Canada moves to 2% GDP end of FY25/26 - PMMC

[daftandbarmy]

The whole of the CAF needs to have this realization.

You'd be surprised... complacency rules even in times of crisis.

For many years in the UK the barracks had no fences around them, or much comprehensive controlled access at all, even after the IRA had blown up a few of them.

I recall being looked at with wonder when I, as Duty Officer, ordered the guard to bring out some of the logs we used for PT and put them across the entrance road to our barracks in Aldershot to build a field expedient chicane after the threat level went through the roof. There was no entrance gate or 'non-permissive' structures of any kind, and a below average car bomber could easily have driven right up to the block housing both RHQ and the Guardhouse, taking care of business in one go.

The logs were gone the next day, of course, because: PT

 

[lenaitch]

We seem to have a lot of that going around these days.

Sir Robert Peel called for "citizens in uniform" and expected the rest of the citizenry to assist their fellow citizens in the commission of their duties. Up to and including apprehending and detaining suspects. (And defending themselves and their homes - but back to the point).

Peel assumed a mass of citizens, divided by class but, all citizens.

Currently we have a citizenry, including the police, divided into those that went to university and profess the faith and the rest of the unbelievers that didn't go to school.

And our institutions only recruit those that have learned the catechism.

Police, like many other sectors of society, are no longer reflective of the society they serve. They assist less and direct more.

In the States, in Indiana, the cops lived among us. To emphasize the fact they drove their cruisers home and parked them in their driveways.

Setting aside that the concept of 'citizen' was different back then (i.e. women as chattel), the world, and law enforcement, is a tad more complex now.

Personal vehicle assignment is common in several US jurisdictions. Where it doesn't exist, is a cop living on your street still not part of the community.

This thread shouldn't devolve into the law enforcement or emergency services in general. I think there is a thread for that.

 

[MilEME09]

On the topic of security at bases, should our ID cards include biometrics in the future?

 

[MJP]

On the topic of security at bases, should our ID cards include biometrics in the future?

We can't even issue a driver's license properly

 

[MilEME09]

We can't even issue a driver's license properly

Fair point, which is one thing we gotta sort out when the CDS wants more troops

 

[RedFive]

Currently we have a citizenry, including the police, divided into those that went to university and profess the faith and the rest of the unbelievers that didn't go to school.

And our institutions only recruit those that have learned the catechism.

Police, like many other sectors of society, are no longer reflective of the society they serve. They assist less and direct more.

In the States, in Indiana, the cops lived among us. To emphasize the fact they drove their cruisers home and parked them in their driveways.

RCMP Hiring pre-requisites

There is no requirement to have post secondary education in my agency. We will also hire permanent residents, so your assertion that there's some differentiation between the haves and have nots in policing is wrong, unless I've missed the point here.

We help, sometimes by taking control of a situation and giving direction. Sometimes that upsets people. Oh well. Chances are if the situation just needed somebody to "help", it didn't require the police in the first place. The days of your friendly neighbourhood Constable on his beat helping little old ladies cross the street and stranded motorists are over. There aren't enough of us, we've been cut to a razor thin budget, there's always some other emergency we're trying to get to and deal with.

If the public wants their friendly neighbourhood Constable on his beat back, they'd better be prepared to spend a lot more money on prisons, start firing judges who refuse to hold people in custody or sentence appropriately, and roughly double our budgets so people like me have the time to do that kind of thing.

I live in the community I police. I would absolutely love to have a set of RCMP wheels to drive home so I don't have to spend my own gas driving to work like everybody else in the world, but that's not realistic. My detachment had, at its peak, slightly less than 1000 police officers. The city can't afford that size of the fleet and neither can the Feds. The public would be pissed if every one of us had a personal set of government owned wheels to take home.

In short, its clear you don't like the police. But you've yet to propose a reasonable, well thought out way to improve things for the public.

 

[Kirkhill]

RCMP Hiring pre-requisites

There is no requirement to have post secondary education in my agency. We will also hire permanent residents, so your assertion that there's some differentiation between the haves and have nots in policing is wrong, unless I've missed the point here.

We help, sometimes by taking control of a situation and giving direction. Sometimes that upsets people. Oh well. Chances are if the situation just needed somebody to "help", it didn't require the police in the first place. The days of your friendly neighbourhood Constable on his beat helping little old ladies cross the street and stranded motorists are over. There aren't enough of us, we've been cut to a razor thin budget, there's always some other emergency we're trying to get to and deal with.

