Constraining Canadian Federal Budget during Post COVID Downturn

[CountDC]

Some places in Ontario are proposing using taxis…

Ottawa paramedics seek approval to use taxis for non urgent concerns | Globalnews.ca

Ottawa paramedics are seeking provincial approval for a new program that would see some patients with non-urgent concerns taken to hospital in a taxi.

globalnews.ca

hmmmm. So the idea is to free up the ambulance and paramedics with it while hiring 140 more paramedics. The question that comes to mind is how do these 140 paramedics get around and how do you determine they should be sent instead of the ambulance? I notice in the article that of the 160 calls answered in Niagara only 5 were sent somewhere else instead of the ER.

I agree that people shouldn't be utilizing ambulances for non-emergencies and I am sure that most can tell it isn't one. I hurt my ankle doesn't require 911 or an ambulance. I think this requires more than taxis and more paramedics to resolve though. Why are they tied up at ER's waiting hours to hand off patients? That is the big bottleneck and needs to be worked on.

 

[YZT580]

hmmmm. So the idea is to free up the ambulance and paramedics with it while hiring 140 more paramedics. The question that comes to mind is how do these 140 paramedics get around and how do you determine they should be sent instead of the ambulance? I notice in the article that of the 160 calls answered in Niagara only 5 were sent somewhere else instead of the ER.

I agree that people shouldn't be utilizing ambulances for non-emergencies and I am sure that most can tell it isn't one. I hurt my ankle doesn't require 911 or an ambulance. I think this requires more than taxis and more paramedics to resolve though. Why are they tied up at ER's waiting hours to hand off patients? That is the big bottleneck and needs to be worked on.

one reason might be that we have closed all the small hospitals and treatment centres and didn't increase the staffing at the remaining facilities by the numbers that were made redundant. Bigger isn't always better and all the fancy equipment is useless if is not available to you due to overcrowding. Family practitioners used to put in one day/eve every week or two in the local hospital. Now they don't even maintain visiting rights.

 

[Furniture]

To be fair, in the case of his post he’s talking specifically about paramedics. I’m good with the Primary Care Paramedic two year college program being a mandatory for them. That doesn’t means two year college diploma should be a requisite for CAF generally, or other jobs that don’t require specific training of that length.

The city could pay for that two year programme, so that people aren't forced to pay upfront.

I'm not opposed to training, I'm simply suggesting that perhaps employers should be going back to the idea that you take someone unqualified off the street, train them, then employ them. Put less barriers in place at the front end of the hiring process to entice people who are on the fence.

If I have to pay out of pocket, go to school for a couple of years, and then hope I get hired, why would I choose paramedic?

 

[Navy_Pete]

Along the overcrowded ER lines; workers on strike due to burnout and overwork, ER at 178%, two people died.

Noted below it says specifically the strike didn't impact the ER staff levels, but did mean the 811 call center for non emergency health had less staff and long wait times.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/anna-laberge-hospital-deaths-er-1.7049741

2 patients die waiting for care at hospital on Montreal's South Shore​

Multiple investigations underway to determine what caused the deaths​

Matthew Lapierre · CBC News · Posted: Dec 05, 2023 3:14 PM EST
Two people died while waiting for care at the Anna-Laberge hospital, in Châteauguay, Que., last week.

Health Minister Christian Dubé, who visited the hospital on Montreal's South Shore in the wake of the deaths to speak with the personnel involved, told reporters in Quebec City on Tuesday that the province's emergency rooms are full to bursting and the situation "is not improving."

"It's completely unacceptable that we have these situations in our emergency rooms here in Quebec," Dubé said.

The deaths are now the subject of multiple investigations, involving both the coroner's office and the local health authority, a spokesperson for the health authority said.

The spokesperson did not provide details on the deaths, but hospital management told Radio-Canada that the patients died in the ER on Nov. 29 and 30. Management said they hoped to have some ambulances directed away from the hospital so it did not receive as many patients.

The emergency room at the hospital is often crowded.

On Tuesday afternoon, a spokesperson for the health authority said 97 people were seeking treatment in the Anna-Laberge hospital's ER, putting it at 178 per cent capacity.

Thirty-one of them had been there for more than 24 hours; another 13 had been there for more than 48 hours.

The patients died while waiting for care at the Anna-Laberge hospitalon Nov. 29 and 30. (Radio-Canada)
Dominic Caisse, the interim president of the regional branch of the FIQ, a union that represents nurses and other health-care workers, said the ER is poorly laid out to receive and manage large numbers of patients.

