RCN to introduce new Conduct Policy and new Alcohol Policy

[Jed]

We have the military that Canada, particularly that some politicians and "peaceniks" want:

Toothless and emasculated.

Rant over.

Well said.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

Why does the Navy needs it's own "conduct" and/or "alcohol" policies?

http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/about-policies-standards-defence-admin-orders-directives-5000/5019-0.page

http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/about-policies-standards-defence-admin-orders-directives-5000/5019-7.page

If you step out of line with the above, there is:

http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/about-policies-standards-defence-admin-orders-directives-5000/5019-4.page

and

http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/about-policies-standards-defence-admin-orders-directives-5000/5019-2.page

and of course, the CSD, QR & O Vol II, etc.

Instead of reinventing the wheel or trying to make a wheel roll differently than other wheels, why doesn't the RCN just properly employ an already devised system and tools?

I've never sailed, but it sounds to me from previous posts like control measures/directives already were in place.  Why not use the tools at the CofC's disposal to deal with the offenders?  We have the "12 hours bottle to throttle" rule in the flying world; if 1 or 2 crew members decided to party past when they should have, should the RCAF Comd then impose restritions on 'everyone' instead of the CofC using the tools on their belt to deal with the offenders?

Seems to me like this is more about appearance than anything, and a way for the higher echelon of the RCN to protect themselves from stuff that happens at the Captain & ships company level.

 

[OldSolduer]

Well said.
[/quote

 

[chrisf]

Perhaps we should be taking some of the extra cash being generated from the increased alcohol sales and but it towards port activities, tours etc. Give the sailors something to do if they choose.

Sounds like a great idea.

My current employer has a quite firm zero tolerance drug and alcohol policy, we were recently in a shipyard, with fairly free and easy access to alcohol which remained prohibited...

Rather than rely on punitive measures, the employer was fairly proactive, spending a bit of their social budget on diversionary activities... it all worked out quite while... I can't say no one consumed alcohol, but there were no issues with drunkenness, and any of the fighting and other nonsense associated with it...

 

[Stoker]

Sounds like a great idea.

My current employer has a quite firm zero tolerance drug and alcohol policy, we were recently in a shipyard, with fairly free and easy access to alcohol which remained prohibited...

Rather than rely on punitive measures, the employer was fairly proactive, spending a bit of their social budget on diversionary activities... it all worked out quite while... I can't say no one consumed alcohol, but there were no issues with drunkenness, and any of the fighting and other nonsense associated with it...

The bigger ships with more personnel and more money generated enjoy a lot more activities for the crew when they typically get into port. Myself being on the KINGSTON Class we do not get anything like that, except if we deploy overseas where there are tours and whatnot arranged for the crew. Picture a boat load of young men and women and let loose in a port, with nothing to do but drink. Not saying people will not drink, but they should have a choice and the option of something interesting to do with their time off.

 

[George Wallace]

Sounds like a great idea.

My current employer has a quite firm zero tolerance drug and alcohol policy, we were recently in a shipyard, with fairly free and easy access to alcohol which remained prohibited...

Rather than rely on punitive measures, the employer was fairly proactive, spending a bit of their social budget on diversionary activities... it all worked out quite while... I can't say no one consumed alcohol, but there were no issues with drunkenness, and any of the fighting and other nonsense associated with it...

Even you pointed out that there 'may' have been alcohol consumed, so restrictive measures really are not effective.  Again, it boils down to having the respect towards your troops and treating them like responsible adults, not children who don't know better.  If you want to have responsible people in positions of the CAF, ensure you treat them in a way that they will be responsible for their actions.  Treating them like children is not the way to do it.

One of the worse things the CAF can have is leadership who are "Born Again" or "Reformed"; Alcoholics or Christians or whatever.  They figure that their "weaknesses" are common to all.  Sorry, but punishing the masses for your sins is not a good thing.

 

[Scott]

To be perfectly clear before I make this statement, I always treated this issue of booze on the boats with indifference.

Now that it's blown up its rather simple, we are speaking about alcohol in a workplace. Think about that. How many other workplaces have this?

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

To be perfectly clear before I make this statement, I always treated this issue of booze on the boats with indifference.

Now that it's blown up its rather simple, we are speaking about alcohol in a workplace. Think about that. How many other workplaces have this?

I, very regularly, have a drink with lunch during working hours.  The health benefits of drinking a beer or a glass wine during the day are well documented.  It's sad that the American villainization of alcohol has crept into our military. 

 

[Stoker]

To be perfectly clear before I make this statement, I always treated this issue of booze on the boats with indifference.

Now that it's blown up its rather simple, we are speaking about alcohol in a workplace. Think about that. How many other workplaces have this?

Yes Scott but how many workplaces confine hundreds of people in a metal box, a couple of hundred feet long for months on end. I don't drink at sea, but I respect their desire to have a beer after watch as long as its 6 hrs from going on watch.

 

[Scott]

I, very regularly, have a drink with lunch during working hours.  The health benefits of drinking a beer or a glass wine during the day are well documented.  It's sad that the American villainization of alcohol has crept into our military. 

