Ottawa pumps up military role in citizenship ceremonies

[armyvern]

We don't let women do anything that might risk their fragile bodies or spirits...especially not anything as manly as operating in combat zones...

The guy's a twit. Send him on over; I can employ him all right. 

 

[Edward Campbell]

Why?
I would think that providing a younger generation with a knowledge of the military, some planning and leadership skills, factual counter-arguments on some military matters to leftist professors, and a personal linkage to "our" people would be a good thing, whether they choose to continue serving or not.

I agree. As I recall - and my recollections may be faulty - COTC cost relatively little: a small (two or three people) staff at each university with a COTC contingent was, I think, the main thing we don't have today. (Now, in fairness, that equaled enough people to staff a tank squadron, so ...) Sometimes a small saving was made when the COTC contingent OC (called the ULO (University Liaison Officer) if memory serves) was an officer doing graduate studies at the university.

On the plus side: COTC made for better integration of regular and reserve forces, at least at the officer level. ROTP candidates at civilian universities (now ROTP plus a whole host of programmes like UTPNCM (if we still call it that)) and COTC candidates paraded and trained together at university and COTC and ROTP candidates were, usually, mixed for summer phase training. This reduced, somewhat, the "we/they" mentality that colours too much of the military debates over regular/reserve issues.

The slight visible presence of CF members at universities was also, I think, a good thing - even though cowardly admirals and generals, bureaucrats and politicians, caved in, in the late 1960s and during the 1970s, and attempted to both civilianize the CF and make it invisible to the general public.

 

[Neill McKay]

"students would enrol as cadets who might be headed for the officer corps of the reserves, but with no risk of being called up to fight in Afghanistan or anywhere else and no obligation to make a service commitment beyond graduation. "

Sounds like a waste of money to me.

Those are the terms of service for any reservist; there's nothing new or unusual in that.

I like the idea.  I think it would be a great opportunity to connect with the civilian population and put a military presence in some of the smaller university towns that have little, if any, now.

The issue of regular/reserve integration hadn't occurred to me but I think there would be a lot of value in that as well.

 

[dapaterson]

A brief thought exercise:

If we assume 100 institutions of higher learning in Canada that participate in such a program, each with 10 OCdts in the first year.  And we assume no failures, and a four-year program.

That means we've added 100x10x4 new officer cadets to the mix, or 4000.  If we assume each works our standard reserve model of 41 days per training year (Sept-May; that's 37.5 +9% PILL), plus 100 days per summer, that is 141 days x 4000 = 564 000 days; using OCdt(2) pay scale of $101.82 per day that's $57 432 120 per year in pay.  DND assumes benefits cost is 20% of pay; that's another $11 486 424. Plus 300 full-time staff (3 per location) at a cost of $300K per year per location, of $30M.

So far, without a single round downrange, no issue of uniforms, no travel to training, we've spent nearly $100M on this program.  Every year.  Which will churn out, on schedule, 1000 more officers every year.  When we already have a military that is over-officered (roughly 1 to 3 in the Reg F, and 1:5 in the P Res), producing an additional 1K officers per year (slightly less in reality, to account for failures, withdrawls, and the offsets from current ROTP).

So, who has an employment plan for 1000 more officers every year, in the Reserves or in the Reg F?

More importantly, who has a current program costing $100M that they are willing to sacrifice to put this together?  And who has a unit we can take those 300 full-time support positions from?

 

[Edward Campbell]

If you want to see the anti-Harper ≈ anti-military ≈ ”I want Trudeau again” argument taken beyond its logical extreme consider this, by Prof. Paul Robinson of Ottawa U who manages to prove that you can attend really good universities; you can earn multiple good degrees and you can have some military experience and still end up as a blithering idiot:

Reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Ottawa Citizen
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/Afghan+altered+Canada+values/5051510/story.html

Opinion: Afghan war has altered Canada’s values

By Paul Robinson, The Ottawa Citizen

July 5, 2011

“Our country is so much better because of your efforts,” Defence Minister Peter MacKay told Canadian troops in Kandahar in a speech marking the coming end of the combat mission in Afghanistan. As the mission draws to a close, commentators are lining up to assess its success or failure, measured in terms of its effect on Afghanistan. But it is worth considering also what effect the Afghan campaign has had at home in Canada.

The most obvious impact has been the return of a militarism probably not seen in Canada in peacetime since before the First World War. The government’s announcement earlier this year that the military should be present at future citizenship ceremonies because the armed forces are one of Canada’s most notable institutions typifies the new climate of opinion. One might imagine that the ghost of Sam Hughes had returned to manage our military affairs a second time. The days when Canada prided itself on an unguarded border and a peaceful reputation seem far away.

