jollyjacktar said:
A strange tale indeed. I'm not sure on how much of it is accurate, how much speculation, how much innuendo. I have no doubt that circumstance became a vicious circle after time. There seems to be some indication that "something" was happening. Don't know how or if it could get ironed out after all this time.
Well, I have a whole bunch of comments after reading through it. The guy and his family were obviously discriminated against in Esquimault.
The flaws I see with regards to further statements that the CF failed to do anything about it though are:
1) School bus ... belongs to the School Board, District whatever of city of Esquimault and thus is not within CF jurisdiction to do anything "official" about except voice their complaint and make it known to those authorities (the CF investigated the incidents, confirmed, and acknowledged --- but certainly can't 'correct');
2) PMQs ... now (and then) fall under jurisdiction of the contractor; patrolled by civilian police; again, complaints acknowledged as having occurred, but jurisdiction of that location is outside of the CF. We can correct that. Get rid of CFHA and have DND once again take ownership of and jurisdiction of PMQ areas surrounding it's Bases.
Lots of other stuff too:
I knew both CWO Levesque and CWO Melancon. We knew in early-spring that CWO Melancon was coming back to Trenton and that CWO Levesque was moving to careers. Nothing nefarious there. CWO Levesque, going to careers would be normal seeing as how Trenton, 2 AMS was then and is now the largest, busiest Tfc Tech base out there, so it would be natural to see the next Snr Tech coming from that location.
Context:
Seeing CWO Melancon "downgrade" from careers to the Snr Tfc Tech at Trenton would certainly not have been viewed as a downgrade "when" it actually occurred - it actually would have been critical to have that expert knowledge get back to that location as we had just sent our Army off to war. We were putting the Army in Afghanistan. We were standing up Camp Mirage. Had a SAL, TAL and LRP Dets to support all simultaneously with ongoing Golan UN rotations, ongoing rotations of Balkan battlegroups, sending seacans full of stuff to Turkey to get roadmoved down to the troops in Afghanistan etc (the media forget this? They made a heyday out of how overwhelmed MAMS Trenton was at the time).
Remember that the flight line is essentially owned by the 2 AMS MAMs Tfc Techs. They move, they load, they clean, they unload, they park ... they do everything! The base was so busy, in fact, that a great many of us ended up on "garbage details" - even those of us who weren't Tfc Techs nor Ptes or Cpls were getting tasked to do so. You had to, we were that busy! It was the times and the circumstances that caused it. It was crazy times.
Seems to me, that given the circumstances of the mbrs family and himself, it should have been a
Compassionate Posting to the East Coast from the get-go. remember, the author already pointed out that CCM and Compassionate are indeed different. It also notes that Esquimault notes that request was for a CCM vice a Comp. A CCM however, would infer that mbr is capable and willing to do all duties and tasks at the new location without any career restrictions. It doesn't seem to me though that that is actually what the member required.
A "compassionate posting" may indeed come with "career restrictions", but this article makes it seem likes that is something evil and bad. It is not; it is done in the members best interests, but can only occur IF the member requests it in writing. A Comp posting also means that careers can send you to a location even IF all the jobs/positions there are filled because it will compassionately be in your best interest. A Compassionate Posting also means that you have career restrictions such as, can not be tasked away from the home, can not be deployed, regular work hours, opportunity to attend counselling and appointments with your family whenever required etc.
A CCM would mean that you would be deployable, employable at whatever hour the CF wanted you and called you in - even if you had just worked all day for 7/8 days etc; you'd be expected to be avail 24/7, appointments scheduled around and outside of your work duties and timings else take leave. And, at that time period in the CF's history - Tfc Techs were constantly flying and moving on last minute notice - we were going to war and were still sitting in all those UN tours. A CCM would infer that you had "no career restrictions" and thus were able to perform those duties whenever the CF required you to do so. That does not seem to be what this young lad required at the time though. The CCM request seems to directly conflict with what the member and his family needed - which was time to heal, get counselling, and get stable.
Yes, a CCM means "no fault of the member" (this could be a CCM to location X because a child needs access to specialist hospital such as CHEO, but also infers that the member can, is able to and will perform all duties he is required to do whenever he is required to).
But a Compassionate doesn't therefore mean, "the member's fault". It means "compassionate circumstances" whereby the member and/or family needs "a break" from the military requirements as a unique situation has occurred that can be resolved and whereby the CF needs to afford them opportunity to resolve without being able to say, "too bad, we need Tfc techs on the next flight out tonight and you'll be gone for the next 3 weeks so get your butt in here."
I'm wondering if mbr refused to accept a compassionate status (I can't fathom CWO Melancon not explaining the difference). The article certainly makes it seem as if there was an insistence that the move be CCM based upon it "not being the mbr's fault". A compassionate certainly doesn't mean it was the members fault. The differences in CCM and Compassionate are indeed HUGE, but the difference is NOT in "who's fault it is" it is in exactly those "career restrictions". And, career restrictions seem to be exactly what this Pte required rather than "business as usual".
Now, any Colonel in Ottawa could write, "there are Tfc Tech positions available in Halifax, Greenwood, Shearwater, Sydney, Gagetown, Moncton, etc etc etc". That does NOT mean there are "positions open/unfilled". If there are no positions vacant, then to get him there careers (ie: CWO Melancon) would have had to have the mbr request a compassionate posting so that they could overfill the location based on those compassionate reasons. Did mbr refuse to request a compassionate (insist on a CCM instead) and thereby tie the hands of careers because, although there may indeed by Tfc techs in locations, no jobs were unfilled? Ie: the only places where there were vacant Tfc tech posns were Trenton and Winnipeg?
I don't know what to say, I just know that if I had been this lad's supervisor, I have explained the whole difference between CCM and Compassionate. It seems to me that someone was telling him, "you don't want a comp, your career stops!" while totally forgetting that CCM would not have allowed him to accomplish what he was requiring according to the social worker reports etc. The member certainly doesn't lose points for being compassionate status either. Sure, he couldn't be promoted (but he was a 3rd year Pte and not looking at promotion via merit boards anyway for at least 2 years [the max length of a compassionate status I'll point out).
I feel horrible for this guy and his family, but I think he got some bad advice on which posting status to request - I think someone concentrated too hard on the "not member's fault" and missed the big picture of the real differences between the two; a case of not being able to see the forest for the tree.
What an absolutely horrible situation.