"I hope that something is going to change," Caisse said. "I hope that the visit of Minister Dubé is going to come and help find some solutions."

Paul Brunet, a patients' rights advocate, said the hospital "has had for quite a long time some problems with managing its emergency room."

The deaths highlighted the need for hospital staff to continuously examine the state of patients in the ER, in case they worsen, Brunet said.

• Physicians warn Quebec's ERs are over capacity as respiratory viruses increase
• Another Quebec ER had to shut down because of a lack of nurses, who are exhausted

Opposition politicians in Quebec City lambasted the CAQ government's management of the problems in the province's emergency rooms, which Brunet said have been ongoing for decades.

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, co-spokesperson for Québec Solidaire, said delays in Quebec's ERs could be improved if the government gave striking health-care workers a new contract to get them back to work.

"The top priority is bringing people back and to do that an agreement needs to be reached as quickly as possible with the health-care workers," Nadeau-Dubois said.

WATCH | Why are Quebec public sector workers on strike?

'Exhaustion on a daily basis' among reasons why Quebec workers are striking​

Some education and health-care workers say they're walking off the job because they're overworked and underpaid.
Dubé said the strikes were not affecting staffing levels in ERs, but that they were affecting staffing levels for the 811 health hotline, which he has pitched as an alternative to the ER.

Still, with respiratory viruses swirling, ERs will be so busy in the coming weeks that Dubé recommended staying away unless absolutely necessary.

"In the coming weeks, it's better to wait on the telephone than go to the ER," he said.

 

[mariomike]

If I have to pay out of pocket, go to school for a couple of years, and then hope I get hired, why would I choose paramedic?

I don't know.

But, that's the way it's been since 1 August, 1975.

In Ontario, anyone who wishes to become a Primary Care Paramedic must attend a recognized 2 year Primary Care Paramedic program in a community college.

I hired on straight out of high school before that.

 

[Furniture]

I don't know.

But, that's the way it's been since 1 August, 1975.



I hired on straight out of high school before that.

Yes... when Canada had been going through a surplus of workers.

We now have more jobs than people that want them. Particularly jobs that aren't Influencer or white collar office jobs.

Which is exactly why I suggested that employers need to look at how they have set-up their hiring processes. They need to switch from "filter out anyone not 100% perfect" to "how do we get people in the door and on the job?"

 

[Navy_Pete]

Yes... when Canada had been going through a surplus of workers.

We now have more jobs than people that want them. Particularly jobs that aren't Influencer or white collar office jobs.

Which is exactly why I suggested that employers need to look at how they have set-up their hiring processes. They need to switch from "filter out anyone not 100% perfect" to "how do we get people in the door and on the job?"

Those are good points, although I would also argue the CAF can't use general market labour attrition rates as a bench mark for what acceptable retention rates looks like. Off the top of my head I can't think of another organization in Canada with 50-60k people who don't have competitors or related industries where they can poach people from with fairly minimal on ramping.

If you want to replace someone in the CAF with 10 years experience, your only source is the CAF pipeline and 10 years. We can't take someone off civvie street and drop them in a Sgt or Maj job (or even generally Cpl or Lt jobs). You can transfer a lot of CAF skillsets to other places fairly easily, but the reverse isn't necessarily true.

The various really niche specialist companies that tend to grow their own people usually focus hugely on retention. We seem to be happy with the same as any random big company, which exists with a totally different workforce context.

On the flip side, there seem to be growing companies with small groups of specialists that support the CAF in very niche areas, which are a mix of civvies and ex-CAF members with relevant experience. Mostly because we suck at retaining our specialists, and people are happy to do similar work as contractors to keep supporting the CAF without having to be in the CAF, so we hire the companies to do the work because we don't have the number of people to do it internally. So if they push to eliminate a lot of the contractor support, they are kicking out the crutch we've come to rely upon from driving people out.

Bit of a vicious cirlce, because it will burn a lot of the remaining folks out faster by dumping work on them (which was why we had contractor support in the first place). And if it's a big enough cut, next time we go looking for support it might not exist because people moved on to other things while we were navel gazing. We see this now on the equipment side, where we didn't buy spares for long enough that the suppliers don't really care what we want as we are a really unreliable customer, so they give us F U prices at large batch quantities for the one offs.

