Emphasis mine.
I disagree with this wholeheartedly. As a CIC Officer, I am expected to lead my cadets. Physical fitness is one of the aims of the cadet program. How can I expect them to aim for high physical fitness if I won't do the same myself? Leadership by example is often important, and never moreso than when you are dealing with 12-18 year olds (particularly given that they can just up and leave if they don't like it).
Furthermore, as an officer in the CF, I am a representative of the CF wherever I am in uniform. This is particularly important in rural areas, where we are often the only representatives of the CF for quite a distance. If I am not in decent shape, I give a bad look to CF members everywhere. When we put on the uniform, Joe Public doesn't generally know the difference between me and an RegF mbr with 20 years experience and a few tours under their belt.
Also, I have encountered members who were not physically fit enough to do their jobs. The people like this in our side of the house are a prime example of why physical fitness testing to some standard (even if lower than the MPFS, though that should be achievable outside of those with MELs) should be occurring for us (I know these people exist in other sub-components/components but they already have this testing in place - doing something about it is up to their superiors IAW DAODs 5023-2 & 5019-4).
You're right. You lead by example and these young kids see you and emulate you. In theory it works, in practice if you held CIC officers to a fitness standard MANY would either not pass it or would quit. There are some very physically fit CIC types and also some very out of shape ones. If you turfed the ones who couldn't pass fitness tests the cadet movement would grind to a halt, regiments would fold due to lack of leadership. Kids would leave. It's just not something that's practical to enforce.
It's like the reserves in a way. In theory the CDS should be able to say regiments #1,2,3 and 5 pack your gear you're deploying. You might get a section of guys, or maybe a couple of sections, but a lot of people are gonna say 'ya right, good luck with that'.
People who aren't physically fit, people who have tons of administrative issues and people who just wanna work 4 weeknights a month.
If I was running a BFT and a CIC officer wanted to jump in and do it I'd let him or her. I'd give them a tacvest, helmet and rifle sans bolt and magazines and wish them luck. I'd also use common sense and if the CIC was clearly out of shape I would refuse them and have them do some work up training first, the same as I did for a clerk at my unit who's out of shape and fell out of a 400 meter walk. Had him do some training on his own,
sign off that he did training on his own then he was allowed to do the BFT, which he passed.
My concern for him was that with zero work up training if he thundered in on the BFT he'd turn around and try and get monetary compensation/work at the regiment for getting injured on the BFT with no work up. It's a pretty shady area from what i can tell.