At the risk of being repetitious (which has never bothered me before): The long standing problem with public affairs â “ which I think goes back more than 20 years â “ can be solved only through a complete overhaul. We (being the country) need (at least)* three separate and distinct groups:
1. The MND needs a communications staff who try to 'spin' everything to make him look good or smart. He is selling a 'product:' himself and his government;
2. The DM needs a public affairs team to explain what the entire Department 'thinks' and does to all Canadians, including other branches of government, and including, also, the people (civilian and military) in DND. The DM, rather like the MND is 'selling' a product â “ national defence; and
3. The CDS needs a public information staff to tell Canadians, including members of the CF, about the CF. He, too, is 'selling' a product â “ the military.
The three products are separate and distinct and each should be 'sold' by a separate, specialist staff working from broad, general corporate guidelines â “ rather in the way that Wendy's International Inc has several quite independent PR staffs â “ one to 'sell' the corporation and to guide the others and a separate one to 'sell' Wendy's and another to 'sell' Tim Hortons and still others to 'sell' Baja Fresh, Pasta Pomodoro etc.
The position of ADM Communications is both wasteful (inefficient) and ineffective but change is hard because the Minister's staff is terrified that someone may go â ?off messageâ ? if not tightly controlled. The end result is that no-one is able to 'sell' their product â “ not even the MND, himself. That, in part, is why the CDS elected to go 'over the heads' of the Department's communications machine and talk directly to soldiers and Canadians â “ he knew that the 'filter' would be unable to retain the essence of his message while it massaged the presentation.
Neither the CF or DND are well known, much less understood and esteemed by Canadians. That's because the DND/CF 'message' doesn't get sold; it gets wrapped up in the larger government 'message' â “ diversity, environmentalism, etc, etc, etc, ad infinitum.
DND has a very poor reputation inside government: it is considered to be badly managed, especially re: the apparently perpetual habit of crying wolf: saying â Å“the cupboards are bareâ ? and then, when pressed, finding resources for just one more task. Senior bureaucrats in Finance and the Treasury believe, to this day, that DND still has 'fat' which should be cut before more money is poured in. That's because the Department, unlike almost all other government departments, does not sell itself to the nation and the rest of the government â “ a mistake not made by e.g. Agriculture Canada, Business Development Bank of Canada, Canadian Wheat Board and so on, down through to Western Economic Diversification Canada That's because the ADM (Communications) operation doesn't operate very well â “ it is neither efficient nor effective.
I'm with Gunner98: I learn more here, at army.ca, than I do from all the bumph DND makes available â “ broadly (through the press) and narrowly (by direct mailings to selected audiences).
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* Arguably the ADM(Mat) needs his own specialized, responsible public affairs team to 'manage' the 'news' about big capital projects and e.g. Chicoutimi style incidents.