“You are the best citizens of our country,” MacKay told the troops in Kandahar, tossing democratic equality to the wind. This is, of course, nonsense; but it is pernicious nonsense too. Such militarism has highly undesirable consequences.

First, it helps to legitimize the waging of war and to militarize foreign policy. In two votes on the war in Libya, after a minimum of discussion (less than one hour the first time around), Canada’s Parliament mustered all of one vote of dissent. This is both because war has become acceptable in a manner which would have been inconceivable a few years ago and because it has become near impossible to criticize any aspect of military operations without incurring shrieks of “Support the Troops.” Far from being something to avoid, war has become almost the option of first resort.

Second, the elevation of the military into a moral elite of super-citizens has damaged the structure of civil-military relations. Power in the Department of National Defence (DND) seems to have shifted from the hands of civilians into those of the generals. At the same time, power appears to have moved from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) into the hands of DND. Democratic control of the military has suffered as a result. When Peter MacKay is, as so often, praised for being popular with the troops, this is meant to imply that he is therefore a good defence minister. In fact this may merely show that he is a weak defence minister, unable or unwilling to stand up to the military and prone to grant its every wish. Armed forces have bureaucratic interests in the same way as every other organization, and firm control is needed to hold them in check, even if this means becoming unpopular.

The decision to purchase F-35 fighter planes is a case in point. F-35s are exactly the sort of toy generals always love; given a choice, they will always opt for the fanciest, newest, most expensive bit of equipment. It is the job of the civilian side of DND to restrain them. With the generals largely in control, this does not happen and money is spent badly.

The distorting pull of DND is also warping spending priorities elsewhere in government. Foreign aid, for instance, has been increasingly militarized, channelled away from long-term development, which might do the recipient countries some lasting good, and into short-term projects in war zones which are designed to support military operations — with, it must be said, a prominent lack of success.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower once remarked that “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” Contrary to much popular opinion, in the 20 years since the end of the Cold War, the world has become a dramatically safer place. The magnitude of wars worldwide has declined by 60 per cent, and there are few significant threats to Canadian security. We have an opportunity finally to avoid the problem Eisenhower identified and turn our resources to peaceful tasks.

However mythological Canada’s earlier peacekeeping image may have been, it was at least a noble myth to aspire to. The crass spectacle of the Canadian Foreign Minister, John Baird, writing a message on a bomb is, by contrast, shameful. Regardless of what our war in Afghanistan may have done for Afghans, it has eroded our civilized instincts. It has not left Canada a better place.

Paul Robinson is a professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, and the author of Military Honour in the Conduct of War: From Ancient Greece to Iraq. He has served as an officer in both the British and Canadian armies.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

First: despite his (limited) service in both the British and Canadian Forces his crack about ”F-35s are exactly the sort of toy generals always love; given a choice, they will always opt for the fanciest, newest, most expensive bit of equipment,” demonstrates that he knows nothing, not a goddamn thing, about generals – in any army.

Second: the intrusion of the defence ministry into the foreign ministry's domain has been ongoing for at least a couple of centuries. One would have thought that someone with multiple degrees and a speciality in international affairs would have, at least, a very rudimentary knowledge of political history.

Peter MacKay was wrong to say that soldiers are the “best' citizens; of course that's hyperbole. It is a lame attempt at extending Churchill's comment about the reservist being twice the citizen.

But Robinson's attempt to drag us back into pacific Trudeautopia is equally misguided and lacks the justification of resting on any sort of foundation at all. The whole thing is the worst sort of idle prattle that gibes academics a bad name.

 

[OldSolduer]

I would like to take you on a trip down memory lane, so to speak. Most of us can recall the times in the late 70s, to the late 90s. Soldiers, sailors and airmen were discouraged from wearing their uniforms off base.
Regulations stated that combats could not be worn to and from work, at all, ever. CSMs would station themselves at the main gate at Kapyong Barracks to catch those in combats in their civilian vehicles. Work dress - we did anything but "work" in it  - made us look like Texaco employees. We were allowed "short stops" on the way home ie gas or milk at the store, but no extended shopping.
We were told in Calgary that combats were "too aggressive" looking to be worn to the bank at lunch hour or stopping at the Shell station for gas.

I often thought "What the hell is wrong with our generals? Are they not proud of who we are?"

At least we can wear our CADPAT to Tim's now....not that it got me anything but weird looks....

