• Thanks for stopping by. Logging in to a registered account will remove all generic ads. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.

Canada must divide its military resources along foreign and domestic lines - G&M

Throwaway987 said:
Instead of trying to address the root causes of why certain parts of the population are not interested in a career in the CAF (or choose to leave prematurely), it is easier twist their arm into joining!

What are some of the root causes of why certain parts of the population are not interested in a career with the CAF?

What are some ways to change those causes?
 
Okay I will bite on this lazy Sunday.

This really depends on how much of our diversity issues are due to the CAF (e.g. perceived discrimination) versus issues unrelated to the CAF (i.e. innate characteristics of early immigrant waves). My hunch is that diversity may just take decades or even a generation or two to fix because immigrants are inherently different from the larger Canadian population.
- This is exacerbated by the time lag with calculating diversity and wage gaps. i.e. intake diversity goal versus diversity goal across the entire CAF
    - i.e. the first waves of any immigrants are often the highest achieving subsets of their previous populations (the people with the most means, foresight, and ambitions to leave everything behind and start from scratch). There is little connection to Canada and the career expectations are often high because of cultural reasons (e.g. kids directed to high status professional occupations). There are also often negative family beliefs with military service.
    - Given these unique characteristics, why would we even expect this subset of people to show the same interest in the CAF as the rest of the population? This seems like an apples to oranges comparison. Would we expect the top 5-10% SES of Canada to have the same likelihood of military service as the rest of the Canadian population?
- If we assume that the innate characteristics of immigrants are a large contribution to our perceived diversity problem, time will likely have the largest long term impact as it directly addresses the root cause.
    - As the average immigrant becomes closer and closer to the average Canadian over time (due regression towards the mean, additional waves of immigrants with lower SES, increased sense of connection to Canada, etc), the percentage of immigrants in the CAF will approach the percentage of the average Canadian.
    - If we make incorrect assessments of the root cause(s), I am worried we will implement ineffective changes that may do more harm than good (e.g. EE recruiting quota debacle from a year ago).

I would question the underlying premise that we have a diversity problem that needs a pressing solution in the sub-generation time scale.


Even if someone (immigrant or not) is interested in the CAF, the ineffectual recruitment process will ensure that only the least capable applicants will be retained. The horror stories from coworkers, this forum, and reddit suggest that hiring took 6-18 months pre-COVID. What kind of first impression does this leave on a potential employee? Anyone worth hiring is long gone to the private sector.
 
I'm with you. This group shows that we are diverse. Perhaps not enough to suit some people but as our society changes, so will we:

32-canadian-brigade-1.png


:cheers:
 
FJAG said:
Not a statistician so having troubles following the Dutch analysis but will concede right off the top that it seems obvious that those taken in for national service will have whatever education and/or career retarded by an equivalent period of time as the length of their service.

The author is making an assumption that having a university degree is actually profitable in this day and age. That is debatable for sure, likley as it's much harder to measure non-tangibles like learning how to work as team, skills learned in the military, etc. One option is that anyone doing national service gets a grant/tax exemption or some other fiscal help towards fees/costs of going to university/trade school post service, or the national service is counted as credits towards that degree.
 
If the economy is doing good with low unemployment the recruiting will be hard unless large bonus' are offered.
 
Jarnhamar said:
What are some of the root causes of why certain parts of the population are not interested in a career with the CAF?

What are some ways to change those causes?

Because they're busy becoming doctors, lawyers etc.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287039742_Visible_Minorities_Recruitment_and_the_Canadian_Armed_Forces
 
Yeah.  There's that little problem that sometimes an identifiable slice of society is underrepresented somewhere because they'd rather be doing something else.
 
daftandbarmy said:
Conscript armies are enormously expensive, and a drag o the economy in other ways I barely understand connected with tying up all the 18 year olds....


This is a vitally important point that is too rarely discussed.

While there are, doubtless, times when having the "nation in arms" is essential, they are rare, not once in a century events, they are more like once in a millennium events. 
 
E.R. Campbell said:
This is a vitally important point that is too rarely discussed.

While there are, doubtless, times when having the "nation in arms" is essential, they are rare, not once in a century events, they are more like once in a millennium events.

The concept of mass levies has changed from when soldiers had simple firearms and one needed to manoeuvre and engage in mass blocks of people. Advances in, and more importantly, complexity and costs of modern weapon systems have made it difficult to properly arm and sustain massive militaries.

We probably will never see their like again even if we have large scale warfare.

More important perhaps in having a "nation under arms" is being able to ramp up defence production of war materials. Turning out Sherman tanks by the thousands was a much simpler proposition than turning out a few hundred M1s or Leo IIs or even Excalibur rounds.

Before we have that done we'll have recruited and trained their crews.

:cheers:

 
FJAG said:
The concept of mass levies has changed from when soldiers had simple firearms and one needed to manoeuvre and engage in mass blocks of people. Advances in, and more importantly, complexity and costs of modern weapon systems have made it difficult to properly arm and sustain massive militaries.

We probably will never see their like again even if we have large scale warfare.

More important perhaps in having a "nation under arms" is being able to ramp up defence production of war materials. Turning out Sherman tanks by the thousands was a much simpler proposition than turning out a few hundred M1s or Leo IIs or even Excalibur rounds.

