Ottawa to fund relaunch of CMR

[cavalryman]

It was like that prior to 1995 anyways.  People would do 2 years in CMR then go to Kingston to finish studies. Roc Term was done in St-Jean.
Max

Ummm. no.  As CSA105 noted, that is incorrect.  People graduated from CMR with bachelor's degrees for years.  I graduated from CMR in the 80s with a bachelor's degree, so you can pretty much take that statement as the truth - the scroll is hanging over the closet in my home office.  At the time I was there, the College offered Administration, Canadian Studies, Computer Sciences and a few other obscure degrees that I forget after years of eating from aluminum mess tins.  The Engineering masochists students vanished after 2nd year, never to be seen again, although rumour had it they reappeared in Kingston.  I never set foot inside the RMC at Kingston until my brother-in-law's grad years after.

 

[Meridian]

Ummm. no.  As CSA105 noted, that is incorrect.  People graduated from CMR with bachelor's degrees for years.  I graduated from CMR in the 80s with a bachelor's degree, so you can pretty much take that statement as the truth - the scroll is hanging over the closet in my home office.  At the time I was there, the College offered Administration, Canadian Studies, Computer Sciences and a few other obscure degrees that I forget after years of eating from aluminum mess tins.  The Engineering masochists students vanished after 2nd year, never to be seen again, although rumour had it they reappeared in Kingston.  I never set foot inside the RMC at Kingston until my brother-in-law's grad years after.

Calvalryman -

"Back then"   What was the language/providence ratio?  Was it all from the Belle Province?  I'm curious what the criteria was to end up at CMR vice RMC or RRMC.

 

[cavalryman]

Calvalryman -

"Back then"   What was the language/providence ratio?  Was it all from the Belle Province?  I'm curious what the criteria was to end up at CMR vice RMC or RRMC.

From what I recall, the criteria was whether your province's high school stopped at Grade 12 or Grade 13, i.e. whether your post-secondary studies required 4 or 5 years to get to the Bachelor's degree.  If you graduated High School with Grade 12, you went to CMR.  Otherwise, it was RMC or RRMC.  We had a lot of Newfoundlanders at CMR, and of course Québecois of either language.  Can't off-hand recall other large contingents.

Edit: a little soak in the hot tub loosened up the neurons... I can also recall a goodly number of New Brunswickers, of either linguistic persuasion.

 

[Meridian]

My prep year experience was (roughly):

50% Quebec
50% the rest, mostly from:
- Nova Scotia
- Alberta
- NFLD
- A few from the others.


Something about math curricula not being as strong in those provinces as in Quebec or Ontario, as well as students with poorer grades but solid extracurricula/leadership/milpot

 

[McG]

Let's see:  $200M over 20 years = $10M per year.  With 200 students per year.  That's $50 000 per year, per student.

I wonder how much of that money is already being spent annually through the prep-year program?  Most government announcements proclaim the total dollar value going into a project, but what is not mentioned is the money already in the department that is being clawed away to make the project work.  I am confident that the $ 200 M includes money already going to prep-year.  All that I see being added is an additional 50 students and some additional academic leadership.

 

[Meridian]

I wonder how much of that money is already being spent annually through the prep-year program?  Most government announcements proclaim the total dollar value going into a project, but what is not mentioned is the money already in the department that is being clawed away to make the project work.  I am confident that the $ 200 M includes money already going to prep-year.  All that I see being added is an additional 50 students and some additional academic leadership.

Indeed, at the very least there were 150 cadets 5 years ago in Prep Year (dont know what the current number is, probably not far off).
The college already had a CEGEP program.... this announcement means an additional year of that program.  They havent said whether the accreditation is still through CEGEP St Jean Sur Richelieu, or if it will be "CEGEP College Militaire Royale".

When I was there, we already had a principal...  though, can't remember ever meeting him.  And our teaching staff did double duty as faculty for RMC's continuing ed programs... Interesting to note, Stephane Dion's wife, Janine Krieber, was my Political Science professor there....

 

[SupersonicMax]

Ummm. no.  As CSA105 noted, that is incorrect.  People graduated from CMR with bachelor's degrees for years.   I graduated from CMR in the 80s with a bachelor's degree, so you can pretty much take that statement as the truth - the scroll is hanging over the closet in my home office.  At the time I was there, the College offered Administration, Canadian Studies, Computer Sciences and a few other obscure degrees that I forget after years of eating from aluminum mess tins.  The Engineering masochists students vanished after 2nd year, never to be seen again, although rumour had it they reappeared in Kingston.  I never set foot inside the RMC at Kingston until my brother-in-law's grad years after.

I said people, I did not say everyone!

