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Conservatives plan to legislate CAF unification into history?

McG

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Missed this when it first came out.  It looks like the Conservatives plan to legislate unification into history.  I guess there is nothing more important than erasing the last half century.
The ‘Royal’ in Royal Navy, Air Force to get legal weight
Michelle Zilio
iPolitics
11 Feb 2014

The Canadian Forces will enshrine the traditional titles and ranks of of the Canadian Armed Forces in law, according to the federal budget tabled Tuesday by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.

In August 2011, the government recognized the “historic” titles of the Canadian Armed Forces by restoring the titles of the Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army and the Royal Canadian Air Force. And in April 2013, traditional Canadian Forces ranks and designations were reinstated.

While the titles, ranks and designations have operationally changed, Tuesday’s budget revealed the Conservative government’s intentions to enshrine those titles into law by listing the traditional references in the National Defence Act.

“In recognition of Canada’s military traditions and heritage, the Government proposes to amend the National Defence Act to enshrine these titles and designations in law,” read the budget.

The decision to recognize the titles and ranks in the National Defence Act is part of the government’s budget provisions focused on “supporting and honouring veterans.”

http://www.ipolitics.ca/2014/02/11/the-royal-in-royal-navy-air-force-to-get-legal-weight/
 
General Hillier's transformation plans were defeated by environmental chiefs who declared they would not cooperate for the glory of their tribes.  I can only imagine empire building and stove-pipes to get worse if the services are re-enshrined in law.

Once again there is no need for this change, but I suppose there is nothing else important that should get in the way of removing the last half century from our history. 
 
MCG said:
General Hillier's transformation plans were defeated by environmental chiefs who declared they would not cooperate for the glory of their tribes.  I can only imagine empire building and stove-pipes to get worse if the services are re-enshrined in law.

Once again there is no need for this change, but I suppose there is nothing else important that should get in the way of removing the last half century from our history.

Like the de-unification itself, this annoucnement is entirely political.

Mr. Harper wants his legacy intact if the Liberals regain control further down the road. I reckon his money in on the Second Coming of Trudeau  returning things back to the way they were, again, if elected.


 
As far as I can see the Budget Implementation Act will, simply, make some (necessary) administrative amendments to the NDA to authorize e.g. ranks like trooper, gunner, sapper, etc. I did not see any proposal to amend the existence of the Canadian Armed Forces and/or to recreate e.g. the RCN as a separate service, with a legal "life" of its own. This administrative requirement was discussed in the various "buttons and bows" threads.
 
My read of the Budget Implementation Act seemed to suggest that the current rank schedule included in the NDA was to be replaced by one that actually removed references to old RCN and RCAF rank titles. As for references to the old services, it looks like they are just going to be written into the NDA by name, as they are now, commands and not separate services as they had been pre-68.
 
rmc_wannabe said:
Like the de-unification itself, this annoucnement is entirely political.

Mr. Harper wants his legacy intact if the Liberals regain control further down the road. I reckon his money in on the Second Coming of Trudeau  returning things back to the way they were, again, if elected.

Considering the Young Dauphin's expressed level of knowledge on subjects as varied as what constitutes the Middle Class or the political model of China, I don't believe he will be able to contribute any meaningful dialogue as to the nature or management of the Armed Forces should he ever achieve power.

The CDS and Service Chiefs will be able to run circles around him, but their primary job in that era will be to manage an even more rapidly diminishing pool of resources rather than considering nuances like what colour their jacket facings should be...
 
E.R. Campbell said:
As far as I can see the Budget Implementation Act will, simply, make some (necessary) administrative amendments to the NDA to authorize e.g. ranks like trooper, gunner, sapper, etc.
Those ranks have been in the NDA for decades.  Only Colour Sergeant and one of the French translations were missing.
 
MCG said:
Those ranks have been in the NDA for decades.  Only Colour Sergeant and one of the French translations were missing.

Are you sure? There was a MBdr awarded the MMV from Afghanistan and when the award was gazetted, he appeared as a MCpl. The explanation put forward on this site and elsewhere is that MBdr was not an authorized rank under the NDA.

I know that circa 1968 after the Unification Act came into effect, we were directed to call our junior ranks privates and corporals, but gunner and bombardier (and the French equivalents) never really disappeared.
 
The NDA provides that personnel are referred to by ranks as listed in column 1 of the schedule to the NDA, and permits the minister to authorize the use of other ranks within the schedule.

There's a QR&O that, in turn, specifies that we use column 1, except for folks in naval DEU, who are referred to by column 2.

There are columns 3 and 4 to the schedule as well, with traditional Army & Air Force names.

When the then MND made the announcement about traditional ranks, he included "ensign" and "colour sergeant".  However, those two ranks do not appear in the NDA.

Therefore, to bring into force what the MND announced, the NDA must be amended to include those ranks, and a new QR&O must be written to authorize the use of column 3 of the schedule for those wearing an Army DEU.


Since at the time of the award of the MMV for the Artillery MCpl the use of column 3 ranks was not permitted, the award was properly gazetted as MCpl.
 
MCG said:
General Hillier's transformation plans were defeated by environmental chiefs who declared they would not cooperate for the glory of their tribes.  I can only imagine empire building and stove-pipes to get worse if the services are re-enshrined in law.

Once again there is no need for this change, but I suppose there is nothing else important that should get in the way of removing the last half century from our history.

I would like to have seen a few high profile people that were resisting fired......not "resigned" because of personal reasons.

