Divining the right role, capabilities, structure, and Regimental System for Canada's Army Reserves

[MilEME09]

They get broken down into Modules. 

It already takes some/many Reservists more than a year to get a Crse completed due to their availability or the availability of a crse, in order to complete all Crse Mods.

Case and point, Reserve weapons tech, trades courses take 4 years alone assuming the courses run every summer.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

Maybe it is time to either find a better way of doing it (i.e. let the units run the courses throughout the trg year on Cl A time), or start eliminating some of the PRES MOSIDs.

 

[George Wallace]

Maybe it is time to either find a better way of doing it (i.e. let the units run the courses throughout the trg year on Cl A time), or start eliminating some of the PRES MOSIDs.

Certain Mods are already run at the unit level.  Certain Mods are done online as Distant Learning.  As Jim and MilEME09 have pointed out, this has the effect the some pers, especially the officers and Spec Trades, will take a longer period of time, into numerous years, to get qualified. 

When I left my unit, it would take a minimum of three years to get an officer candidate off the street trained.  It would take one to two years just to get an officer who was a VOT crse loaded on an avail crse, if a crse was being run, to be trained.  Any lack of crses being run, or openings on crses, just added to the delays in pers getting quals.  We had three O/Cdts and three years later none of they had become qualified in Trade. 

 

[McG]

Yes, it can take years to train some reservists to OFP, which goes back to the suggestion that started this side bar:

3yr contracts
  6 months (or more) on initial - so they can go to the same schools as reg force for trade training.
  ...

Which proposed all reservists start their service as full-time until they reach OFP.  This raised the question:

What happens for the trades that have longer than 6 month courses? It's a great idea, but considering BMQ+SQ is 17 weeks, you're down to 2 months for a DP1 course if the timing lines up perfectly.

The answer, as it appears to me, is that the proposal would have reservists serve an initial full-time service longer than 6 months if that is what it took to train them.

I would be curious what such a hypothetical system would do to the PRes recruiting base where many are high school students or university students with only two or four month summer breaks respectively.  It might be better for training, but I suspect it would turn away a lot of recruits.  Maybe this proposal just becomes one of many enrollement paths?

 

[Eye In The Sky]

So John Doe who works at "Company X" and wants to be a part time soldier would have to leave his full time job/career to be 'full time Res' until he is OFP at which point in time he gets put back to Cl A status and works 1/2 day a week and a weekend a month...hoping his real job was still there for him.

Or did I misread something ???

 

[McG]

KevinB has previsously mentioned that he believes job protection legislation is required for a relevant PRes.  So, the guy you describe is covered.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

Copy

 

[KevinB]

I'm just spitballing on some CoA's.
My knowledge of the CF PRes system is years dated.  However from looking for the outside, it appears that the system is horribly broken.  More broken than anything else in the CF.

I believe that a massive 'made in Canada' change is required, however I do not think the Political or Reserve will exists to make the necessary changes to make the PRes effective.  This is not intended as a slight at individual reservists who often put their own personal advancement and well-being aside for reserve duties.

 

[George Wallace]

So John Doe who works at "Company X" and wants to be a part time soldier would have to leave his full time job/career to be 'full time Res' until he is OFP at which point in time he gets put back to Cl A status and works 1/2 day a week and a weekend a month...hoping his real job was still there for him.

Or did I misread something ???

I would not outright discount Kevin B's suggestion so easily.  Remember; the target audience of Reserve Recruiting is the High School student, not a full-time employee.  If a large portion of the new Reservists being recruited are High School graduates enroute to College or University, how much would a year delay in their education cost them?  They could have a full year employed as a Reservist, be trained in their Trade, and earn money towards their tuition.  A full year Class B for the new Recruits to get them Trade qualified, and then return to Class A at their unit being fully employable would be a bonus to the Reserves.  Would that mean that there would be no room for other recruits entering the Reserves that were not High School students graduating?  No.  It would just be a case of creating Entry Plans similar to the Regular Force to cover the various options for pers to join the Reserves.  Currently, there is only one method of joining the Reserves as a NCM.  (There are other options for hiring officers.)