 

[George Wallace]

Contrary to much popular opinion, in the 20 years since the end of the Cold War, the world has become a dramatically safer place. The magnitude of wars worldwide has declined by 60 per cent, and there are few significant threats to Canadian security.

As ERC states, for a professor supposedly well versed on International Affairs, this is a truly unrealistic version of the world today.  The world is far from a much safer place today than during the Cold War.  When we watch Pakistani and Indian nuclear sabre rattling continuing in the background and the wishes of Saudi Arabia to become a member of the nuclear arms race to counter Iran, we are definitely not facing the warm fuzzy peace that Professor Robinson seems to hold in his foggy mind.

 

[old fart]

Read Robinson's bio...and as E.R. Campbell notes...his service is somewhat limited, but that never stopped Scott Taylor!! 

It looks like he ended his Brit Army 'short service commission' days after 5 years in the Int Corps...likely he was not afforded the chance to soldier-on....I wonder why  :facepalm:  although he did give it a shot this side of the pond..racking up another two years I see in our Reserves.

So basically, he is an edumacated Scott Taylor, both gobby sprogs....not worth listening to....

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

The Professor is certainly entitled to his opinions. But that is all they are as the "facts" in his op piece don't fit the reality.

However, I have grave difficulties with his views on Libya. First of all, Canada has not had two votes on fighting a war in Libya because we are NOT fighting that war. It is a civil war within Libya and Canada's participation is within a world sanctioned action effected under the newfangled "responsibility to Protect" UN policy, which happens to be one his Liberal and NDP friends fully endorse and even promote. Problem is, if I recollect correctly, the  actual military (that is uniformed) advisers in most western democracies (and as far as I know Canada) have "advised" their political masters that they did not consider R2P to constitute a valid cause for use of military power.

Notwithstanding this "advice" we uniformed personnel of the Western democracies, being ever obedient to our political masters, do carry out R2P ops when ordered, as in Libya. Which leads me to a second point on the professor's article: He is completely ignorant of the concept of civilian control of the military in our democracies: It is not and has never been the role of the DND civil servants to have "power" over the military and to exercise control over it. It is the democratically elected government that has this power and it is carried out by the Prime Minister, usually on the basis of recommendations from his Minister of Defense and the technical advice of the CDS, and when applicable with the support of the assent of Parliament. That is where civilian control of the military lies.

 

[mariomike]

I would like to take you on a trip down memory lane, so to speak. Most of us can recall the times in the late 70s, to the late 90s. Soldiers, sailors and airmen were discouraged from wearing their uniforms off base.
Regulations stated that combats could not be worn to and from work, at all, ever. CSMs would station themselves at the main gate at Kapyong Barracks to catch those in combats in their civilian vehicles. Work dress - we did anything but "work" in it  - made us look like Texaco employees. We were allowed "short stops" on the way home ie gas or milk at the store, but no extended shopping.
We were told in Calgary that combats were "too aggressive" looking to be worn to the bank at lunch hour or stopping at the Shell station for gas.

I often thought "What the hell is wrong with our generals? Are they not proud of who we are?"

At least we can wear our CADPAT to Tim's now....not that it got me anything but weird looks....

Some interesting reading and discussions on this topic:
http://www.google.com/search?sclient=psy&hl=en&source=hp&q=site%3Aarmy.ca+&btnG=Search#sclient=psy&hl=en&source=hp&q=site:army.ca+uniform+off+duty&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&fp=1&biw=1360&bih=594&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&cad=b

 

[john10]

Why?
I would think that providing a younger generation with a knowledge of the military, some planning and leadership skills, factual counter-arguments on some military matters to leftist professors, and a personal linkage to "our" people would be a good thing, whether they choose to continue serving or not.

This program doesn't do anything that the reserves and ROTP don't already do (provide knowledge of the military, give some planning and leadership skills, act as a linkage).

Also, the idea that we need to have another military component on campus to counter-act "leftist professors" is just silly IMO. I've spent the better part of the past decade studying full-time at four different post-secondary institutions, in the province most hostile to the military, and the hostility that many decry simply isn't there. Perhaps it was in the '90s, I don't know, but I certainly haven't noticed it. There are plenty of young men and women who are in the reserves and ROTP programs while studying at civilian universities.

The COTC sounds redundant, purposeless and wasteful.

 

[Old Sweat]

The COTC was a pre-Second World War program designed to produce a cadre of trained reserve officers back in the days when we had a tiny permanent force with a primary role of training the reserves. It was less useful when we shifted to a force in being to fight wars without resorting to general mobilization. Now, we do rely on the reserves to augment regular units, and it works, so to re-institute a relic of another era designed for another purpose seems not too bright to me.