the email

Then clip that list of addresses into Word and use search replace

Insert Bloat for Ottawa

What number comes up?

Repeat for LCDR

Repeat for Lcol/Cdr etc to Col/Capt

Gen Leslie is on to something







author=ArmyRick link=topic=97262/post-984784#msg984784 date=1288138775]
I thought about it and figured I would start a new thread. Mods, if this belongs else where, please move it.

How many generals and Admirals can the CF function with at a minimum? Seriously food for thought. Looking at the LFC, here is my answer I have come up with.

1 x Major General command LFC (We are not that large of an army)
1 x BGen, deputy comd
4 x BGEn as comd LFWA, LFCA, SQFT and LFAA (I think this is appropriate move we made many years ago)
Combine LFDTS as a sub unit of CTC Gagetown and make the CTC Colonel also double hatted as LFDTS Comd
1 x Bgen, for overseas land operations (So like a swing eneral)

That puts my count at 7 generals. Anybody in the Air Force and navy want to counger up a similar figure for their services?

The fewer chiefs we have, the more warriors we could in theory employ.

Thoughts? Ideas? Agree or Disagree? Rotten Tomatoes pitched at my head?
[/quote]
 
Infanteer said:
Well, we do need people to manage those programs.  Not because the NDA says so, but because other government legislation says so.  We can't just ignore things like the Official Languages Act or the Employment Equity Act that affect all government departments.

So you put someone in charge.  As these are pan-department programs that impact everyone to some extent, it should be someone with some seniority and experience.

As odious as that sounds to some, it is a necessity of Defence Management.

However, I find it a stretch to argue that the Employment Equity Act gives Infantry Sections an edge in foreign missions.  People don't join front line units because of some fluffy Government program.
Click to expand...
Could someone from DND fill those positions, instead of a staff trained senior officer (and his staff)?
(and you're quite right.  Government policy must be followed, of course)
 
David

I have been into the liquid fount of all knowledge, but who would you suggest instead of someone who struggled his or her way up through the system? How about your predecessor in Infantry U or some old plug like me?
 
Some of the latest (perceived?) intrigue, via the Globe & Mail:
.... According to officials who spoke on condition they not be named because they are not authorized to speak on behalf of the military or the government, Chief of Defence Staff Walt Natynczyk forwarded the report to Defence Minister Peter MacKay without a recommendation when it was completed last month. That lack of an explicit endorsement is seen as evidence that General Natynczyk is not backing the report.

Not so, said Jay Paxton, spokesman for Mr. MacKay.

Both the minister and the Chief of the Defence Staff “are grateful with the efforts of the transformation team,” he said.

“This report supports our look ahead and helps us provide front-line troops with the tools they need to do the jobs asked of them.”

It is hardly surprising that Gen. Natynczyk would be privately cool to Lt.-Gen. Leslie’s report. Its main recommendations severely criticize the very organizational structure created by Gen. Natynczyk and Rick Hillier, the previous chief of the defence staff, describing it as filled with “administrative incoherence … stifling process, blurred authorities … (and) reluctance at all levels to accept managerial risk.”

Without Gen. Natynczyk’s strong endorsement, Lt.-Gen. Leslie’s report could be consigned to the scrap heap of failed proposals for military reform. However, sources also say the document, entitled Report on Transformation 2011, has generated considerable interest within the Prime Minister’s Office. ....
Click to expand...
1)  Re:  the bit in yellow, the Ministers's spokesperson speaks for the Minister, not necessarily the CDS, so I read that as at least some support. 
2)  If the PM and his team were unhappy about the leak, I think we would have pretty clearly heard about said unhappiness by now.  I haven't seen anything via the media, so I'm guessing no unhappiness at PMO.

My :2c:
 
milnews.ca said:
.... the Ministers's spokesperson speaks for the Minister, not necessarily the CDS, so I read that as at least some support ....
Click to expand...
And here's some of what the Toronto Star says the CDS had to say:
The head of the Canadian Forces is standing behind a report that calls $1-billion in savings by slashing military contractors, the size of the reserve force and civilians in the defence department.