 

[daftandbarmy]

If you want to replace someone in the CAF with 10 years experience, your only source is the CAF pipeline and 10 years. We can't take someone off civvie street and drop them in a Sgt or Maj job (or even generally Cpl or Lt jobs). You can transfer a lot of CAF skillsets to other places fairly easily, but the reverse isn't necessarily true.

WW2 didn't last 10 years... I wonder how they coped

 

[Navy_Pete]

WW2 didn't last 10 years... I wonder how they coped

Much simpler equipment, plus a massive investment in training infrastructure, schools etc. Wasn't really referring to infantry though, as that's probably one that is the least complicated to surge to a wartime footing. Because we aren't in a wartime footing and aren't even getting peacetime funding, that's not really a fair reference point.

The learning curve on technology is crazy and adds a lot of lead time, but our current sad fleet in a death spiral would handily pick off the entire Canadian RCN WW2 era fleet and they likely wouldn't even have an idea we were there. Imagine air force is similar (as well as the anti air), and that smaller numbers of the various mechanized gear would similarly outshoot a lot of WW2 equipment.

Accuracy and range of artillery, missiles, guided bombs, various unmanned kit etc can really ruin your day. I think the Ukranians are demonstrating this pretty well and their use of drones shows a bit how you can take a pretty cheap weapon and wreck major platforms as well as where you can take people off the street and incorporate them into a military capability, but the invasion gave them the incentive they needed. But even with the incentive they are relying heavily on allies to build up some kind of air capability, and likely won't develop any major naval capability until after the war is over.

Stuff like that if we don't keep up now it just won't be available at all when we need it, and because of our geography a lot of the Ukranian type solutions won't apply. For an expeditionary type war I don't know we'll bring much to the table outside basic army and some limited air assets at this point with a few token ships. And with how bad we are at buying basics like boots and a new pistol, it would take while to surge the army as well if we wait until things hit the fans.

 

[Furniture]

If you want to replace someone in the CAF with 10 years experience, your only source is the CAF pipeline and 10 years. We can't take someone off civvie street and drop them in a Sgt or Maj job (or even generally Cpl or Lt jobs). You can transfer a lot of CAF skillsets to other places fairly easily, but the reverse isn't necessarily true.

This is the biggest thing I took from the CRCN's YouTubers video... look at the graphic regarding RCN occupations. We are losing our MS-PO 1/LT pers at an alarming rate...

I have yet to hear a conversation from on high regarding realistic ways to fix that.

We instead seem fixated on making 3 year S3s into 15 year PO 2s.... with zero success.

 

[Navy_Pete]

This is the biggest thing I took from the CRCN's YouTubers video... look at the graphic regarding RCN occupations. We are losing out MS-PO 1/LT pers at an alarming rate...

I have yet to hear a conversation from on high regarding realistic ways to fix that.

We instead seem fixated on making 3 year S3s into 15 year PO 2s.... with zero success.

I don't really have any ideas anymore; I think I'll try and focus on what I can actually do and let other folks worry about it.

Have suggested slowing down the opsched, parking ships, perhaps manning them properly and repairing the basic things like leaking firemains, hot and cold water etc on the ones that work, but those all seem to be non-starters.

Best case scenario a few more flood their LP air with water, or otherwise have some kind of major issue that keeps them alongside for a while without actually putting anyone in danger and forces them to park some of the big ships for a bit. Because we keep dodging bullets and then deciding that's good and no lessons need learned.

 

[QV]

Those are good points, although I would also argue the CAF can't use general market labour attrition rates as a bench mark for what acceptable retention rates looks like. Off the top of my head I can't think of another organization in Canada with 50-60k people who don't have competitors or related industries where they can poach people from with fairly minimal on ramping.

If you want to replace someone in the CAF with 10 years experience, your only source is the CAF pipeline and 10 years. We can't take someone off civvie street and drop them in a Sgt or Maj job (or even generally Cpl or Lt jobs). You can transfer a lot of CAF skillsets to other places fairly easily, but the reverse isn't necessarily true.

The various really niche specialist companies that tend to grow their own people usually focus hugely on retention. We seem to be happy with the same as any random big company, which exists with a totally different workforce context.

