Army Reserve Restructuring

[GK .Dundas]

Interesting aspects to mobilization.
A planning figure during the lead up to WW2 by the US military was that a modern economy could support approximately 10% of its workforce being mobilized. This factored in specifically to the allocation of basically PYs to the services and in the design of the force structures that the US built with which to prosecute the war.

For Canada in 2025 with a working population of about 26 million, that would equal about 4 million people.
The Cdn population of 18-25 is around 3.7 million.


In a different area;

The US Army in the 2005-2006 time frame had some difficulty in mobilizing its reserve formations specifically because key personnel and ranks were unavailable to the formations being mobilized due to them having volunteered for other Regular Army and Reserve augmentes roles. It was a chronic problem apparently.
The double hating of their personnel (similar to us) and allowing personnel to volunteer for individual augmentee tasks hindered

Some years back during a BBQ at somebody's home I raised this question with some Air Force type from 17 Wing.
Apparently that would never happen for ..well ......reasons .
I got the distinct impression that was a topic that NOBODY wanted brought up.
I think everybody was and I suspect a disturbing number of people in the service still honestly believes that War is something that doesn't happen to us.

 

[GK .Dundas]

Until the early to mid nineties the British used to have what they called the War Book. . Basically a set of Binders that literally listed all the the things you would have to to do in order to mobilize the Country for War.
Basically a checklist from.leagal steps , where to find certain items , people to notify etc.
They stopped updating and discontinued it sometime back
But at least they had it. I suspect that if you mentioned this to either a senior Canadian military officer or civil servant you'd get a blank look.

 

[Kilted]

The numbers for this don't really seem to add up. They are looking for 300,000 volunteers from the Federal Public Service, which according to AI is currently 358,000 with 40,000 layoffs coming. So that is basically everyone.

 

[Ostrozac]

Having a whole of nation mobilization plan, sitting on the shelf, with regular updates, makes perfect sense. It should include everything from legal advice on conscription and internment to estimates of which civilian industrial sectors are vital to the war effort and which can be expected to be put on hiatus. In WW2 we stopped building civilian automobiles and houses, but kept the NHL going. WW3 priorities may be different.

A flurry of random staff work including leaked think pieces like “let’s sign up everyone at Passport Canada because we know their names and that’ll quickly boost up the SuppRes numbers” and “tell GDLS that we want them to ramp up production capacity, and also that all their workers will be in Latvia when we will need that capacity”— that makes no sense.

 

[Halifax Tar]

I think we're going ya have a difficult time forcing mobilization on our current populace.

Especially the youth.

 

[Ostrozac]

I think we're going ya have a difficult time forcing mobilization on our current populace.

Especially the youth.

To be fair, we also had a fairly hard time mobilizing the population in both world wars — we were slow out of the gate both times, and we did have two full-on conscription crises.

 

[Halifax Tar]

To be fair, we also had a fairly hard time mobilizing the population in both world wars — we were slow out of the gate both times, and we did have two full-on conscription crises.

That's definitely no secret.

 

[dapaterson]

The numbers for this don't really seem to add up. They are looking for 300,000 volunteers from the Federal Public Service, which according to AI is currently 358,000 with 40,000 layoffs coming. So that is basically everyone.

It's not 300k from the federal PS. It's 300k which may include folks from the federal PS.

 

[brihard]

Civil Service Rifles 2.0

Security clearances would not be an issue. Can already be released for annual service/checks etc with rules that already exist. Assuming some sort of compensation for this, you could get some takers. Could have plenty with some transferable skills.

Could call it “Whole Force Augmentation”, or simply “WFA”. And then watch PS reddit go absolutely apeshit.

 

[Eaglelord17]

Having a whole of nation mobilization plan, sitting on the shelf, with regular updates, makes perfect sense. It should include everything from legal advice on conscription and internment to estimates of which civilian industrial sectors are vital to the war effort and which can be expected to be put on hiatus. In WW2 we stopped building civilian automobiles and houses, but kept the NHL going. WW3 priorities may be different.

A flurry of random staff work including leaked think pieces like “let’s sign up everyone at Passport Canada because we know their names and that’ll quickly boost up the SuppRes numbers” and “tell GDLS that we want them to ramp up production capacity, and also that all their workers will be in Latvia when we will need that capacity”— that makes no sense.

That would require a responsible government who thinks in the long term.

