Canada moves to 2% GDP end of FY25/26 - PMMC

[childs56]

The problem is there isn’t a 3 month technician set up. Most trades are set up the way they are for a reason. Excluding our big stupid amalagated trades getting competent workers isn’t a matter of training on ‘one thing’.

Say there is 4 parts to said job and it takes a year to become proficient. You can’t just break said job into 4 x3 month parts as to understand how to do it you actually need 6-9 months to get a baseline. At which point it makes more sense to train to the full standard.

Teaching a small part of it really doesn’t go very far as you lack the comprehension required to be effective at said job. Plus you can’t really afford to have enough workers on say a ship or base to make that a viable strategy (cost wise or manning wise, ships have limited space).

Usually people get ‘specialized’ in a certain piece of equipment anyways, the issue is more that the moment people are useful at fixing equipment they are removed from fixing equipment. In many cases they weren’t even given the time to become proficient before getting removed which then turns into the blind leading the blind. Or like when I was in you weren’t being trained or led just being thrown overboard and seeing if you can swim on your own.

The other option is they release before they become competent (I did this myself), but that isn’t something that is fixed by training rather working conditions and giving people a reason to stay in.

Remember a apprentice makes 30$+ a hour for many trades hard for the CAF to compete with that.

This privates pay.

[th]

1​

[/th][th]

2​

[/th][th]

3​

[/th]​

[td]

$3,614​

[/td][td]

$4,413​

[/td][td]

$5,304​

[/td]​

Corporal or Sailor 1st Class – Standard
Basic monthly pay and annual pay increments 1 through 4, effective April 1, 2024.​

[th]

Basic pay (monthly)​

[/th][th]

1​

[/th][th]

2​

[/th][th]

3​

[/th][th]

4​

[/th]​

[td]

$6,069​

[/td][td]

$6,175​

[/td][td]

$6,279​

[/td][td]

$6,383​

[/td][td]

$6,4932​

[/td]​

Honestly not bad money overall. Starting is a bit low on the $20hr as a untrained Pte. $37 hr as a Cpl 4. Not to shabby for pay that comes in every two weeks (unless on Phoenix) with decent benefits.

 

[Eaglelord17]

This privates pay.

[th]
1

[/th][th]
2

[/th][th]
3

[/th]
[td]
$3,614

[/td][td]
$4,413

[/td][td]
$5,304

[/td]​

Corporal or Sailor 1st Class – Standard
Basic monthly pay and annual pay increments 1 through 4, effective April 1, 2024.​

[th]
Basic pay (monthly)

[/th][th]
1

[/th][th]
2

[/th][th]
3

[/th][th]
4

[/th]
[td]
$6,069

[/td][td]
$6,175

[/td][td]
$6,279

[/td][td]
$6,383

[/td][td]
$6,4932

[/td]​

Honestly not bad money overall. Starting is a bit low on the $20hr as a untrained Pte. $37 hr as a Cpl 4. Not to shabby for pay that comes in every two weeks (unless on Phoenix) with decent benefits.

$37 a hour after 8 years in the CAF. Alternatively where I work I can make $47.48+ after 4 years, plus overtime, plus being home for my family, plus being able to quit if I wish or telling my boss to go F himself and not go to jail.

And this is for a fairly standard job. If I wanted to really make money I would go to a fly in job and make a lot more than that (I know millwrights pulling in 250k plus a year).

The CAF is not competitive in many trades on wages, and that gap is only going to widen unless they seriously do something about it. The stoker trade basically wants people to be electricians, welders, millwrights, and a little bit of machinist. Each one of those trades can easily pull $40 a hour without much effort, much more than that if they are looking.

 

[childs56]

$37 a hour after 8 years in the CAF. Alternatively where I work I can make $47.48+ after 4 years, plus overtime, plus being home for my family, plus being able to quit if I wish or telling my boss to go F himself and not go to jail.

Depending on who the boss is you tell them to go f himself and you might not work in the industry again. Seen that happen a few times.

And this is for a fairly standard job. If I wanted to really make money I would go to a fly in job and make a lot more than that (I know millwrights pulling in 250k plus a year).

I know Operators working 2 weeks on 2 weeks off making $250,000 year. Sweet gig, not everyone can do it, not everyone wants to do it, not everyone has the connections to do it.

The CAF is not competitive in many trades on wages, and that gap is only going to widen unless they seriously do something about it.

They are not suppose to be competitive. They should be well trained and well equipped. 5-8 years and people move on to the "better paid life jobs" The Military is a generally a single persons job. That has turned into a life long career. Lots of reasons for both parts of this.