Good for you. Do you work on a vessel at sea? Do you have emergency duties?

Again, how many workplaces, outside of the military, would allow drinking while at work? This isn't villianization of booze, it's common sense. Booze and work don't mesh well. In fact, alcohol doesn't even factor into any risk assessment matrix I have ever seen, and I wonder why that is.

Yes Scott but how many workplaces confine hundreds of people in a metal box, a couple of hundred feet long for months on end. I don't drink at sea, but I respect their desire to have a beer after watch as long as its 6 hrs from going on watch.

Chief, I work offshore. You don't have to explain the hardships to me. Granted, I don't do stretches of months at a time, but I do know how limited the options are for fun. We do not have booze. I cannot imagine having it. I have also experienced emergencies at sea during my hitch and I wouldn't want to have Lloyds Register having to ask if anyone had been drinking. It just doesn't compute. At all.

Edited to insert quotes and remove a disjointed ramble.

 

[Stoker]

Good for you. Do you work on a vessel at sea? Do you have emergency duties?

Again, how many workplaces, outside of the military, would allow drinking while at work? This isn't villi animation of booze, it's common sense. Booze and work don't mesh well. In fact, alcohol doesn't even factor into any risk assessment matrix I have ever seen, and I wonder why that is.

Chief, I work offshore. You don't have to explain the hardships to me. Granted, I don't do stretches of months at a time, but I do know how limited the options are for fun. We do not have booze. I cannot imagine having it. I have also experienced emergencies at sea during my hitch and I wouldn't want to have Lloyds Register having to ask if anyone had been drinking. It just doesn't compute. At all.

Yes Scott I do and I have to be ready at a moments notice to rush into a fire, in fact I have more time at sea than most reservists. I don't drink at sea because of that of my position. If we had to look at it and compare it to the civilian side, then yes no drinking at sea would be order. Perhaps if we never had it to begin with, but as you might imagine good or bad this is part of our tradition and culture. Change is hard.

 

[Scott]

I'll try a different approach to make my point.

I am a safety guy. It's my job to debate matters like this. Though I've never had to explain the "no booze offshore" thing to anyone, it's just one of those accepted norms.

I was working elsewhere in the world when even near beer was outlawed because someone had a photo taken of him tripping pipe with a Becks in his hand. It wouldn't matter to Greenpeace if it was dealcoholized, the image would have sunk us.

Shell, like many of the companies nowadays, has "life saving rules" Take a look at them here: http://www.shell.ca/en/environment-society/safety-tpkg.html They are based on actual incidents and recorded injuries and fatalities. These are the 12 things that, to Shell, can get you fucked up if you don't abide by them. They also represent immediate sackable offences for some outfits.

Again, I treated this issue with indifference. I had no issue with it. But now that the decision has been made I have to state that it is simple common sense.

 

[PuckChaser]

I, very regularly, have a drink with lunch during working hours.  The health benefits of drinking a beer or a glass wine during the day are well documented.  It's sad that the American villainization of alcohol has crept into our military.

Absolutely. I took the Alcohol, gambling, other drugs course PSP offers a year or so ago, and the whole course for into a fairly heated debate with the base addictions councilor on how alcohol is a fast track out of the CF now, but if you're doing oxys in your shacks they'll put you through years of rehab. Instead of encouraging responsible use (and correcting those that abuse), we've taken the 1920s approach and painted everyone like an alcoholic that wants to go to TGIT at the mess.

 

[Scott]

Yes Scott I do and I have to be ready at a moments notice to rush into a fire, in fact I have more time at sea than most reservists. I don't drink at sea because of that of my position. If we had to look at it and compare it to the civilian side, then yes no drinking at sea would be order. Perhaps if we never had it to begin with, but as you might imagine good or bad this is part of our tradition and culture. Change is hard.

I am glad that someone with as much time as you've had can agree with me on this point.

On the flip side, I can see how the change would be hard, and not easy to understand for some. I can sympathize with that.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Chief, I work offshore. You don't have to explain the hardships to me. Granted, I don't do stretches of months at a time, but I do know how limited the options are for fun. We do not have booze. I cannot imagine having it.

How long are your shifts off shore?


Don't remember if I've brought it up but in Bosnia (  :warstory: ) there was a 2 drink limit per day. I found that placing a limit on people;
1. seemed to prompt a lot of people to make sure to get their 2 drinks a day.  Where someone may or may not really be inclined to drink every day now they were drinking at least 60 drinks a month.
2. it almost challenged some people to try and drink more than 2 drinks a day just to prove they could.



Obviously just hearsay but I've heard enough stories (navy alcohol antics)  that makes me genuinely surprised this hasn't happened sooner.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Good for you. Do you work on a vessel at sea? Do you have emergency duties?

Again, how many workplaces, outside of the military, would allow drinking while at work? This isn't villianization of booze, it's common sense. Booze and work don't mesh well. In fact, alcohol doesn't even factor into any risk assessment matrix I have ever seen, and I wonder why that is.