Gen. Walt Natynczyk, the chief of the defence staff, said Thursday that the force has already started to reduce the number of full-time reserve force personnel and cut its reliance on civilians but some of the more substantial cuts require further study and approval from the Conservative government.

“It’s a big number,” he said of the $1 billion in administrative costs that could go on the chopping block.

“Of course I’m concerned, but indeed we’re all part of government.”

The proposed cuts put the ruling Conservatives in a politically difficult position. The party has branded itself as the steadfast supporter of Canada’s military and backed it with an ambitious 20-year-plan to re-equip the force.

Cuts to the defence budget are necessary to eliminate the federal deficit, but make the wrong cuts — or cut too deep — and the government risks plunging the military back into a financial funk, the likes of which have not been seen since the 1990s.

(....)

....Natynczyk accepted little of the blame for the growth in the bureaucracy, both since 2009 when he took his current job or in previous positions at the top of Canada’s military hierarchy.

When the federal government cut the defence budget by 35% in 1994-95, Natynczyk said, among the many positions eliminated were those of military cooks and air force flight instructors. Their jobs were contracted out to private companies.

“We also hired more (contracted) folks in the past five years because of the operational tempo. We took a lot more of those military cooks and we sent them into operations,” he said.

“Now what we have to do is demonstrate the discipline and the rigour and go through all those contracts and say, ‘What don’t we need anymore?’ ”
Click to expand...
 
I know this is going to be a surprise to many here  ;D but here's what CTV says Hillier had to say about the proposed Leslie report changes - highlights mine:
.... Gen. Rick Hillier says the transformation report, written by Lt-Gen. Andrew Leslie in the months before his retirement last week, will compromise military effectiveness if put in place.

“You try to implement that report as it is and you destroy the Canadian military,” Hillier told CTV's Power Play on Tuesday. “You simply can’t take that many people out of command and control functions.”

(....)

“There are some areas where you can do some cuts and the Canadian Forces will have to pay a price, but to implement that report would not be wise,” Hillier said in the interview. “If you take a billion dollars out, you will lessen military operational capability.”

Hillier noted the Afghanistan mission has improved the public perception of the military in decade since 9-11. There is greater support to equip soldiers with the right equipment and support staff.

“It’s a different equation now. The government would be very well advised to walk slowly,” he warned ....
Click to expand...
CTV.ca, 8 Sept 11
 
I'd be interested to see what Gen Hillier is specifically referring to in his critique.  The basic crux of LGen Leslie's report, contrary to what Hillier says, is correct in targeting HQ growth that is many times greater then "pointy end" growth.  Perhaps the solution isn't so much in consolidating HQs, as Leslie recommends, but rather in simply reducing HQs to previous manning levels (ie:  Brigades can go from 60 to 40).

This would take some careful review of what we ask HQ staffs to do; Leslie's report contains this, but I think this aspect may be lost in the furor over the organizational diagram....
 
dapaterson said:
(1) They ensure we obey and respect the laws were are sworn to uphold.

(2) They provide tools and leverage to get us out of our self-defeating "anglo-saxon white males only" attitudes, and give use a more diverse CF, which enables mission success in diverse areas where we can leverage those experiences and language and cultural skills.
Click to expand...

1) Agree with TV; 1 is the perview of the CoC (for the rifleman, that would be the Section Commander). We have a JAG office to deal with complex issues.

2) While this is an ideal, I simply don't have access to an infinite number of people with all the cultural awareness and languages needed. We could be deployed at short notice anywhere on Earth, and it is a crap shoot if the I have anyone in the section or platoon who knows the local language or dialect. Far better to hire or train people for the purpose. We have been very deficient in that regard, I never got any in depth language training for Cyprus, Bosnia or Afghanistan, and Infanteer has also pointed out that we have been there for a decade without training anyone to speak Pushtu or Dari. How dumb is that? (I also met a Sgt from Three Vandoo who complained they were sent to Haiti because they "spoke French", even though the French spoken in Haiti has little resemblance to French spoken anywhere else). Imagine if we suddenly have to deploy to North Korea when the regime collapses; how many Korean speakers are in your unit?

Short answer, "diversity" is no guarantee that you will have access to the skill sets you need in a different cultural environment.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top