Peter MacKay: The urgent need to fix Canada's military — and how to do it
Advice from a former defence minister to one just startingnationalpost.com
If he couldn't fix it, why's he complaining about the Liberals?
I wonder if there would be any political pushback from the Canadian Rangers if they were to expand to more populous areas in the South? The much larger recruiting pool could potentially end up seeing the Southern units/members outnumbering the original Northern units/members and internally change the character and focus of the Rangers.As I indicated before we already have a ResF sub-component that could be used to fill the bill. The Canadian Rangers. There's nothing that says they have to be in the Arctic or on a coast, and many aren't. You can easily create several types of units there from coast watchers to home guard to civil response. It comes with a pretty flexible training regime and an existing command structure.
Could be. There's always friction to change. As it is there are already Ranger patrols in locations on the coasts that are not "Arctic" and there are ones throughout the provinces that are "northern" but not high north like the ones in the territories.I wonder if there would be any political pushback from the Canadian Rangers if they were to expand to more populous areas in the South? The much larger recruiting pool could potentially end up seeing the Southern units/members outnumbering the original Northern units/members and internally change the character and focus of the Rangers.
We're riffing off @Kirkhill's concept of a home guard organization. One that does not have the stringent requirements of a RegF or even ResF which can be easily managed in smaller rural areas as well as big cities and which, like the cadet organization, can develop an interest in the military which helps grow the recruit base. Secondly it provides a pool of additional people to call on when the need is for organized manpower, such as flood fighting, searches for lost children, security guards etc, but not for the more advanced war fighting military skills.
I was trying to think of agencies that exist already, outside of the CAF, that would be potential "pools":We're riffing off @Kirkhill's concept of a home guard organization. One that does not have the stringent requirements of a RegF or even ResF which can be easily managed in smaller rural areas as well as big cities and which, like the cadet organization, can develop an interest in the military which helps grow the recruit base. Secondly it provides a pool of additional people to call on when the need is for organized manpower, such as flood fighting, searches for lost children, security guards etc, but not for the more advanced war fighting military skills.
I find it somewhat incongruous that we have Territorial Battle Groups oriented towards domestic response operations and have found it fit to include the term "battle" in the name. Don't get me wrong, I think the idea of domestic response companies is good. The manpower pool for such organizations, however, could be expanded by use of a mix of ARes for such roles as leaders, drivers, communicators etc and to fill the rank and file from a larger pool of "Rangers" who receive only limited military training but some fundamental training in disaster operations and who have a very limited training/parading requirements (and - bottom line - are faster/easier to recruit and administer, cheap to train, and cheap to maintain on an annual basis.)
In sum, a tiered layer of capabilities, running from plentiful and cheap manpower to a highly skilled and expensive core.
My bad - it is indeed Territorial Battalion Group - must have been a Freudian slip when I was typing.We're riffing off @Kirkhill's concept of a home guard organization. One that does not have the stringent requirements of a RegF or even ResF which can be easily managed in smaller rural areas as well as big cities and which, like the cadet organization, can develop an interest in the military which helps grow the recruit base. Secondly it provides a pool of additional people to call on when the need is for organized manpower, such as flood fighting, searches for lost children, security guards etc, but not for the more advanced war fighting military skills.
I find it somewhat incongruous that we have Territorial Battle Groups oriented towards domestic response operations and have found it fit to include the term "battle" in the name. Don't get me wrong, I think the idea of domestic response companies is good. The manpower pool for such organizations, however, could be expanded by use of a mix of ARes for such roles as leaders, drivers, communicators etc and to fill the rank and file from a larger pool of "Rangers" who receive only limited military training but some fundamental training in disaster operations and who have a very limited training/parading requirements (and - bottom line - are faster/easier to recruit and administer, cheap to train, and cheap to maintain on an annual basis.)
In sum, a tiered layer of capabilities, running from plentiful and cheap manpower to a highly skilled and expensive core.
Actually - not so much.
Understood. Maybe @Kirkhill finally brought me to the Dark Side. This isn't a hill I'd die on.
www.thw-lahr.de
TBGs have been around for about a decade. They have a DOMOPs focus. They conduct TBG training each year and they have been successfully used on DOMOPs (the hurricane on the East Coast in Sep 21 for example). I haven't worked with all of them, but I consider them a success. These are different than lead-units for a CBG Brigade Training Event.YMMV, but I just looked this up and it reads like a work of fiction compared to how I recall things actually getting done. This usually revolved around a 'lead major unit', Class A bods in a Combat Arms regiment, taking responsibility for leading everything for a multi-unit training activity, IIRC as a smoke screen to cover the incompetence of the (full time, Class B) CBG HQ staff who, call me crazy, should have been responsible for the planning and execution of brigade trainings events, led by the (bobbing and weaving) Bde Comd. Regardless, it's not a formally established, permanaent org structure so probably shouldn't be relied upon to lead much other than short term training activities:
"Domestically, the Army Reserve trains through Territorial Battalion Groups (TBG), Domestic Response Companies (DRC) and Arctic Response Company Groups (ARCG). These capabilities represent the force employment framework through which the Army Reserve will leverage existing unit structures and capacities to conduct domestic operations as directed."
Yes, I also remember the Supplementary Ready Reserve back in the 90’s. As I recall, they were required to parade/work (and were paid for) 1 day a year, presumably to DAG. This was separate from the Supplementary Holding Reserve, who were more like today’s SuppRes who didn’t parade at all.
Usually, in broad terms, the NES list is about 60% of the unit strength. (Based on my service with 5 reserve units) Not only clearing these files is nigh unto impossible but kit recovery is miniscule. The $ wasted is nearly impossible to calculate as units have neither the will or the means or legal support to effect a worthwhile program.If those COs were fired, and better ones replaced them, the problem would be solved pretty quick
But that would never happen because: lack of accountability at the highest levels.
Don't students get hours toward grad?And yet, Canadians do volunteer.
Volunteer rate and average annual volunteer hours, by age group, inactive
Volunteer rate and distribution of volunteer hours, population aged 15 and over, age group, 2013.www150.statcan.gc.ca
Looking at this another way.
The average age of the Homeguard is 50 and that includes a very large number of ancients. But it also includes a very large number of middle aged men and women who are living normal lives.
Every year, in Canada, some 5000 civilians volunteer to work with the CAF Reserves. And 3 to 5 years later the CAF loses track of them.
If the CAF could keep track of those 5000 volunteers for the 23 to 32 (call it 25) years that the Danes typically associate with the Homeguard, then that would represent a body of 125,000 people between the ages of 25 and 50. Attested, cleared, willing, with some military training and willing to spend 20 hours a month "parading". That is not a million miles away from two Wednesday nights and a Weekend. But they are maintaining that pace for 25 years. Not 5 years.
And that doesn't reference at all the equivalent number of "Professionals" that are trained and released annually that the CAF loses track of.
These people may not be up to serving the guns or driving a tank but they are a source of organized labour for the types of jobs described by the Homeguard - Vital Point security and Civil Emergencies - work that others would have to do if they weren't doing it.
....
But, I take the point. This is Canada.