Chief, I work offshore. You don't have to explain the hardships to me. Granted, I don't do stretches of months at a time, but I do know how limited the options are for fun. We do not have booze. I cannot imagine having it.

Edited to insert quotes and remove a disjointed ramble.

Smokey Smith won the Victoria Cross while on the piss so maybe we should start to take alcohol into consideration when conducting s risk assessment but I digress.  I am talking about drinking "a beer" or "a glass of wine" which has been shown to lower heart rate and blood pressure and have a calming effect on the nerves. 

You seem to be talking about something completely different, i.e. Crushing a 12 pack, which I agree is completely unacceptable.  Your above comments only further validated my previous comments about the American villainization of alcohol that now pervades our military. 

 

[Scott]

How long are your shifts off shore?

14 days.

Smokey Smith won the Victoria Cross while on the piss so maybe we should start to take alcohol into consideration when conducting s risk assessment but I digress.  I am talking about drinking "a beer" or "a glass of wine" which has been shown to lower heart rate and blood pressure and have a calming effect on the nerves. 

You seem to be talking about something completely different, i.e. Crushing a 12 pack, which I agree is completely unacceptable.  Your above comments only further validated my previous comments about the American villainization of alcohol that now pervades our military. 

I don't know where you get that I am furthering this so-called villianization of booze, but if you want to read that into my comments then give 'er. I like to drink as much as the next guy, I just know that it doesn't belong in certain place: like cars, the workplace, cockpits, etc.

You really want to compare Smokey Smith's actions to the modern workplace? That's weak.

The difficulty is how the line is drawn. I can admit being conflicted in that I don't have much of an issue with soldiers having a beer in the field during downtime. On the other hand, every sailor I've ever spoken to has told me that fire at sea is their greatest fear - and I repeat, the aftermath would fucking suck if I had to explain that one of the ER guys had a beer. It's just a question that doesn't have to come up. Does this make me a hypocrite, maybe. But I can rationalize it pretty easy in that the dude working on base in an office type setting doesn't have the inherent risk that someone at sea does, nor does he have the ER roles.

 

[Stoker]

14 days.

I don't know where you get that I am furthering this so-called villianization of booze, but if you want to read that into my comments then give 'er. I like to drink as much as the next guy, I just know that it doesn't belong in certain place: like cars, the workplace, cockpits, etc.

You really want to compare Smokey Smith's actions to the modern workplace? That's weak.

The difficulty is how the line is drawn. I can admit being conflicted in that I don't have much of an issue with soldiers having a beer in the field during downtime. On the other hand, every sailor I've ever spoken to has told me that fire at sea is their greatest fear - and I repeat, the aftermath would ******* suck if I had to explain that one of the ER guys had a beer. It's just a question that doesn't have to come up. Does this make me a hypocrite, maybe. But I can rationalize it pretty easy in that the dude working on base in an office type setting doesn't have the inherent risk that someone at sea does, nor does he have the ER roles.

Scott I'm also the Safety O and Enviro O on the ship as well. Like it has been already said life aboard a civilian vessel is vastly different than a military one. I guess its all about what sort of risk you are willing to assume. I will guarantee that aboard the Protecteur and the Kootenay someone was having a drink. I do appreciate your position. If we are to make life at sea just like the civilian work, we might as well join the merchant marine.

 

[Scott]

Scott I'm also the Safety O and Enviro O on the ship as well. Like it has been already said life aboard a civilian vessel is vastly different than a military one. I guess its all about what sort of risk you are willing to assume. I will guarantee that aboard the Protecteur and the Kootenay someone was having a drink. I do appreciate your position. If we are to make life at sea just like the civilian work, we might as well join the merchant marine.

Chief, I can see your points as well. Again, I do not think it's a cut and dried thing. I don't necessarily think that this single decision will render you guys just like civvy boats, but perhaps it's one of the thousand cuts, I can appreciate that. It's unfortunate, but taking it away is the simplest form of control - as always.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Nobody is talking about going on the piss while at sea- under the current rules, that is already prohibited.

And a naval vessel is not just a workplace, it is also a home- for sometimes up to 9 months at a time. A guarantee no one spends 9 months straight on an oil rig, nor does anyone consider it a home.

The issue I keep coming around to is that this new policy is in response to misconduct that occurred in port. Exactly how does banning alcohol at sea address misconduct in port? And how does adding new policy work when (apparently) the old policy wasn't being enforced. What we have is an enforcement (read command) problem, not an alcohol problem. I can gaurantee that drinking on ships will continue- it will just be driven underground.

I don't (or very, very rarely) drink at sea due to my position. I have seen more fires and other emergencies at sea than I care to list. A no alcohol policy, on the face of it, makes my life easier. On the face of it. The fact of the matter is that I am a leader of adults, not children. My job is to treat them like adults and respect them, not take the easy way out and always say no. This new policy is essentially an admission that ship level leadership is now so poor that they cannot be trusted to treat a ships company like adults and lead and motivate them to good behaviour. That is why I am horrified, because the long term implications are frightening.