If the public wants their friendly neighbourhood Constable on his beat back, they'd better be prepared to spend a lot more money on prisons, start firing judges who refuse to hold people in custody or sentence appropriately, and roughly double our budgets so people like me have the time to do that kind of thing.

I live in the community I police. I would absolutely love to have a set of RCMP wheels to drive home so I don't have to spend my own gas driving to work like everybody else in the world, but that's not realistic. My detachment had, at its peak, slightly less than 1000 police officers. The city can't afford that size of the fleet and neither can the Feds. The public would be pissed if every one of us had a personal set of government owned wheels to take home.

In short, its clear you don't like the police. But you've yet to propose a reasonable, well thought out way to improve things for the public.

Dead wrong on me not liking the police.

I think there should be little distance between the policeman on the beat and public.

 

[RedFive]

Dead wrong on me not liking the police.

I think there should be little distance between the policeman on the beat and public.

So what do you propose to close that gap?

 

[Kirkhill]

So what do you propose to close that gap?

To be honest I don't know. I grew up in a country where I saw police on the street and was told to go find them when I was in trouble. I grew up with friends of the family who were coppers. My cousin's daughter is a DCI with the West Midland and his other daughter is a forensic psychologist with the Prison Service. One bangs them up and the other tries to get them out....

In Canada one of our neighbours was a local copper. He and Dad were pals.

Beyond those folks I can honestly say that I have had no social contact with any policeman of any sort. Except for the Hoosier trooper who lived on our crescent in Indiana.

 

[quadrapiper]

It is not “To-MAY-to, To-MAH-to” when we have the law governing the CAF explicitly stating one of these is not okay.

Why does Class C exist at all? A B contract can stretch, IIRC, to the duration of WWII...

 

[McG]

The existence of Class C and Class B is not the problem. The problem is a chronic use of Class B to circumvent Reg F personnel caps and create positions that persist forever is inconsistent with the NDA.

 

[FJAG]

I see this as a bit of a To-MAY-to, To-MAH-to issue. Your new class of RegF service is a member that is assigned to a permanent posting while a Reservist on Class C is a member that has full-time employment where they live. Either way it's someone fulfilling a full-time position and not being subject to re-location. One requires a new class of RegF service the other makes use of a class of Reserve service that already exists. I don't really care which way it is handled administratively but the end result remains the same.

It's not really. The NDA specifies that:

Regular force

• 15 (1) There shall be a component of the Canadian Forces, called the regular force, that consists of officers and non-commissioned members who are enrolled for continuing, full-time military service.
  (2) The maximum numbers of officers and non-commissioned members in the regular force shall be as authorized by the Governor in Council, and the regular force shall include such units and other elements as are embodied therein.

In other words the government limits the size of the regular force through an OiC - currently to some 71,500 albeit that it is understrength at roughly 63,500. All of those 71,500 positions are set against a specific regular force establishment. There is nothing wrong whatsoever in employing reservists to backfill empty full-time positions which can't be filled with RegF personnel regardless of whether at Class B or C. There is also nothing wrong with having reservists serve on short term Class B or C service contracts.

There is a problem, however, when the CAF, without a government authorized OiC, creates additional continuing, full-time positions to be filled by Class C reservists indefinitely. Let's say you create an additional 5,000 continuing, full-time security force positions across the country (over and above the 71,500 RegF positions) to be filled by full-time reservists.

If, on the other hand, you take the OiC authorized 71,500 regular force positions and let's say you assign 10,000 of those to static positions and 61,500 to postable positions then you have not exceeded the overall full-time establishment.

Over and above strict legal interpretive issue there are funding allocation and funding source issues involved when you take. @dapaterson can explain those much better than I.

Why does Class C exist at all? A B contract can stretch, IIRC, to the duration of WWII...

QR&O 9.06 to 9.08 explains the difference. There are pay and benefits issues as well.

 

[RangerRay]

I remember a time when we’d be actually armed for certain security tasks. Now it seems people are afraid of risk. They are more worried about NDs over actual security gaps.

Meanwhile, thousands of LEOs are deployed around the country everyday with one in the pipe and ND’s are negligible.