Max

 

[geo]

Am with ya on this MCG
It sounds like big bucks but is the cumulative of all the money going into the place

 

[dapaterson]

For the record, I was never a student at CMR nor do I have any particular affinity for Canada's Military College system in general, finding it too focused on "College" and not focused enough on "Military", glowing articles from the Kingston Whig-Standard aside. 

However I am in favour of increasing our capabilities for the future, for strategic expansion.  Today's announcement does just that.

Have to differ on that.  We'ver already got too many officers in the CF (establishment wise at least) at nearly 25%  - imagine an infantry platoon where the platoon commander, platoon warrant, the section commanders and section 2ics are all officers, and you've got today's CF.  We need to enhance and increase our capabiltiy to produce a trained and qualifed NCM corps first and foremost.  Reinforcing the leadership school in St Jean?  Strategic expansion.  Adding a new Commandant (probably a BGen) and a bunch more staff to St Jean, taking millions of dollars out of the system to create a CEGEP?  Strategic reduction.

The news articles were suggesting that the increment would be $200M over 20 years, or $10M in additional funding.  I can see many places where those funds could be much better applied - ammo and spares were the two that immediately leaped to mind.  (And this ignores the BTL expansion and its related costs that this initiative will drive).

 

[Strike]

You'll have kids walking through the Arch in Year 2.... no FYOP for them...

I have a funny feeling that would only last a year or so.  After that nice "experiment" awhile back where roc term was abolished and disciplinary problems increased in said years.  It would also cause a huge split in the cohesiveness in the students, as anyone in the class of '98 can attest to when the former preps were sent to RMC and had to mix with 1st years who had just finished roc term.  Very awkward.

 

[DG-41]

Yay! My Alma Mater is back from the dead!

The way things were run Back In The Day was that you did 5 years at CMR vice 4 years at RMC or RRMC.

For Quebequois, this was a natural progression as their schooling went high school -> CEGEP -> University where the rest of Canada went high scool -> University.

For us Anglos, attending CMR meant not graduating high school. Instead, we completed Grade 11 and then went to CMR. At the end of First Year (so two years complete) you got a CEGEP diploma, and could transfer to RMC if you wanted an engineering degree.

For some provinces, (BC and Alberta for sure) there were remedial classes in Math and Chemistry to take in the first term of Prep year to get you up to speed. Spazz Math was definately needed; I hadn't seen any Trig before arriving at CMR and Calculus without Trig is a B-I-T-C-H. Spazz Chem I thought was a waste of time; there was nothing there that I hadn't already seen in Chem 11 in high school.

Each year there were 30-35 Preps brought in in 6 squadrons, and an additional dozen or so in 7 Sqn (where the barracks was smaller) The initial intake was about 66% Franco, 33% Anglo but the failure rate in Prep year was horrendous. We went from 32 people to 9 by the end of Prep year, and the ratio in my Sqn went from 66% Franco to about 12% Franco.

Further complicating things was that people getting a BA only needed one year of CEGEP, so they wouldn't do Prep year, but jumped into First Year after the end of recruit camp.

In my Sqn, we lost one or two at the end of Rook Camp (one for sure - he went AWOL after a couple of weeks, was picked up by the MPs at his house, was dragged back, forced to complete Rook Camp, and then released), then a bunch at XMas, and the rest at the end of the term. Then we did BOTC in Chilliwack where I think everybody made it; at least from my Sqn.

Those going to RMC or RRMC, or CMR BAs, would start with BOTC, then do Rook Camp, and then start in as a First Year.

I went to CMR (from Northern BC) on the advice of my recruiting oficer (who I suspect had a quota to fill) and because it got me the hell out of Dodge a year earlier. My Sqn had the lion's share of the BC boys (me, 'Gate, Luke, Attila) but Stress and Chan from 3 Sqn were from BC too. There were also a lot of Neufs running around too.

Anyway, I'm glad to hear it's back.

DG

CMR '92 

 

[Meridian]

Good summary, thanks!

With all five years, how many cadets did CMR hold?  The grounds aren't exactly palatial in size, though I suppose RMC Kingston isn't huge either...

 

[Brad Sallows]

>For some provinces, (BC and Alberta for sure) there were remedial classes in Math and Chemistry to take in the first term of Prep year to get you up to speed. Spazz Math was definately needed; I hadn't seen any Trig before arriving at CMR and Calculus without Trig is a B-I-T-C-H.

BC?  You must either be a lot older or a lot younger than I.  I graduated high school (Gr 12) in 1982 from an average BC high school and was permitted to take honours calculus in my first year at university.  There was certainly no remedial math needed.  [Edit: I gather you mean having only Gr 11 math was insufficient.  But Trig was in the math syllabus from Gr 8 up, and I suppose it still is. But I don't understand the point of a special federally-funded replacement for high school if that's all CMR is being reopened as.  Finish provincial (or private) high school and then go to MC.]