On the flip side, there seem to be growing companies with small groups of specialists that support the CAF in very niche areas, which are a mix of civvies and ex-CAF members with relevant experience. Mostly because we suck at retaining our specialists, and people are happy to do similar work as contractors to keep supporting the CAF without having to be in the CAF, so we hire the companies to do the work because we don't have the number of people to do it internally. So if they push to eliminate a lot of the contractor support, they are kicking out the crutch we've come to rely upon from driving people out.

Bit of a vicious cirlce, because it will burn a lot of the remaining folks out faster by dumping work on them (which was why we had contractor support in the first place). And if it's a big enough cut, next time we go looking for support it might not exist because people moved on to other things while we were navel gazing. We see this now on the equipment side, where we didn't buy spares for long enough that the suppliers don't really care what we want as we are a really unreliable customer, so they give us F U prices at large batch quantities for the one offs.

The CAF shouldn't be the employer with a 30 yr plan for every "employee". The CAF should focus on bringing in young able bodies for shorter stints, say 3-10 years. Of course you will need a stream for people that have the desire, and more importantly the aptitude, for long serving senior leadership and technical areas, but that shouldn't be the default option for everyone already in.

The CAF should have a fast and efficient recruiting/training/employing scheme for all entry levels with incentives (such as funding for post secondary after your term) to get young motivated people serving for short durations. Recruiting people aged 32+ with families in tow and 'needs' that do not compliment the needs of the service is a drag on the system and impacts everything else. Having a robust and capable military is a matter of national interest and security, it shouldn't be treated like another good public sector job with great benefits, otherwise you just have another entitled public service but in uniform.

Finally, there needs to be an attitude adjustment. Serving in the CAF for 3 years then taking your learned/trained values and skills into civil society should be celebrated. Not berated as being a quitter, which is often the culture.

 

[Remius]

I would add that you need to make those 3 year stints worth it. Sign up? Cool you qualify for 20,000$ in education incentives after you leave. Hey we’d like to keep you longer, so we’ll offer you a 20k cash bonus to stay on 5 more years. Eight years done? Cool, you can take that education incentive or sign up again for 5 and you can choose your posting , get 15k cash and you get your CD at the end.

And so on.

 

[YZT580]

I would add that you need to make those 3 year stints worth it. Sign up? Cool you qualify for 20,000$ in education incentives after you leave. Hey we’d like to keep you longer, so we’ll offer you a 20k cash bonus to stay on 5 more years. Eight years done? Cool, you can take that education incentive or sign up again for 5 and you can choose your posting , get 15k cash and you get your CD at the end.

And so on.

and find a way to get school guidance departments on side. A flyby with the Snowbirds doesn't cut it, it only serves to illustrate how old and decrepit the CAF has become. Buy new a/c for the demo team and stop pandering to the woke

 

[CountDC]

This is the biggest thing I took from the CRCN's YouTubers video... look at the graphic regarding RCN occupations. We are losing our MS-PO 1/LT pers at an alarming rate...

I have yet to hear a conversation from on high regarding realistic ways to fix that.

We instead seem fixated on making 3 year S3s into 15 year PO 2s.... with zero success.

But but we have recruiting incentives!!

The CAF shouldn't be the employer with a 30 yr plan for every "employee". The CAF should focus on bringing in young able bodies for shorter stints, say 3-10 years. Of course you will need a stream for people that have the desire, and more importantly the aptitude, for long serving senior leadership and technical areas, but that shouldn't be the default option for everyone already in.

The CAF should have a fast and efficient recruiting/training/employing scheme for all entry levels with incentives (such as funding for post secondary after your term) to get young motivated people serving for short durations. Recruiting people aged 32+ with families in tow and 'needs' that do not compliment the needs of the service is a drag on the system and impacts everything else. Having a robust and capable military is a matter of national interest and security, it shouldn't be treated like another good public sector job with great benefits, otherwise you just have another entitled public service but in uniform.

Finally, there needs to be an attitude adjustment. Serving in the CAF for 3 years then taking your learned/trained values and skills into civil society should be celebrated. Not berated as being a quitter, which is often the culture.

This would all be valid if there was a recruiting problem which there isn't as we have lots of applicants. We do need a faster and efficient recruiting system to actually get all the applicants in the door and short periods are still a thing - first TOS is usually 3 - 5 years. There is a retention problem though which does have a large impact and needs to be fixed. Two years between first contact and "hi we are ready to enrol" is way too long. Looking at the recruiting bonus list can't help wondering if they are actually needed instead of a better recruiting system including recruiters doing a better job of selling the trades. I still talk to new administrators that the recruiter tried to sell on combat arms instead.