Before we have that done we'll have recruited and trained their crews.

:cheers:

I bet we could retool all those closing auto plants in Ontario in a few months if needed.
 
>Turning out Sherman tanks by the thousands was a much simpler proposition than turning out a few hundred M1s or Leo IIs or even Excalibur rounds.

For certain?  I realize that the equipment was simpler, but so was the technology of assembly.  For example, robotics were not available.  The rate of production depends not on total complexity, but on the duration of the steps which must be done sequentially and the number of active lines.  There haven't been any reasons to try to run wartime production, so how would we know?
 
MilEME09 said:
I bet we could retool all those closing auto plants in Ontario in a few months if needed.

Brad Sallows said:
>Turning out Sherman tanks by the thousands was a much simpler proposition than turning out a few hundred M1s or Leo IIs or even Excalibur rounds.

For certain?  I realize that the equipment was simpler, but so was the technology of assembly.  For example, robotics were not available.  The rate of production depends not on total complexity, but on the duration of the steps which must be done sequentially and the number of active lines.  There haven't been any reasons to try to run wartime production, so how would we know?

The trouble is you first need to build the tools that make the weapons and train the operators how to use them. It's one thing to scale up existing production it's another to start it from scratch.

I get your point but I'd feel a bit happier if the government had a defence production policy worth it's salt and certain protected (even coddled) industries for that. We do it for ship building and currently have a pretty decent situation with GDLS-C and a few others but beyond that its pretty skinny out there with most of our advanced weapon system coming from off-shore.

:cheers:
 
FJAG said:
The trouble is you first need to build the tools that make the weapons and train the operators how to use them. It's one thing to scale up existing production it's another to start it from scratch.

I get your point but I'd feel a bit happier if the government had a defence production policy worth it's salt and certain protected (even coddled) industries for that. We do it for ship building and currently have a pretty decent situation with GDLS-C and a few others but beyond that its pretty skinny out there with most of our advanced weapon system coming from off-shore.

:cheers:

Plus, we have to buy the steel from China, so there'll be backlogs for a while.
 
Target Up said:
Plus, we have to buy the steel from China, so there'll be backlogs for a while.

Really we need to get that industry back in Canada, subsidize if we have to but domestic steel is a strategic asset.
 
FJAG said:
We produce a little more than million tonnes per month.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1610005901

:cheers:

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1610001901
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1610004501

metals, and lumber production as well, resources we have plenty of. However means to refine it and create a finished product we lack domestically
 
Meanwhile our allies are talking about investing in their navy and army https://www.navyrecognition.com/index.php/news/defence-news/2020/june/8514-norwegian-defense-ministry-accelerates-investment-plans-for-corvettes-r-d.html
 
"But the decision to send mostly reserves into COVID-infested facilities shows there is still an institutional command-level bias towards reservists as temporary, expendable “proles” better suited for the dirty, cumbersome, “fatigue duty” jobs that generate no real operational credit to a well-defined career progression and standard set by senior regular force personnel.

Yet there is a significant difference to Operation Laser that calls out and shames any lingering command prejudice towards the reserves, which is that the service personnel performing emergency personal support worker and other public health and custodial duties are getting wounded — yes, wounded in large numbers. Let’s not for a moment assume that the numerous confirmed COVID-infected soldiers coming out of Operation Laser just have really, really bad colds.

Further, based on the squalid conditions in the homes the military recently divulged, the risk seems quite high that one of these COVID-19 wounded reservists will die in the course of their duties."

As I recall it was not a decision to send mostly reserves in, they all voluntarily signed up for Class C's of around 6 months in order to be available to deal with any government requests including COVID-19.  A large portion of our Regular Force medical staff were deployed from across the country (try to get medical attention at your local med sect, can be quite a feat but they are doing the best they can for stripped down sects).  We lost some Class B members as they opted to go on Op Laser instead of staying here.  Generating a force of 24000 members for a domop is naturally going to lean heavy on reserves.  For anything 24000 is a large number for the military.

Where does he get the information to support his claim the risk is quite high that one will die?  Stats do not support that statement as over half of deaths are the elderly from these homes that we now are supporting and 90% are over 60.    Last count I saw was 20 cases and they were not identified as reserve or regular force.  As far as we know that could be 20 regular force doctors, nurses, medics, etc, etc, etc.  I am reasonably sure that none of our members are over 60.

Sensationalized reporting at best.  Service in the 80s and 90s is not the same as today thankfully (he retired in 2004 as an Int Capt after approximately 20 years).  How about looking at the number of Regular Force members of today that have Reserve time and completed a CT then lets talk about attitudes between the reserves and regulars. 

Perhaps he preferred that regular force members be deployed from their work positions instead of the reserve members hired for this sat in Borden training.

Don't know about everywhere but at some reserve and regular units participation in a domop is a feather in the cap, has influence at merit boards and could make the difference in who gets promoted. Medals are not everything.

In the end I think he is perhaps 16 years out of tune looking to stir the pot.
 
If we're working with the public I think reservists make better ambassadors of the CAF than reg force do. Guy from the article is just a cry baby.
 
Yup, large amount of Reserve folks on "standby." Actual numbers deployed to Long Term Care Facilities in Ontario and Quebec is about 1450 Reg F and about 1403 Reservists
 
Back
Top