The stoker trade basically wants people to be electricians, welders, millwrights, and a little bit of machinist. Each one of those trades can easily pull $40 a hour without much effort, much more than that if they are looking.

Again though a person needs to make a choice. The military is not paid that bad. Not every Millwright makes the $40plus an hour, not every job allows one to be home every night or even have many days off, not every job is for a good employer.
I know many who will not work on the heavy construction field/ industrial field/ oilfield. That is their choice. I also know people who work non stop for the largest dollar amount, take their layoff when they come, hop over across the road, work their butts off laid off then back across the road again and repeat. Some people want more stability over the high dollar, some dont care.

I know guys making $95/hr. I know guys doing similar job making $30/hr. One works on the road every day, is a contractor, no benefits, no truck, on call 24hrs day 7 days a week, 365 days, no job security besides their name and reputation.
The other guy has full benefits, home every day, on call one weekend a month, has company supplied truck, has full benefits, job security works M-F 7-5.. I know people every where in between also. The bad thing is I know guys who do both of these for the $30 and for the $95.

Point is yes you can make way more money, you can also make way less money, heck the guys contracting for the Gov seem to be doing very well.
The Military does not pay bad. They demand a lot from a person at times yes. The pay check is in the bank every two weeks, and the benefits are there.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Don't undervalue the pension and health benefits that the PS and CAF offer, not only for you, but your spouse and dependent. A lot of those high paying jobs offer very little in the way of long term benefits, so you better be wise in your investing. Seen a lot of guys party away that money and are living on nickels when they are old and broken.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Bean counters are more likely to understand the time required to develop technical proficiency. It's the operators who assume away support and its related timelines.

The CAF needs more technicians with lesser skill sets. The obsession with having singular all singing all dancing technicians is costly in time and money, and contributes to the unhealthy retention obsession of the CAF.

The CAF needs to be able to quickly train to replace anyone and everyone. Four technicians that take three months each to train are likely of greater value than a single technician that takes one year to train, since they are easier to replace.

That works in some cases, but not when you need a certain level of skills to be going along with a platform.

The reduced crewing model on warships and subs actually demands either more individual skills, or acceptance that you're more likely to lose a multi billion dollar strategic asset by expediting your training.

We've already cut heavily into the baseline level of combat recoverability on the CPFs by not maintaining it a lot, as well as trimming training, getting rid of consolidation time, and generally having a lot less real experience in the crew (at the institutional level, not with the crew), we just pretend that stuff away (even when the ships are sailing below SOLAS standards, which you should legally meet to sail a cargo ship or fishing trawler, and has zero combat recoverability).

I'm sure if I poked into the army and air force would figure out the same thing, but at the end of the day sticking in the fight can matter a lot more than getting to the fight if you are just a glass cannon or target practice.

 

[MilEME09]

Don't undervalue the pension and health benefits that the PS and CAF offer, not only for you, but your spouse and dependent. A lot of those high paying jobs offer very little in the way of long term benefits, so you better be wise in your investing. Seen a lot of guys party away that money and are living on nickels when they are old and broken.

thats one of the reasons I joined the ARes, pension sure its not great compared to the reg force plan but its something for someone who worked in the service industry getting nothing

 

[Colin Parkinson]

That works in some cases, but not when you need a certain level of skills to be going along with a platform.

The reduced crewing model on warships and subs actually demands either more individual skills, or acceptance that you're more likely to lose a multi billion dollar strategic asset by expediting your training.

We've already cut heavily into the baseline level of combat recoverability on the CPFs by not maintaining it a lot, as well as trimming training, getting rid of consolidation time, and generally having a lot less real experience in the crew (at the institutional level, not with the crew), we just pretend that stuff away (even when the ships are sailing below SOLAS standards, which you should legally meet to sail a cargo ship or fishing trawler, and has zero combat recoverability).

I'm sure if I poked into the army and air force would figure out the same thing, but at the end of the day sticking in the fight can matter a lot more than getting to the fight if you are just a glass cannon or target practice.

But your current model is not working either, so something has to give.

 

[Navy_Pete]

But your current model is not working either, so something has to give.

Sure, but the RCD is coming with zero training bunks and a massive crewing requirement for the command and control monitoring in the ops room, with a pretty skeletal MSED on a very complex ship, so it won't be by having more people that can do less.

Making use of standard commercial marine trades training with some delta training would be a start. There was unfortunately a deliberate decision to not use basic TC certs as a baseline when they mashed the trades together, because they didn't want people to have directly transferrable quals. Personnally I would have tried not treating people like garbage first to encourage retention instead of undermining external employment opportunities, but that's just me.