Don't know about the attitude adjustment for others but I have been selling it for years to people to enrol for a first TOS, get the training, experience, some higher-level education covered if desired and then if the military is not suitable jump to the civilian world with a nicer resume.

 

[Navy_Pete]

The CAF shouldn't be the employer with a 30 yr plan for every "employee". The CAF should focus on bringing in young able bodies for shorter stints, say 3-10 years. Of course you will need a stream for people that have the desire, and more importantly the aptitude, for long serving senior leadership and technical areas, but that shouldn't be the default option for everyone already in.

The CAF should have a fast and efficient recruiting/training/employing scheme for all entry levels with incentives (such as funding for post secondary after your term) to get young motivated people serving for short durations. Recruiting people aged 32+ with families in tow and 'needs' that do not compliment the needs of the service is a drag on the system and impacts everything else. Having a robust and capable military is a matter of national interest and security, it shouldn't be treated like another good public sector job with great benefits, otherwise you just have another entitled public service but in uniform.

Finally, there needs to be an attitude adjustment. Serving in the CAF for 3 years then taking your learned/trained values and skills into civil society should be celebrated. Not berated as being a quitter, which is often the culture.

Sure, but some trades have a 3-5 year lead time before you are a qualified journeyman, and 10ish years before you are a competent in more senior roles, or sometimes longer to develop some niche specialist skills.

Discounting that across the board with a one size fits all short stint would be stupid.

We'll fast track people for promotion and push them for high tempo positions, but then for retention treat them the same as a bottom performer not recommended for promotion. You can afford some attrition, but it especially hurts when you lose high performers with special skill sets that you can't replace. There are a number of people that are among a group of single digit or low double digit specialist quals.

We have done some things for trades at the high levels, but with some of the changes things like spec pay have been devalued.

Should be room for both short stints and careers, but given that we're having problems recruiting people at all, just seems weird we are not doing more to stop the bleeding. 10% attrition is feasible if you have a sustained 10% intake and constant replacement flowing up to step in when people leave, which we aren't doing, and haven't for my entire 19 year career. It's particularly critical when a lot of our redundancy is built around OJT and people training the people below them to step in for them; you can't shadow someone more senior when they don't exist, and a lot of people are struggling with layers of different people acting above their rank (almost never AWSE in the navy)

 

[QV]

But but we have recruiting incentives!!

This would all be valid if there was a recruiting problem which there isn't as we have lots of applicants. We do need a faster and efficient recruiting system to actually get all the applicants in the door and short periods are still a thing - first TOS is usually 3 - 5 years. There is a retention problem though which does have a large impact and needs to be fixed. Two years between first contact and "hi we are ready to enrol" is way too long. Looking at the recruiting bonus list can't help wondering if they are actually needed instead of a better recruiting system including recruiters doing a better job of selling the trades. I still talk to new administrators that the recruiter tried to sell on combat arms instead.

Don't know about the attitude adjustment for others but I have been selling it for years to people to enrol for a first TOS, get the training, experience, some higher-level education covered if desired and then if the military is not suitable jump to the civilian world with a nicer resume.

The CAF attracts too high a number of the wrong recruits and then tries to keep them for life. So yes, there is still a recruiting problem. Your comment about TOS would make sense if it wasn't automatically and always followed up with a new TOS for everyone. Recruiting and enrolment need a wholesale re-work and the model to which how people are employed in the CAF also needs to be modernized. For instance, the CAF wouldn't have the retention problem it has if it chose correctly who it retained rather than just everyone all the time. As to your comment about attitude adjustment, your personal anecdote doesn't negate the need for a wholesale adjustment across the institution to be more positive, open, and encourage short term commitments for young people who in this day and age tend to move careers frequently.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Are not enough people coming in the door, or are too many leaving before they are qualified for trade?

 

[QV]

I've seen about half dozen articles stating low recruitment. So I would go with not enough coming in the door as the first part of many problems.

 

[Photopilot]

My daughter wants to be a farmer. I told her I would retire and help her set up and get going. Shes 10, so I still have some time lol

While perhaps not a "trade" its in the same family of jobs IMHO.

My Father in Law and Brother in Law are both farmers. Both of them are some of the smartest people I know.
Expensive way to make a living though..... land, equipment, fuel, livestock or seed, the list goes on.

Good luck to her, we need more farmers!