So... to be clear, the CAF shouldn't discuss things until it has a completely funded, and properly sourced website?
C'mon. You know very well what I'm saying.
The whole silliness was stirred up by a leak of discussions, which would lead to a plan.. Do you think the CAF needs to have a fully resourced section with a website before it can have discussions about options?
Zero... But that doesn't mean the CAF shouldn't be having these discussions. We don't live in the 80's anymore. Any person with a connection and a few moments to spare can share information.
It wasn't a "message" it was a discussion between professionals that was shared without context, and without the discussion being resolved.
My reading of the articles is that it started with a 9 page directive starting up a Tiger team. It's titled "CDS/DM Planning Direction." That goes a bit beyond mere "discussions." But sure, let them have all the discussions they want. That said, this is a highly politically sensitive topic. All that I can say is that it needed a proper communication program from the day someone at Armed Forces Council said "Hey, I've got a thought . . . "
I have 25 years of service, and have no idea what SYEP is beyond hearing my bosses talk about it back in the early 2000s... That is not a framework that is known, or relevant. It hasn't been relevant since the 80's when it ended.
It's actually quite relevant. SYEP was a government funded work program for high school students. It ran for 6 weeks in the summer school break, had minimal physical fitness requirements and was run like as a kinder gentler Militia recruit course. Folks who graduated could join the militia - assuming the met the usual standards which at the time weren't onerous - and were given credit for recruit training but not TQ3 (ie full DP1). Both RegF and ARes units were employed as instructors. That's where my summer leave went one year and started me down the road to amassing bags of accumulated leave in the days when we could.
The primary purpose was to get some $ into the hands of students. The secondary and tertiary purpose was to engender some liking of the military life and lead to them potentially to join the RegF or Militia. It's pretty much the same idea but now being done at cut-rate prices.
It may come as surprise to some, but some things stick.
I haven't done firearms handling testing in a few years, but I can still manage to not kill myself with a C7.
What the CAF considers "perishable" and what is actually "perishable" isn't the same. There is also the reality that someone taught how to handle a C7 20 years ago is still ahead of a person who has never touched a rifle before in their life.
Too many of you are focused on the "perfect" solution, and refuse to accept that there are shades of "ready" and shades of "good enough".
Actually you are quite wrong. There's no hunt for a "perfect" solution amongst us here. We're quite prepared for a "good enough" but also it needs to be a program where the juice is worth the squeeze. When was the last time we ran a program for 80,000 more PRes and 300,000 New-Generation SuppRes? The resource bill will be enormous even without uniforms. For a force that is still over 10,000 understrength and can't seem to accelerate into a proper training surge because it can barely meet its operational commitments and its schools a re understaffed . . .
But more importantly is the "what's next" after their 5 days. I can see these folks as security guards at various vital installations - that requires an add on training package. What about anti-drone sentries around airfields or vital points operating a variety of anti drone weaponry including kinetic ones. Equipment? Storage and maintenance for the equipment? Record keeping? And that's just the 300,000. The 80,000 PRes (if that even is the right number) is a challenge of several higher magnitudes. The NPAM was authorized at 6 inf div and a few armoured bdes after WW2 but before Korea they were down to under 50,000 even though there was still a good bit of equipment around.
But the argument about whether the training is good enough, isn't the point. The question of whether such a force is needed, isn't the point.
The point is that the communication plan was an amateur hour production on a topic of earth shattering importance. The CDS should have led the way before the leak. And once it was sprung and the "public service" fiasco made its rounds (and the Brainiac that put that into the directive should be looking for a new job) there should have immediately been a news conference led by the CDS and DM to set the record straight on where they were heading and what stage they were at. What we got was a bad superficial CTV interview in front of the memorial on Remembrance Day that was anything but helpful. I'm seeing a leadership turtle with its head tucked deep into its shell. I expect better.