Paris at Christmas and new years in 2017 was definitely different to see sections of the french army doing patrols around important objects, there was probably a platoon alone at the Louvre. new years eve probably had a few battalions on the Champs-Élysées for security of both police and military, having to pass two check points just to get to my cab, something most canadians would never expierence.

They have been guarding landmarks there at least since the 80’s. I saw them doing that in summer 2009 at all the monuments and train stations.

The question I have is are they Army or Gendarmes in combat uniform? I’m not good at my French Army and Gendarmerie badges. It would make more sense to me for them to be Gendarmes, but I’m not French…

 

[GR66]

It's not really. The NDA specifies that:


In other words the government limits the size of the regular force through an OiC - currently to some 71,500 albeit that it is understrength at roughly 63,500. All of those 71,500 positions are set against a specific regular force establishment. There is nothing wrong whatsoever in employing reservists to backfill empty full-time positions which can't be filled with RegF personnel regardless of whether at Class B or C. There is also nothing wrong with having reservists serve on short term Class B or C service contracts.

There is a problem, however, when the CAF, without a government authorized OiC, creates additional continuing, full-time positions to be filled by Class C reservists indefinitely. Let's say you create an additional 5,000 continuing, full-time security force positions across the country (over and above the 71,500 RegF positions) to be filled by full-time reservists.

If, on the other hand, you take the OiC authorized 71,500 regular force positions and let's say you assign 10,000 of those to static positions and 61,500 to postable positions then you have not exceeded the overall full-time establishment.

Over and above strict legal interpretive issue there are funding allocation and funding source issues involved when you take. @dapaterson can explain those much better than I.



QR&O 9.06 to 9.08 explains the difference. There are pay and benefits issues as well.

And the NDA also specifies:

Reserve force

(3) There shall be a component of the Canadian Forces, called the reserve force, that consists of officers and non-commissioned members who are enrolled for other than continuing, full-time military service when not on active service.

Could the government not then simply through OiC increase the number of Reserve positions by enough to cover the security force requirements and place that number of Reservists on active service?

The Government could even in light of the increasing tensions with Russia and China declare an emergency and use volunteers from the Reserves to create a Special Force to fulfill the security role:

Special force

• 16 (1) In an emergency, or if considered desirable in consequence of any action undertaken by Canada under the United Nations Charter or the North Atlantic Treaty, the North American Aerospace Defence Command Agreement or any other similar instrument to which Canada is a party, the Governor in Council may establish and authorize the maintenance of a component of the Canadian Forces, called the special force, consisting of
  
  • (a) officers and non-commissioned members of the regular force who are placed in the special force under conditions prescribed in regulations;
  • (b) officers and non-commissioned members of the reserve force who, being on active service or having applied and been accepted for continuing, full-time military service, are placed in the special force under conditions prescribed in regulations; and

In reality the point is that the World has changed and Canada and the CAF need to take security of our installations more seriously than we have in the past. Exactly how we go about it doesn't really matter. Do it through existing laws and regulations or change/create new laws/regulations to make it work.

 

[FJAG]

Could the government not then simply through OiC increase the number of Reserve positions by enough to cover the security force requirements and place that number of Reservists on active service?

Sorry but you are missing the point.

Of course the government could place the reserves or a part of the reserves on active service. That would be a perfectly legal political decision if the circumstances meet the conditions of s31(1) of the NDA. I don't think that the creation of a security force during peacetime would fall within the meaning of s31(1) without stretching meaning of "emergency" ( a defined term under the act) to Trumpian levels of exaggeration. Nor would the other paras apply for that.

If the CAF needs a 3,000 person full-time security force the government could easily increase the number of RegF personnel by an OiC - that's just a financial decision well within their statutory power. If the CAF wants those people to stay in that location without a posting, then it is free to do so.

The problem is that's not what's happening. It's mot the government but the CAF itself that is employing hundreds and thousands of reservists on full-time service on a continuing basis because they believe they have a need for more full-time personnel than they are allocated RegF positions and they have budgets or can access budgets to hire reservists on a full-time basis. Ottawa is awash with those situations. In some situations, Class A budgets suffer because of that. These are administrative actions within the CAF akin to wink, wink, nudge, nudge and which have over the decades become normalized.

I can't understand why you are trying to complicate matters when the simple answer is: If there is a need for such a force then convince the government to authorize the RegF positions to man it and create the RegF units required. It's bloody simple. If the government doesn't authorize the extra positions then the CAF can reallocate RegF positions from its existing PY holdings.