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Does a merger make sense?

I was kinda thinking the same thing. The Coast Guard could be a maritime constabulary that has full law enforcement powers (on the water). You could roll all the other enforcement duties (such as fisheries and shipping enforcement) into this one organisation. The other duties that CCG does now (icebreaking, SAR, shipping safety, etc.) would be done by a separate entity, Marine Services Canada. In reality it would actually be the CCG being renamed MSC, and the new law enforcement agency being called CCG. If this agency is created with members from the RCMP Maritime Division forming the core group, maybe it would become the RCCG .

I'm not sure you'd have to split the organization. The USCG does icebreaking, aids to navigation, inspections, etc. Something about the 'white fleet' and 'black fleet'.

A 'royal' designation goes to organization, not the people.
 
I'm not sure you'd have to split the organization. The USCG does icebreaking, aids to navigation, inspections, etc. Something about the 'white fleet' and 'black fleet'.

A 'royal' designation goes to organization, not the people.
Splitting the coast guard would simply give another large group of leeches a desk job in Ottawa, with lesser leeches manning more desks where ever a CCG vessel home ports. That in turn would deprive the actual coast guard of a significant part of their budget. Department heads, ADMs, training officers, procedures specialists would all require duplication.
 
OK. Would creating a Canadian Maritime Constabulary to handle all law (and maritime regulation) enforcement on the sea (and work with the current CCG) be a good idea or not? Might be more efficient way of doing things.
 
OK. Would creating a Canadian Maritime Constabulary to handle all law (and maritime regulation) enforcement on the sea (and work with the current CCG) be a good idea or not? Might be more efficient way of doing things.
IIRC the Navy is already good at that.... if we gave them the tools and the people for a well beefed up 'littoral' capability.
 
IIRC the Navy is already good at that.... if we gave them the tools and the people for a well beefed up 'littoral' capability.
Normal SOP is to take along RCMP for that stuff on the coasts; they do the actual constabulary duty under their existing authorities and we back them up as required. Think they have their own inland patrol boats (as do the other police forces that need them). But from what limited stuff I've seen it's generally some radio calls over, polite conversation with the police officers over on the boat, and maybe some tickets issued (aside from something like the Turbot wars or a few other unique ones).

I think the way we do it now is working well enough, and the actual requirement for major enforcement actions at sea within Canadian coastal waters are relatively minimal, so don't think it makes sense to have a dedicated team/assets for it. If the drugs or whatever are coming into Canada to hit the US, way easier to do the interdiction at port.

Also agree with YZT that any reorg would create more bureaucrats than front line assets, but honestly think the current CCG/RCN split just makes sense. Maybe if there is a big shift and we start getting a lot of marine smuggling a dedicated unit might make sense, but if you are going to do it from scratch drones, maritime patrol planes, dedicated satellite coverage and a bunch of covered gun boat type things would probably be better than a few big ships given the geographic size of the area. Neither of those things are in either org, but would probably be easy enough to do under existing legistlation and C3 setups with some kind of combined RCN/RCMP task force, and a few new toys.
 
far cheaper to assign a cabin on each coast guard off-shore vessel to the RCMP and staff it with two constables. You don't need an entire crew for enforcement just one with the authority to speak those words: You are under arrest.
Which I understand is already an option, if the CCG's going somewhere/doing something where having police around would be useful.

That said, if there's a need for law enforcement hulls bigger than what Marine Division has now, why mess around with the CCG trying to turn it into (or to create within it) something like the USCG, rather than just giving our existing federal law enforcement agency these hulls (or the RCN, for that matter).

Not sure if it's empire building or something else, but the USCG model seems wasteful for a country that already has a Navy.
 
Coast Guard is already an amalgamation of multiple fleets, first RCAF and Dept of Transport, then the addition DFO grey fleet, PWGS fleet, DFO Science and CHS White fleet. Also early on some of the RCMP fleet as well. Currently Parks, CHS and the RCMP maintain independent fleets of small boats.
 
Which I understand is already an option, if the CCG's going somewhere/doing something where having police around would be useful.

That said, if there's a need for law enforcement hulls bigger than what Marine Division has now, why mess around with the CCG trying to turn it into (or to create within it) something like the USCG, rather than just giving our existing federal law enforcement agency these hulls (or the RCN, for that matter).

Not sure if it's empire building or something else, but the USCG model seems wasteful for a country that already has a Navy.
Agreed on your points about embarking law enforcement on CCG hulls. Or, possibly embarking a law enforcement team on an RCN hull if need be.


We also have to remember that the day to day challenges faced by the USCG as an organization are different than the ones faced by the CCG.

While the USAF maintains both a rotary & fixed-wing SAR capability, the USCG takes on a bulk of SAR calls. The USCG has a pretty sizable fleet of aircraft, and appropriate boats, to take on the vast majority of SAR calls off the coasts of CONUS & Alaska.

The USCG also has a FAR more active, and dangerous, southern border to contend with - including fast movers, narco subs, heavily armed cartels, etc etc.