 

[daftandbarmy]

I would not outright discount Kevin B's suggestion so easily.  Remember; the target audience of Reserve Recruiting is the High School student, not a full-time employee.  If a large portion of the new Reservists being recruited are High School graduates enroute to College or University, how much would a year delay in their education cost them?  They could have a full year employed as a Reservist, be trained in their Trade, and earn money towards their tuition.  A full year Class B for the new Recruits to get them Trade qualified, and then return to Class A at their unit being fully employable would be a bonus to the Reserves.  Would that mean that there would be no room for other recruits entering the Reserves that were not High School students graduating?  No.  It would just be a case of creating Entry Plans similar to the Regular Force to cover the various options for pers to join the Reserves.  Currently, there is only one method of joining the Reserves as a NCM.  (There are other options for hiring officers.)

By George, that is an excellent idea :nod:

The other audience we should target are public sector employees. They all have contracts that allow them time off for military service, and lots of them could use the extra $ (I know I did!).

 

[Monsoon]

I would not outright discount Kevin B's suggestion so easily.  Remember; the target audience of Reserve Recruiting is the High School student, not a full-time employee.  If a large portion of the new Reservists being recruited are High School graduates enroute to College or University, how much would a year delay in their education cost them?  They could have a full year employed as a Reservist, be trained in their Trade, and earn money towards their tuition.  A full year Class B for the new Recruits to get them Trade qualified, and then return to Class A at their unit being fully employable would be a bonus to the Reserves.

I once pitched a similar "gap year" (as it's called in the UK) approach to reserve recruiting to NAVRES. Done properly, it could attract the kind of visibility in high schools that ROTP does: save some money working for a year, get subsidized tuition and have a guaranteed part-time/occasional summer full-time job through your education.

From the CAF's perspective, they get some predictability in training scheduling and an average of four years of employment as a trained member per PRes recruit. What was seen as the show-stopper was training billet throughput: what the PRes lost to the Reg F in personnel through the Af'stan years has hampered its ability to generate training staff in the way that it has successfully done for decades. It seems as though the PRes has done a bad job of communicating the nature of it's current difficulties in this way to argue for additional (rather than reduced) short-term support from the Reg F establishment.

 

[x_para76]

Ya that would end up with a reserve training system suitable only to students and the unemployable.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

So John Doe who works at "Company X" making $80k/yr and wants to be a part time soldier would have to leave his full time job/career to be 'full time Res' making $34 k/yr until he is OFP at which point in time he gets put back to Cl A status and works 1/2 day a week and a weekend a month...hoping his real job was still there for him.

Or did I misread something ???

TFTFY

..........and who pays his company benefits and pension while he's gone? Is he going to have to pay R&Q, or will that be free if his wife is at home in their mortgaged house?

 

[Fishbone Jones]

By George, that is an excellent idea :nod:

The other audience we should target are public sector employees. They all have contracts that allow them time off for military service, and lots of them could use the extra $ (I know I did!).

Ontario PS get one week paid and one week unpaid. If your a Fed PS, you're only allowed one wage. It's likely, you'd be making more from your day job, so you'd have to turn your mil pay back to the Canadian Gov't.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I don't think any PS staff working for the reserves have to turn their pay back. Now if I got paid my currently hourly rate in the reserves I might join up again!

 

[Haggis]

I don't think any PS staff working for the reserves have to turn their pay back.

Recceguy is spot on.  A federal public servant can train with the Reserves while on vacation from his PS job, just like any private sector employee can.  However, if that public servant wants to deploy for a period in excess of his vacation entitlement, he can take military leave without pay from his government job.  See Reserve Forces Training Leave Regulations paragraph 4.

 

[Ostrozac]

Ya that would end up with a reserve training system suitable only to students and the unemployable.