Scaling back operations to what is acheivable with the people you have and the state of the ships is another option, but we actually sailed more, beat on the ships harder and extended the normal 5 year DWP cycle to 6, 7 or even 8 years, so some of the outstanding 60M docking jobs are getting superceded by the 120M that are due at the same time (and then we wonder why we're blowing past 1 million hours of known work, plus 50%+ arisings).

For a bit of perspective, the very last 280 DWP was scheduled for 7 months, took 9, and had around 100k hours of total work, and even with the failed tow, emergency tow and damage repair came in around $40M total (about $59M in 2025 dollars), including the pre and post DWP work, with the ship out of rotation for a bit under 2 year total. The ongoing CPF DWPs we're hitting now are taking 3+ years in the dock, with a year or more on each end, and a cost in the hundreds of millions (300? 400?). And that's with a lot of things not fixed, and a lot of basics still not working during trials.

Being techs sailing around with ships in that condition, with a punishing schedule and repairs cut short has a lot more to due with the death spiral on trade numbers than taking a while to properly train people for the jobs we're telling them to do. Deploying them to high readiness theatres of operation when they know there are sea state restrictions on the hull, major defects undermine combat redundancies, and basic things like emergency bilge pumps don't actually work is the piece de resistance.

So maybe if we didn't train people enough they wouldn't know enough to realize things aren't right they'd be happier I guess.

 

[dapaterson]

thats one of the reasons I joined the ARes, pension sure its not great compared to the reg force plan but its something for someone who worked in the service industry getting nothing

Little understood fact: if you receive a Res F pension you are eligible for the same medical and dental plans as the Reg F in retirement (you do have to pay for them).

 

[dapaterson]

That works in some cases, but not when you need a certain level of skills to be going along with a platform.

The reduced crewing model on warships and subs actually demands either more individual skills, or acceptance that you're more likely to lose a multi billion dollar strategic asset by expediting your training.

We've already cut heavily into the baseline level of combat recoverability on the CPFs by not maintaining it a lot, as well as trimming training, getting rid of consolidation time, and generally having a lot less real experience in the crew (at the institutional level, not with the crew), we just pretend that stuff away (even when the ships are sailing below SOLAS standards, which you should legally meet to sail a cargo ship or fishing trawler, and has zero combat recoverability).

I'm sure if I poked into the army and air force would figure out the same thing, but at the end of the day sticking in the fight can matter a lot more than getting to the fight if you are just a glass cannon or target practice.

If your crewing model requires every killick to spend three years ashore before they can step on board then your crewing model is fundamentally flawed.

If you cut to the point where you have one person on board who can perform a task then your crewing model is fundamentally flawed.

A military and all military structures are inherently wasteful. Because "almost survivable" means "not survivable".

 

[Furniture]

If your crewing model requires every killick to spend three years ashore before they can step on board then your crewing model is fundamentally flawed.

If you cut to the point where you have one person on board who can perform a task then your crewing model is fundamentally flawed.

A military and all military structures are inherently wasteful. Because "almost survivable" means "not survivable".

The problem is, there is always a careerist who promises the moon to the bosses, knowing full well they won't be around to deal with the mess they've made. My trade did it 18 years ago, and appears set to make things even worse in the coming months/years.

The CAF needs to stop pretending that technology can magic away problems, and what problems that are left are best fixed by people who magically gain 15 years of experience in a 1-2 year training programme.

If the CAF is going to grow, it needs shorter training that aligns with the tasks we expect new people to do. It also needs to learn expectation management, and that no amount of training makes up for actual experience in the job, and in the environment.

/rant off

 

[Czech_pivo]

The problem is, there is always a careerist who promises the moon to the bosses, knowing full well they won't be around to deal with the mess they've made. My trade did it 18 years ago, and appears set to make things even worse in the coming months/years.

The CAF needs to stop pretending that technology can magic away problems, and what problems that are left are best fixed by people who magically gain 15 years of experience in a 1-2 year training programme.

If the CAF is going to grow, it needs shorter training that aligns with the tasks we expect new people to do. It also needs to learn expectation management, and that no amount of training makes up for actual experience in the job, and in the environment.

/rant off

There is also the possibility that if the recruitment and retention drive is successful 4+yrs out that some roles/responsibilities can be split into 2 separate roles thus reducing the total amount of training required.

Someone previously mentioned that in the US Navy some roles are reduced to a single area of responsibility whereas in the RCN a similar role has many areas of responsibility.