The CCG, by contrast, doesn't have a constantly/daily influx of fast moving drug boats, nor narco subs. And unless it's something nearby a ship with an embarked helo, I was under the impression that most SAR calls requiring that level of service falls to the RCAF??

My main point here - and this is just meant as a general point towards to thread - is that comparing the CCG to the USCG is like comparing apples to oranges. The USCG is considered a branch of the US Armed Forces, and is equipped more along those lines even though their primary 'foe' is drug runners/cartels, along with the usual stuff a Coast Guard does. The CCG is an entirely different beast.


0.02 cents
 
Agreed on your points about embarking law enforcement on CCG hulls. Or, possibly embarking a law enforcement team on an RCN hull if need be.

As I have indicated before, that is already what is being done. Both RCN and CCG vessels embark RCMP officers when needed.

Moreover, the CCG has some hulls dedicated to these functions, at least in the great Lakes/St-Lawrence waterways: Some of the mid-shore patrol vessels. Here below is a picture of CCGS Constable Carriere. Note the Coast Guard livery and then, the great big sign that says "POLICE", under that sign and a little to the right, you can see the RCMP logo and colours.
 

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Agreed on your points about embarking law enforcement on CCG hulls. Or, possibly embarking a law enforcement team on an RCN hull if need be.


We also have to remember that the day to day challenges faced by the USCG as an organization are different than the ones faced by the CCG.

While the USAF maintains both a rotary & fixed-wing SAR capability, the USCG takes on a bulk of SAR calls. The USCG has a pretty sizable fleet of aircraft, and appropriate boats, to take on the vast majority of SAR calls off the coasts of CONUS & Alaska.

The USCG also has a FAR more active, and dangerous, southern border to contend with - including fast movers, narco subs, heavily armed cartels, etc etc.


The CCG, by contrast, doesn't have a constantly/daily influx of fast moving drug boats, nor narco subs. And unless it's something nearby a ship with an embarked helo, I was under the impression that most SAR calls requiring that level of service falls to the RCAF??

My main point here - and this is just meant as a general point towards to thread - is that comparing the CCG to the USCG is like comparing apples to oranges. The USCG is considered a branch of the US Armed Forces, and is equipped more along those lines even though their primary 'foe' is drug runners/cartels, along with the usual stuff a Coast Guard does. The CCG is an entirely different beast.


0.02 cents
I suppose my bewilderment with the USCG is how far into naval territory they operate: from first principles, that level of coastal defence seems like something to drop on the USN, assuming the States' constitutional arcana re: armed forces and law enforcement don't apply to foreigners. (That said, it'd lose the peculiarity of the USCG being able to turn out what is apparently a better littoral design than the USN's LCS)

As far as SAR (and exclusive of CASARA and police helicopter and fixed-wing searches over land), very broadly, the CCG and RCMSAR provide surface assets of various sizes, the RCAF provides aviation, and civilian volunteer teams under local police direction handle land/shore SAR.

The latter vary significantly province to province in implementation, and area to area in equipment and capabilities (North Shore SAR in North Vancouver has a long-standing partnership with a helicopter operator, for example).
 
I suppose my bewilderment with the USCG is how far into naval territory they operate: from first principles, that level of coastal defence seems like something to drop on the USN, assuming the States' constitutional arcana re: armed forces and law enforcement don't apply to foreigners. (That said, it'd lose the peculiarity of the USCG being able to turn out what is apparently a better littoral design than the USN's LCS)

As far as SAR (and exclusive of CASARA and police helicopter and fixed-wing searches over land), very broadly, the CCG and RCMSAR provide surface assets of various sizes, the RCAF provides aviation, and civilian volunteer teams under local police direction handle land/shore SAR.

The latter vary significantly province to province in implementation, and area to area in equipment and capabilities (North Shore SAR in North Vancouver has a long-standing partnership with a helicopter operator, for example).

As it does in Ontario. For SAR, aviation-related and international waters (i.e. Great Lakes) is still primarily JRCC with inland, bush, lakes, etc. being provincial (devolved to the police of jurisdiction). There is a lot of cross pollination; JRCC assists as requested for inland matters (for example, provincial aviation assets are either equipped or certified for hoisting) and the police will often handle or at least assist near-shore incidents on the Great Lakes as their equipment/staffing allows. There are a number of near-shore pleasure craft incidents around here that are handled locally and likely never reported to JRCC.

The issue of SAR on the Great Lakes between the CCG and USCG is interesting. It seems that unless you are within about an hour or so of Trenton, immediate aviation assistance just about anyplace else is going to come from the US. It might become more of an issue as the Great Lakes cruise business grows.
 
I suppose my bewilderment with the USCG is how far into naval territory they operate: from first principles, that level of coastal defence seems like something to drop on the USN, assuming the States' constitutional arcana re: armed forces and law enforcement don't apply to foreigners. (That said, it'd lose the peculiarity of the USCG being able to turn out what is apparently a better littoral design than the USN's LCS)

It's always been odd to me that their mission set goes even beyond coastal defence. They have formal AORs in Guam and Japan, and have conducted expeditionary ops in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Taiwan in the past.