The reality is we have sold out any short term chance of being a self sustaining nation in the name of capitalism and making quick cash.

There is no reason Canada couldn’t be 100% self sufficient other than we lack the will to be. Basically every natural resource on the planet is found here, coupled with a very low population density and extremely high education rate. We should all be living like kings, instead we sell our resources elsewhere.

We have sold out our manufacturing sector by basically subsidizing foreign business well taxing ours to death (hard to have honest competition when your getting taxes, regulations, working conditions and environmental standards well above the competition, of course China is cheaper, they have slave labour and no carbon tax).

The consequences of this is the reliance on foreign suppliers who also happen to be some of our largest geo-political threats. Instead of doing anything about it, we just keep doubling down on them as though that will solve our problems.

 

[GK .Dundas]

As much as Reserve 2000 used to get slagged . They raised one important point we didn't have a clue about what we would do if found ourselves in a war.
Mind you the Cold War was over and this, this my friends was the end of history!
Well it may well be time to ask unpleasant questions. How do we go from peace to war? How do we prepare?

 

[daftandbarmy]

As much as Reserve 2000 used to get slagged . They raised one important point we didn't have a clue about what we would do if found ourselves in a war.
Mind you the Cold War was over and this, this my friends was the end of history!
Well it may well be time to ask unpleasant questions. How do we go from peace to war? How do we prepare?

We prepare in the usual way....

 

[quadrapiper]

Having a whole of nation mobilization plan, sitting on the shelf, with regular updates, makes perfect sense. It should include everything from legal advice on conscription and internment to estimates of which civilian industrial sectors are vital to the war effort and which can be expected to be put on hiatus. In WW2 we stopped building civilian automobiles and houses, but kept the NHL going. WW3 priorities may be different.

A flurry of random staff work including leaked think pieces like “let’s sign up everyone at Passport Canada because we know their names and that’ll quickly boost up the SuppRes numbers” and “tell GDLS that we want them to ramp up production capacity, and also that all their workers will be in Latvia when we will need that capacity”— that makes no sense.

It sort of does, if DMob opened the cabinet marked "mobilization," discovered the most recent item was a note saying "requires rewrite - ALLARD" and then told their staff to just go to town with the wild ideas.

Why there's leaks, though...

 

[Kirkhill]

That would require a responsible government who thinks in the long term.

The reality is we have sold out any short term chance of being a self sustaining nation in the name of capitalism and making quick cash.

There is no reason Canada couldn’t be 100% self sufficient other than we lack the will to be. Basically every natural resource on the planet is found here, coupled with a very low population density and extremely high education rate. We should all be living like kings, instead we sell our resources elsewhere.

We have sold out our manufacturing sector by basically subsidizing foreign business well taxing ours to death (hard to have honest competition when your getting taxes, regulations, working conditions and environmental standards well above the competition, of course China is cheaper, they have slave labour and no carbon tax).

The consequences of this is the reliance on foreign suppliers who also happen to be some of our largest geo-political threats. Instead of doing anything about it, we just keep doubling down on them as though that will solve our problems.

I am with you on everything except capitalism.

Even capitalists can co-operate for the greater good of the nation.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I can see significant amounts of PS being reoriented from their current jobs to supporting a fast growing military, everything from pay, medicals, unit admin, and Civil Defense roles all within Canadian borders. Likley sent out to inspect and catalogues under ground malls and parking garages as to how many they can accommodate, what's needed, etc, mapping them out, signage, notifican of where to go to the population, etc.

Frankly a small portion of the 5% could go to developing new Civil Defense plans, using some of the other Western/NATO countries plans as a starting point.

 

[daftandbarmy]

I can see significant amounts of PS being reoriented from their current jobs to supporting a fast growing military, everything from pay, medicals, unit admin, and Civil Defense roles all within Canadian borders. Likley sent out to inspect and catalogues under ground malls and parking garages as to how many they can accommodate, what's needed, etc, mapping them out, signage, notifican of where to go to the population, etc.

Frankly a small portion of the 5% could go to developing new Civil Defense plans, using some of the other Western/NATO countries plans as a starting point.

How would that look as part of a renegotiation of collective agreements, I wonder...

 

[Kirkhill]

How would that look as part of a renegotiation of collective agreements, I wonder...

Civil servants don't move between departments?

When a posting ends they don't go looking for another one? Or change departments looking for promotions?