I never liked the reasons for not teaching CCO.
It's good training. Theres reasons that go far above my head but I personally think it's an over reaction.
I don't see it as Canadian soldiers being trained to stand off against Canadian civilians. I see it as Canadian soldiers who get deployed overseas being trained how to deal with riots and crowds.
Steping away from the political reasons, how often are we hearing American soldiers in Iraq saying "well i wasn't trained for that, i wasn't briefed on what to do"
Spending 2 or 3 days doing CCO training before going overseas (maybe once or twice when your over there for something to do) is not going to make our soldiers proficient in it.
CCO training was probably some of the best training I've done. It's loud, physical, scary at times, gets you and your buddies working closely together. It's a riot
I've heard guys in the battalions complain often enough that theirs not much to do during the day. Theres no money for exercises, no money for ammo. Aside from some basic gear CCO training isn't that expensive. A helmet, baton, shield, shin guards, what more do you need?
Why not take a week or two and devote it to CCO training. Guys have a blast taking turns being the enemy force showing up to work in civies throwing crap at their buddies.
For the reserves it's even more of a problem getting equipment but would sending a driver up to petawawa, signing out some CCO stores then having a week-end ex doing CCO stuff be that hard to do? I guarantee it'll be cheaper than spending a week-end doing section attacks with all the pyro and blanks.
How I see it, train our soldiers on everything we possibly can. CCO, hand to hand combat, basic demolitions, intelligence gathering, security, maybe negotiating, anything we can throw at our guys.
Considering whats going on in the world today having the best trained soldiers (especially in CCO) seems like an ideal thing.