 

[Meridian]

Brad,

Prep Year is already a "specially-funded replacement of High-School".  Sort of.
Quebec students graduate after Secondaire V  (Grade 11, though Quebec claims it is Grade 12 equivalent).

Ontario Universities require Grade 12 as a minimum prerequisite, and so there is a one year gap.  Instead of losing candidates to CEGEPs for one year before they can apply to the CF, Prep Year was instituted to get them right after high school.

Other candidates from other provinces were included in my prep year where either they were missing requirements, came from provinces that didnt have high enough levels of math, or where their academics were lower than the regular RMC standard.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Quebec has a unique high-school system.  So what?  If CEGEP is necessary to get into most universities in Canada and elsewhere, then CEGEP is functionally not importantly distinct from high school in other provinces.  I don't see the point to "capturing" officer candidates for the final year of "pre-university" if we don't propose to permit the same for every other province's applicants (ie. students entering Gr 12).  Are we "losing" prospective candidates to Gr 12 in other provinces?  The claim this somehow supports CF bilingualism is somewhat amusing: the emphasis of CMR is to provide prep for francophone candidates in, I assume, a francophone school environment - unless the role of the reborn CMR is English immersion for francophones.

Which provinces' math curricula fall short, given that the RMC requirement is essentially that the high school education be good enough for public university entrance in the same province as the high school?

Substandard candidates should prepare themselves with a remedial year at college or university.  Is RMC having trouble filling seats?

 

[Meridian]

Well, a few things:

1 - CEGEPs are designed to be functionally different from High School, in particular because they represent an entirely voluntary admissions system which is entirely segregated from the Secondary system.  You go to a different building, and, in many cases people move to different cities (often from Rural Quebec to larger towns or Montreal).  I would presume (own guess) that the Forces was eager to grab these candidates right away before they got interested in other things. 

2 - Id love to hear from someone who was at Prep Year recently or a CFRC person to let us know how many Preps were in last year.    My numbers were 140, but I read somewhere (Cant remember) yesterday in one of the articles that current capacity was closer to 70.    Thats half of what it used to be, only 5-6 years ago (if the article was correct).

3 - If anything, I would have seen this (functionally) as a way to increase the amount of candidates the College system can pull in during the "early years". Invariably these candidates drop out in or after the first year (as I did, before the formal engagement begins), so perhaps adding another entry point and more seats will help "pad" the final numbers?

A lot of presumptions on my part, so please take it all with a grain...

 

[McG]

Quebec has a unique high-school system.  So what? 

I recall that prep-year was an option for Ontario Gr 12 grads in the years prior to the elimination of OAC (Gr 13).

 

[blasty_bough]

CSA 105.....well said. Nice to see that someone has the big picture. $10M is nothing in the big scheme of things and its money well invested. Yes it could buy a lot of other smaller things but if it wasn"t allocated to CMR the government would have been invested it elsewhere...not necessarily in DND and the CF. I'm not a supporter of ring-knockers but this is a good move for DND and the CF.

 

[mudrecceman]

CSA 105.....well said. Nice to see that someone has the big picture. $10M is nothing in the big scheme of things and its money well invested. Yes it could buy a lot of other smaller things but if it wasn"t allocated to CMR the government would have been invested it elsewhere...not necessarily in DND and the CF. I'm not a supporter of ring-knockers but this is a good move for DND and the CF.

As a taxpayer, $10M IS alot of money to me per year.  As a CF mbr, "opening a facility" is a good thing, sure.  I think there are more bases/areas needing that money MORe than the folks that are going to get it.

Good is not necessarily "the best".  You wouldn't fire your main armament that way, you shouldn't spend your money that way, either...

 

[Agent 007]

All the talk about money and cost effectiveness is irrelevant. The most cost effective solution is to (1)close RMC (2) close CMR (3) Close Canadian Forces College, Toronto  (4) close the Army staff college in Kinston. Then create one institution to do all of the above in a cost-effective manner in a bilingual environment (neither Kingston nor Toronto), associated closely with NDHQ and civilian bilingual university ressources. Indeed Gen Rollie recommended as much bask in the 1970s(?), selecting Ottawa/Hull as the obvious site. But that solution is too logical and was rejected. Tradition won over both effectiveness and costs.

Therefore if we now reopen CMR in St-Jean, it is to correct a lopsided and much duplicated system that is already far more expensive than it should be, but nevertheless fails to adequately (1) educate and (2) retain - Franco officers and, as well, fails to offer adequate second language training to Anglos. - and finally, fails to attract top notch Franco military and academic staff that would serve as role models for all. If money doesn't matter in Kingston and Toronto, it is also irrelevant in St-Jean.