Not necessarily. The old career path of a worker starting on the assembly line at Ford when he finishes high school, and then walking away from Ford with an inscribed watch at retirement age seems to be deader than disco. A Canadian worker in the 21st century may find multiple points in his career where a year spent on Class B service may be useful, not only the year immediately following high school.

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

Some humour on the topic from the Duffel blog.

http://www.duffelblog.com/2014/09/national-guard/


National Guard Stands Ready To Defend Constitution, Conduct Vehicle Maintenance

ARLINGTON, Va. — As budget cuts hit all levels of the U.S. military, leaders in the Army National Guard Bureau are fighting back against fiscal hawks in Congress by highlighting the service’s long history of defending the constitution and conducting vehicle maintenance at least one weekend per month, sources confirmed.

“These soldiers meet one weekend a month for drill and two weeks in the summer for Annual Training to prepare for deployment along active-duty counterparts,” said Gen. Steven Perchman, a top Guard officer. “While many active soldiers look down upon their Guard counterparts, their sacrifice and bravery is integral to the defense of this nation.”

He added: “If we didn’t have these guys out here once a month driving Humvees to the gas station for a road test, America would fall apart.”

On a press tour of a local National Guard armory, soldiers wowed reporters with their contributions to the fighting spirit of the U.S. Army.

“I swore an oath to defend this nation and uphold our constitution, and I really feel like my service is integral to the defense of our nation’s ideals,” said Spc. Thomas McMillan, a driver in the 452nd Transportation Company, while watching NCAA football in the company office.

“Every time I go to drill and wait in line for three hours to dispatch a truck, spend another two hours lining up the trucks, drive to the gas station and get some bear claws and Monster energy drinks, and then get back and we spend an hour trying to park the trucks on-line, I know when I’m doing these things that I’m living up to everything George Washington and his brave soldiers did at Valley Forge.”

Sources confirmed at least one young private spent roughly 30 minutes of his drill time watching helmet-cam videos from combat in Afghanistan.

“Hey, yo, Steven, check out this video of combat in Afghanistan!” Pfc. Aaron Ellis told his platoon sergeant of footage found on the Funker530 website. “I’ve never been deployed, but this is pretty fuckin’ sweet!”

The scene was quickly interrupted after the company first sergeant attempted to corral soldiers to conduct squad-level training exercises. However, he was overruled by the company commander’s instruction that the unit conduct a four-hour sexual harassment class per the battalion commander.

After the class, soldiers were instructed to sweep up and mop the drill hall floor that they would dirty up the next day.

At press time, the commanding officer released his soldiers at around 4p.m. Most soldiers were seen running to their vehicles complaining about “how fucking long today was,” while gunning to be the first to arrive at Buffalo Wild Wings for happy hour.

 

[George Wallace]

Ya that would end up with a reserve training system suitable only to students and the unemployable.

No.  If you read what I said, it would create new Entry Plans for the Reserves aimed at the NCMs, instead of only one that exists now.  The new Entry Plan would be a year long Class B to train the new Reservists to become Trade Qualified, while we would still maintain the current methods which take much longer to get a Reservist trained to be employable.  It would not totally replace what exists now, as we know many Reservists can not make such a commitment.  Reservists have professional lives outside the military and can not always commit to long periods of training, but still have skill sets from their civilian occupations that compliment and add to those of the military.  Those can not be lost, as it is often those other skill sets from their civilian jobs that help a Reserve unit function.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Recceguy is spot on.  A federal public servant can train with the Reserves while on vacation from his PS job, just like any private sector employee can.  However, if that public servant wants to deploy for a period in excess of his vacation entitlement, he can take military leave without pay from his government job.  See Reserve Forces Training Leave Regulations paragraph 4.

If they take leave without pay, then only 1 payscale. thanks for the link I forwarded it on to a Cadet Officer that works in our unit.

(2) Nothing herein contained shall preclude an employee from receiving Canadian Forces pay in addition to his civil pay for any period of service performed pursuant to these Regulations while he is on annual or vacation leave.