 

[quadrapiper]

Query: would a fleet of corvettes potentially offer useful training space, while running around doing things (flag showing, drugs, pirates, mothership for ROVs/divers, FISHPATs and the like...) that don't need a CPF/RCD?

Wouldn't sort out Aegis-dependent skills/trades, but what of everyone else?

 

[Czech_pivo]

Query: would a fleet of corvettes potentially offer useful training space, while running around doing things (flag showing, drugs, pirates, mothership for ROVs/divers, FISHPATs and the like...) that don't need a CPF/RCD?

Wouldn't sort out Aegis-dependent skills/trades, but what of everyone else?

Who’s to say that we only commit to 6 Rivers, with 1 being available at any time on each coast AND we then have Irving build us 12-15 of these Corvettes?

 

[Navy_Pete]

If your crewing model requires every killick to spend three years ashore before they can step on board then your crewing model is fundamentally flawed.

If you cut to the point where you have one person on board who can perform a task then your crewing model is fundamentally flawed.

A military and all military structures are inherently wasteful. Because "almost survivable" means "not survivable".

Standard industry marine technician training to get to be a 4th class Engineer is a two year college diploma, plus time at sea, plus qualification exams. This NSCC program includes a six month sailing period.

Marine Engineering Technology | Programs | NSCC

Learn the highly complex engineering systems of ships used in the commercial marine industry and get the skills to become an Engineering Officer.

www.nscc.ca

We actually get people through basic, QL3, and to the ship quicker than this program, and quicker than people get to 3rd, 2nd and 1st class as well, and none of them have to worry about things like battle damage or running the plant until catastrophic failure intentionally. There are similar programs for radar tech, comm techs and other trades that also largely map onto what the RCN and other tech trades do.

I don't think the fundamental flaw is the time it takes to train people to deal with the complexity of the job, it's trying to do it all internally and not partnering with places like NSCC, Memorial etc to get large numbers of people through their program, as well as addressing the fundamental reasons large numbers of people in the distressed trades are not being retained. That would actually extend the training time for the individuals, but massively increase our actual force generation capacity, which is really the limiting factor.

 

[childs56]

Sure, but the RCD is coming with zero training bunks and a massive crewing requirement for the command and control monitoring in the ops room, with a pretty skeletal MSED on a very complex ship, so it won't be by having more people that can do less.

Making use of standard commercial marine trades training with some delta training would be a start. There was unfortunately a deliberate decision to not use basic TC certs as a baseline when they mashed the trades together, because they didn't want people to have directly transferrable quals. Personnally I would have tried not treating people like garbage first to encourage retention instead of undermining external employment opportunities, but that's just me.

Scaling back operations to what is acheivable with the people you have and the state of the ships is another option, but we actually sailed more, beat on the ships harder and extended the normal 5 year DWP cycle to 6, 7 or even 8 years, so some of the outstanding 60M docking jobs are getting superceded by the 120M that are due at the same time (and then we wonder why we're blowing past 1 million hours of known work, plus 50%+ arisings).

For a bit of perspective, the very last 280 DWP was scheduled for 7 months, took 9, and had around 100k hours of total work, and even with the failed tow, emergency tow and damage repair came in around $40M total (about $59M in 2025 dollars), including the pre and post DWP work, with the ship out of rotation for a bit under 2 year total. The ongoing CPF DWPs we're hitting now are taking 3+ years in the dock, with a year or more on each end, and a cost in the hundreds of millions (300? 400?). And that's with a lot of things not fixed, and a lot of basics still not working during trials.

How much of that time in the shipyard is make work projects for the contractor to milk every last penny out of the government. With little to any QC and accountability performed overall. I would like to see a overhaul of not only our shipyards but all our Civilian contractors across the board. I know a few companies who if you fail your weld inspection, your grinding and rewelding on your own time. IF you don't get it right then there's the door. (they allow for minor issues and such)
Ultimately if their fitters, welders, PMs Architects, sales team etc. get things so wrong, they don't get the next job. Which means they are all sitting at home pounding the pogey pavement. How does that fair with the Irving shipyards? or Davie or Seaspan?
It would be great if Canadian shipbuilders and other Defense contractors could just get their poop in a group and attract their own customers. They are proving they are slow to respond to the market and slow and ineffective to provide quality services.

Being techs sailing around with ships in that condition, with a punishing schedule and repairs cut short has a lot more to due with the death spiral on trade numbers than taking a while to properly train people for the jobs we're telling them to do. Deploying them to high readiness theatres of operation when they know there are sea state restrictions on the hull, major defects undermine combat redundancies, and basic things like emergency bilge pumps don't actually work is the piece de resistance.