At one point during the Cold War some vessels even carried ASW suites with torpedoes, and a few were fitted with Harpoon missiles. I don't know enough about their organization and associated cultures/internal politics to say if this is a managed strategic initiative by both entities, or just the result of decades of mission creep.

message-editor%2F1571935250934-45885578.jpg
 
I suppose my bewilderment with the USCG is how far into naval territory they operate: from first principles, that level of coastal defence seems like something to drop on the USN, assuming the States' constitutional arcana re: armed forces and law enforcement don't apply to foreigners. (That said, it'd lose the peculiarity of the USCG being able to turn out what is apparently a better littoral design than the USN's LCS)

As far as SAR (and exclusive of CASARA and police helicopter and fixed-wing searches over land), very broadly, the CCG and RCMSAR provide surface assets of various sizes, the RCAF provides aviation, and civilian volunteer teams under local police direction handle land/shore SAR.

The latter vary significantly province to province in implementation, and area to area in equipment and capabilities (North Shore SAR in North Vancouver has a long-standing partnership with a helicopter operator, for example).
I interviewed someone, who applied to the CAF Reserves, who had been deployed to Iraq with the USCG during the invasion in 2003 to control the port facilities, jetties etc. They were sent in only a few hours after the USMC had cleared the bad guys out.

This 'someone' also happened to be female, and seemed to be seriously checked out.

I was gobsmacked, of course, as I couldn't imagine any other country deploying CG folks to do tasks like that in a war zone.
 
It's been a duty of the USCG to secure overseas ports being used by the USN since at least WWII or longer, not a well known aspect of their work.
 
Who would expect that, what with the USN having its own, in-house sea-soldier outfit?
Marines seize the island, the SeaBees build the facilities and the Coast Guard come in to try very hard to keep the USN from running into immovable objects (like the sea floor).
 
OK, maybe I'm just being picky or maybe it's my morning to actually pick the fly-sh!t out of the pepper, but words matter.

The American armed forces are Unified, the Australian Armed Forces are Unified, the British Armed Forces are Unified, the Canadian Armed Forces are Unified, the Danish Armed Forces are Unified and ... well you get the picture. Unified armed forces have unity of command ~ normally one defence minister and one Chief of the Defence Staff or Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff or something like that who work in one (usually Integrated) defence HQ.

The Americans extend unification down below HQ level. In their system, major combat commands are also Unified. Central Command, for example, the one with which many of you are very familiar, is Unified. One commander, with an Integrated HQ, commands separate naval, land and air forces.

The Canadian Forces used to be fully Integrated. At one time, in the 1960s and early 1970s, a command, like Maritime Command, had its own fully integrated air component ~ the piots who flew shipborne aircraft saw themselves as Navy officers, first, while the ones who flew Maritime Command's big, multi-engine long-range patrol aircraft saw themselves as Air Force officers who flew as part of a unified force. The colour of their flight suits didn't much matter. That all changed in 1975 with an act of monumentally stupid policy vandalism which was necessitated by the fact that Navy admirals and Army generals always failed to adequately plan for and support the organic air elements of their unified commands. Given a choice between, say, two squadrons of Harriers to replace his clapped-out CF-5 or 12 vs 13 battalions of infantry the Army generals could always be counted on to choose the cap badge over the combat power.

Of course, the CF remains integrated at levels that no other armed force has ever emulated. Medics and cooks and computer techs are all "purple," which is how we define integrated.

The US explored integration in the 1950s. President Eisenhower, I believe, was briefed on the notion and shot it down. He wanted unification and while he understood the USMC's desire to have a high degree of integration, he opposed large scale integration. (There were some exceptions, the US Defense Communications Agency, for example, was an integrated and unified command ~ there were Army, Navy and USAF units but there were also, a few fully integrated units where sailors, soldiers and air force members served side-by-side, albeit not in the same uniform.

The US Marines fought hard, then and later, to keep their own, organic air power ~ their choice of their Harrier, a very inflexible aircraft, in their own, organic (integrated) USMC squadrons was because they had learned, the hard way, that they could not rely on Navy or Air Force support when they needed it most. Ike agreed with them, as did later president and defence chiefs.

I was told, by a source I trust absolutely, that Paul Hellyer's team was briefed, by the US, in the very early 1960s and were told: Yes, to Unification 👍🏻 but No, to Integration 👎🏻. But, Mr Hellyer and his team were being driven by other (political and fiscal) concerns and they went for both. Initially, as I said, the unification extended down through commands and formations and even to base level. But that ended and we now have a strange mix of single service force generation commands and a unified force employment command but our force is still integrated, despite having an RCN, Canadian Army ad RCAF.

Anyway, the CF is both integrated and unified, but unified means e.g. NDHQ, the CDS and CFJOC, while integrated means thigs like purple trades.

Rant ends; thank you for your patience; and now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
 
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