Justin Trudeau hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[SupersonicMax]

Creating the positions is easy. Funding them is not.

As for recruiting, give them decent equipment (not a CF tradition, unfortunately) and the same hotel accommodations as your aircrew . . .

There are uptapped positions in the notional 71,500 PY establishment. They would be funded.

 

[Gunplumber]

A bit testy aren't we?

Because YOUR solution isn't acceptable to this forum?

Yes I am testy, because no one seems to think we should change how things are done. You are all worried about your careers and promotions and not about having a capable fighting force. As Kevin said above, look at the number of GOFOs we have. it's ludicrous. Until we have at least one full strength and fully equipped brigade we can't call ourselves an Army. and that wont happen....

 

[Furniture]

Yes I am testy, because no one seems to think we should change how things are done. You are all worried about your careers and promotions and not about having a capable fighting force. As Kevin said above, look at the number of GOFOs we have. it's ludicrous. Until we have at least one full strength and fully equipped brigade we can't call ourselves an Army. and that wont happen....

Nobody said the current system is good, or even working.

What people have pointed out is that your proposals are not realistic.

Changes need to be made to cut the admin burden, and streamline HQ staffs, so those positions can be put back into the operational portions of the CAF. Some of those changes can be made by the CAF itself, but some require changes from the GoC.

There are no simple solutions, and every change has unintended consequences that need to be accounted for. See CFHD as a "good idea" that has had unintended negative concequences...

 

[FJAG]

was a gunplumer with RCHA. Had 6 M-109s, hundreds of rifles and 20 or so machine guns. I was a Cpl, should I have been a Sgt?

I was a BK of an M109 battery in 3 RCHA. My maintenance section ran from between 12-14 pers. My maintenance section commander was a RCEME sergeant.

Despite being more than just a tad hyperbolic, Gunplumber is NOT 100% wrong. The CF has a C2 superstructure (HQs and very senior officers) suitable, maybe, for a force three or four times as large.

Agreed

The IDF has 150,000+ men and women on full time service and nearly 500,000 in the reserves. The CDS is a lieutenant general ... tell me why they're wrong, please. The Indians have a four star CDS and a 4 star Chief of the General Staff but they have over 1 million men and women on active service in the army and nearly another million in the reserve army so I can't complain that they are overhanded. But Canada ... a four star CDS for less than 70,000 full time and less than 30,000 reserve members?

Any time that you amalgamate existing organizations you generally create a new higher command level commanded someone with one rank up. Unification/Integration did that.

I can live with the concept that divisions - real divisions - are commanded by a major-general. It's been that way since time immemorial regardless of whether brigades were run by colonels or brigadiers. Therefore if you have divisions commanded by a major general than the next level up - in our case the army - should be a lieutenant-general. Canada does have enough soldiers (RegF and ResF combined) to merit two divisions ergo the army should be commanded by a LGen. Unfortunately unification automatically generates a four star as CDS

That said, I agree with the IDF concept and think we should emulate it. Their brigades, like ours are commanded by colonels. Their divisions, like our weak ones, are commanded by brigadier generals. With that established, and unless we decide to form a corps - which we won't, means we could easily get by with a MGen as army commander. The RCN and RCAF are each less than 1/3 the size of the army and could get by with a MGen or less as commanders. One wouldn't even need a LGen as CDS if one drifted into the area of a US Joint Chief of Staff and combatant command model. A group of MGens running the CAF and one running CJOC would be more commensurate with the CAF's size.

I'm also a believer that staff should never outrank the subordinate commanders within their commands - I prefer a brigade major to a LCol COS. That becomes even more important when one goes to the central CAF staff structure. Not only is it highly over ranked but each GOFO comes with his own little gaggle of staff.

All of that said, the over ranking of GOFOs isn't the cause of the problem here. I agree with @Furniture when he says.

Changes need to be made to cut the admin burden, and streamline HQ staffs, so those positions can be put back into the operational portions of the CAF. Some of those changes can be made by the CAF itself, but some require changes from the GoC.

The problem is that with unification/integration there has been a proliferation of rules, regulations and processes that complicate administration far beyond what is necessary and reasonable. Every GOFO will tell you he needs the staff he has to do that task assigned. And more often than not they are right. The question is whether the job they are doing is necessary or is worth the squeeze in the first place. CPCC is just one glaring example of that. Another is JAG. Over the last few decades, while the CAF was shrinking, the Office of the JAG was ballooning. Suddenly everyone needed a lawyer. But, did they really? And does JAG need to be an MGen?

Yes I am testy, because no one seems to think we should change how things are done. You are all worried about your careers and promotions and not about having a capable fighting force. As Kevin said above, look at the number of GOFOs we have. it's ludicrous. Until we have at least one full strength and fully equipped brigade we can't call ourselves an Army. and that wont happen....

I think you are wrong when you say "No one seems to think we should change how things are done." Lots of us do. Most of us on this site are well past having a career. Like you I suspect that there is a bit of a Stockholm syndrome at play amongst those who still serve. Bureaucracies - and the CAF is one - have a penchant for preserving and protecting the status quo. Insiders feel they have a handle on it and change is threatening unless it is first evaluated to death. Change inevitably results in more processes and more staff to run them; rarely is anything trimmed downward.

You can't fine tune a system like the CAF once it gets into the state that its in. It will take a massive revolution to correct course. Sadly, I don't think that will ever happen unless you get both a MND and a CDS at the same time who are jointly prepared to clean house in a big way. Considering that the entire civil service is bloated I doubt that our staffing situation even merits a notice at the GoC level.

 

[Gunplumber]

Apparently FJAG writes and thinks much better than me (quel Suprise). He is totally right about what needs to be done and I think it has to be drastic or it wont happen, hence my comment about making the CDS a Colonel.

My regiment decided that my MCpl in the Battery was needed elsewhere so I had to maintain a whole battery of Guns by myself, I know what it's like to be overworked and started my journey down hate lane. Got out of the Regs because of that.

 

[Good2Golf]

Read my lips SENIOR OFFICERS

You got rid of most of them, certainly all the generals and admirals.