In Uni a few years before you in the 80s I was working in the warehouse of an Ottawa-area chain of gift shops. Had to do the delivery runs one week, including a drop off for the Parliamentary gift shop. Drove the van onto the hill and parked behind the West Block. Loaded up the hand cart and went to the door where a commissionaire gave me directions for the basement corridors that would lead me to the gift shop storage in the Centre Block. No escort, no nothing. Just roaming free.
The RCAF's Next Generation Fighter (CF-188 Replacement)
- Thread starter WingsofFury
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I'm sorry, but I struggle to understand. You work for the Department of National Defence. The purpose of DND is to secure Canada and Canadians.
How is hiring armed private security guards any different than hiring armed soldiers as guards?
The only differences I can see are in the terms of service.
If private companies can find people to stay in one place for their career while they raise a family and walk the same perimeter day in and day out why can't DND find them for the CAF?
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Does any of this resonate with our neighbours being concerned with us not taking security as seriously as they do? Might they be forgiven for thinking that Canada might be a weakspot on their flank that needs to be defended rather than an anchor that relieves them of effort?
And the Danes protect Greenland with a couple of dogsleds.
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Canada has always been fairly anti-military spending, mainly because of a lack of a external threat. It has nothing to do with unions, most members have nothing to do with the ‘upper’ portions thoughts.
Keep in mind the lowest the defence budget in modern history for Canada was under Harper (.9% GDP). He most certainly isn’t pro-union.
The only nation which has directly posed a threat to Canada is America. As such the only real reason most would see to arm is America. Otherwise they see defence spending as a waste of tax dollars. Our current defence strategy is basically be so close to America that they wouldn’t want to invade us. Trump is changing that dynamic.
AvroArrow92
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Has there been any more discussion on LockMart offering a full overhaul facility in Mirabel? Also Prat is based out of the airport as well, I wonder if we paid for it they would be willing to limited engine servicing?
My personal opinion it seems the biggest sticking point to the F35 now is it is highly dependent on the USA for everything maintenance wise, but it seems that is our choice. If you look at the Aussies/ UK/ Israeli the JPO & the USA government seems perfectly content with allowing a lot of the heavy maintenance to occur outside the USA.
It appears the Aussie even have MDF lab in Australia. All the above and this would dramatically reduce our vulnerability and still keeping us on the in no?
My personal opinion it seems the biggest sticking point to the F35 now is it is highly dependent on the USA for everything maintenance wise, but it seems that is our choice. If you look at the Aussies/ UK/ Israeli the JPO & the USA government seems perfectly content with allowing a lot of the heavy maintenance to occur outside the USA.
It appears the Aussie even have MDF lab in Australia. All the above and this would dramatically reduce our vulnerability and still keeping us on the in no?
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RCMP policing the CAF seems more viable than creating another federal police force.
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Hiring soldiers means we're using resources (including instructor hours) for their basic training and any other required course. Once they reach OFP their job is straight forward and routine. I'm not sure what courses or speciality training it would make sense to give them. Mata/para leave, sick leave, vacation, all becomes our problem.
If the intent is to use them as a QRF or force ready to fight off attackers en masse in an organized manner then it makes more sense to use infantry or combat arms and treat it like a posting.
If we just want armed guards who patrol a fence then we can save resources by hiring armed guards and make the administration someone else's problem.
When deployed the task becomes a cftpo for reservists, combat arms sections, or the airforce trade that has airfield security in their job description.
QV
Army.ca Veteran
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I tend to agree with that. But it shouldn't only be a security guard. It should be the whole force protection package, including deployable elements. I've written at length on this in other threads over the years. A force protection trade would guard airfields and hangars and other restricted areas yes, but would also guard all bases, access control, base QRF, deployed or domestic convoy escort (munitions movements domestically, or convoy ops deployed), TASO, close protection, fob protection etc... it could be a branch under VCDS, the operational arm of DGDS.
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What federal police force is that?
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Not sure if this still occurs but how about this one.
I had a number friends when they were in Uni who would work at the Bridge/Tunnel in Windsor in the booths as a Border Agent. They'd be hired in early May and work until the end of August, undergo some training and then sit in the booth - by themselves - and ask to see documentation from those crossing into Canada at either the Ambassador Bridge or the Windsor/Detroit Tunnel. This would have been the very late 80's into the early/mid 90's. To recap, we'd take a 19yr/20yr old kid and give them some training on how to spot/identify an American coming into Canada, who may or may not have a gun. To identify if someone was smuggling cocaine into Canada, etc.
In all my years of crossing the border by land I've never once seen a uni student in a booth on the US side.
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No it doesn't. Hire people for the job they do.
Or, if soldiers are people that engage the enemy, then take all those that don't engage the enemy out of uniform and give all the 60,000 authorized uniforms to combat personnel.
When we had mass mobilization a good chunk of those people in uniform were doing security in Canada or civilian jobs in direct support of the deployed forces.
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The Military Police
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Some interesting ideas. It seems like it would be a lot of effort, resources, and manpower put into an organization not designed to actively seek out and fight bad guys. Unless the trade you're proposing would be given some kind of infantry QL3 or similar training?
That comes back to why not just increase the size of the infantry and task them as required.
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I don't really follow what you're saying here.
We can use cooks and clerks as security but it's not a great idea. We can use combat arms as security a lot easier.
Instead of making a trade who can only do security why not increase what we have with their combat capability?
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I was stationed in NDHQ at that time; a lot of people I worked with thought it was really stupid, but someone in NDHQ wanted to score some brownie points with the local politicians.
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Oh those guys. They're older than traffic lights and Tommy Guns.The Military Police
It would be cool to create a new federal police force that can pass a sentence on the spot. Like a cop & judge all in one, but I digress.
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If only they'd acknowledge that they have a responsibility for traffic control...
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You need someone to wave through the van loads of Libyan terrorists…
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Until we need to forward deploy them
QV
Army.ca Veteran
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Not actively seeking out, defending from.
It should be a purple trade. You'd also want to maintain and grow the specialty aspects like air marshal, CP, TASO, port security, airfield security.. maintain use of force training for domestic ops.
If I was king for a day, I'd re-roll and re-name the MP branch - open it up to re-musters who have certain desired qualifications (CP). Focus entirely on all domain force protection for the CAF domestically and abroad. Force protection includes all the boring admin and tasks that goes with security - USS duties, Ident, security screening, physical security, access control, guard duties, BASF. I'd take all of this off the plate of the other L1s. No need for secondary duties dispersed about.
The mp do a lot of these tasks already - I figure if CAF wanted to trim off police duties - just rip the band-aide off and disband/re-roll into a CAF D&S or Force Protection trade, could significantly reduce the cost of contracting commissionaires at the same time. You'd have your CAF armed security force for domestic and deployed ops freeing up all the other trades to do their specific jobs entirely.