The speech would go like this:

"Effective immediately I have relieved (insert rank/name) here from his duty as (insert job) because of his/her delaying tactics in implementing (insert policy and what not here). Effective immediately I have assigned (insert rank/name) to replace him/her. He/she have 10 business days, effective immediately, to begin to implement (insert policy etc here).

I know this will never fly.....but one can dream. Sorry for the tangent.
 
Old Sweat said:
Are you sure? There was a MBdr awarded the MMV from Afghanistan and when the award was gazetted, he appeared as a MCpl. The explanation put forward on this site and elsewhere is that MBdr was not an authorized rank under the NDA.

I know that circa 1968 after the Unification Act came into effect, we were directed to call our junior ranks privates and corporals, but gunner and bombardier (and the French equivalents) never really disappeared.

The ranks in the NDA are just a set of tables. When they did the unification thing, they just stated that only Table 1 would be used, and Table 2 for the RCN. http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/N-5/page-147.html#docCont

They're also going to have to modify those tables to change Signalman to Signaller.

 
Oh, boo hoo, MCG. The CF was a ****ing mistake from the get-go. But that mistake is now a part of our culture, so we should keep it, because its now been inured, much like a benign tumour. **** off, you ******
 
uptheglens said:
Oh, boo hoo, MCG. The CF was a ******* mistake from the get-go. But that mistake is now a part of our culture, so we should keep it, because its now been inured, much like a benign tumour. **** off, you thunder****

…and goodbye uptheglens
 
uptheglens said:
Oh, boo hoo, MCG. The CF was a ****ing mistake from the get-go. But that mistake is now a part of our culture, so we should keep it, because its now been inured, much like a benign tumour. **** off, you thunder****

webquest-soccer-red-card.jpg


Personal foul... there will be no personal attacks on the Moderators or any other members of this site...



 
I've done a few joint exercises now and they seem to go relatively smoothly when the three elements work together under a single command.  One thing that might be nice on the equipment side is more crosstalk on comms and other things like that (including the SOFCOM folks)  so the navy doesn't end up with a 'land forces comms radio' that uses frequencies the army abandoned in the 90s.  To be fair, the process to put it on board probably started in the early 80s, but it took a while to work through the system.

No worries though, the Defence Procurement Strategy will fix that!  Fixing bureaucracy with... more bureaucracy!  ...yay... :facepalm:
 
No one thought to give the Ships TCCCs radios to replace the 524 sets that are still installed....
 
SeaKingTacco said:
No one thought to give the Ships TCCCs radios to replace the 524 sets that are still installed....

All the more reason to stop Environment led and focussed parochial FD.  If it has not been coordinated and costed as a "Joint" project, it should not get the money.  The only way FD will become joint (and rational?) is if take more out of the hands of the environments in my opinion. 

Unification did not appear to have made us very Joint.  Maybe 3 strongly separate environments with all of their "bling" will be easier to unify?
 
devil39 said:
All the more reason to stop Environment led and focussed parochial FD.  If it has not been coordinated and costed as a "Joint" project, it should not get the money.  The only way FD will become joint (and rational?) is if take more out of the hands of the environments in my opinion. 

Unification did not appear to have made us very Joint.  Maybe 3 strongly separate environments with all of their "bling" will be easier to unify?


Actually, in 1968, two of the unified commands, MARCOM and Mobile Command were about as joint as anyone might want; too joint for the tastes of the Air Force 'leaders' who insisted that everything that flew, including things that had never been part of the old, pre-1966 RCAF, must be placed into the new, and totally unnecessary, Air Command in 1975. Unification, in the form of joint Maritime and Mobile Commands, was never given a chance. But it wasn't the bling or the i"jolly green jumper" or even RAdm Landymore that killed it, it was old fashioned empire building in Ottawa.
 
I fully second what ERC says.

I would add the following, however, "joint" operations involving the Maritime and Mobile components only makes sense for operations at the "interface" that is the littoral.

There is little that land force can contribute to fighting on the high seas, and little that the Navy can contribute to land warfare inland from the coasts. That is just the nature of the beast.

This said, unification, IMHO, has been particularily successful with the interoperability of the various "purple" trades and eliminated countless pre-unification inter-service committees that never seem to resolve issues surrounding adoption of a "single" Canadian standard for whatever support activity they provided to their respective service.

We should just make sure that, come what may, we don't trow that baby with the bathwater…It would be a shame.
 
uptheglens said:
The CF was a ****ing mistake from the get-go. But that mistake is now a part of our culture, so we should keep it ...
No.  We should keep the CAF because we are a far stronger and more effective and efficient organization than we otherwise would be.  The CAF fielded some outstanding, successful capabilities to Afghanistan, Libya, various bits of the former Yugoslavia, the decades long NATO commitment in Germany, and various other places around the globe.

We can be sustained by a leaner national HQ because of unification.  There is better internal communication because of it.  We could have better synchronization of capitol equipment because of unification.  There is potential that we are not currently realizing and should work to attain.

The problem is, as E.R. Campbell commented, that unification was never given a chance.  Service pride fought it from the very beginning, and it has incrementally been rolled back by the same service pride and environmental empire building ever since.

Rather than reversing unification to appease a lobby that wants to erase the last 50 years, we should re-engage on unification.  Bring forward Hillier's transformation concept and revisit elements like the consolidation of capability development from the ECSs into CFD.

I look to the enormous waste that occurs on maintaining separate service identities in the US military.  We don't want to emulate that.  Nor to we want to emulate the barriers to communication, cooperation, personnel management, etc that exist because each service exists as its own silo of excellence.
 
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