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Hell, I've been saying that for 20+ years.At this point I tell everyone to use it (the CAF) for what it's worth and then take advantage of the entitlements
Reconstitution
- Thread starter Kilted
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FJAG
Army.ca Legend
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When I mentioned the college paramedic program I wasn't think so much about nationwide certification for Med Techs (although that's good too) but the reverse for reservists.
Essentially have DND sponsor a student for paramedic training within a province to get certification within that province followed by an abbreviated military course to bring up to MedA standards. The person then can stay in his home province and work as a civilian paramedic while able to serve in a ResF Field Amb. The student gains a career and the CAF has a trained MA to call up on surge operations when needed.
While finding second careers for serving members is a good thing, what I'm more interested in is creating programs that motivate individuals to join the CAF (especially the ResF), get trained and certified in desired fields and stay around to be available as required.
One area that would really benefit is maintainers. What would be better than training light and heavy mechanics to a provincial ticket, then give them a year or two Class B working on our clapped out kit. Follow that with an obligatory two or three years Class A. The kid gets the training and experience to get a civvy job and we get worker bees for a year or two and then skilled and experienced mechanics in ResF maintenance battalions.
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When I mentioned the college paramedic program I wasn't think so much about nationwide certification for Med Techs (although that's good too) but the reverse for reservists.
Essentially have DND sponsor a student for paramedic training within a province to get certification within that province followed by an abbreviated military course to bring up to MedA standards. The person then can stay in his home province and work as a civilian paramedic while able to serve in a ResF Field Amb. The student gains a career and the CAF has a trained MA to call up on surge operations when needed.
Sounds good. The collective agreement says this,
Military Leave
24.09 (a) Leave of absence shall be granted to employees to serve in the Armed Forces during hostilities or during a time of war as declared by the Government of Canada. Seniority will accumulate during such leave.
24.09 (b) Leave of absence for Reserve training shall be in accordance with City policy as amended from time to time.
Military Service
Policy Statement The City of Toronto supports employees who want to participate in the military reserve force and allows them to take a leave of absence to fulfill their reserve duties. Application All employees listed below are eligible for Military Service leave. Non-union employees CUPE local...
www.toronto.ca
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« Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t want to. »
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So bringing this back to the actual impacts of the message released by the CDS... For those who don't have access I'll try to Coles notes out some of the direction. My interpretation is in yellow
1) CFRG and the School positions are the primary focus for the Career Managers. - infered task, get people trained
2) Ceremonial aspects (parades etc...) are to be curtailed if they serve little function or are not core to the CAF - Remembrance day stays, change of command parade goes, ceremonial divisions "because we haven't had them in a while" goes
3) All L1's are directed to find positions that can be better filled with civilian and fill them with civilians, cut positions that haven't been filled in years, cut positions that make no sense -this seems self evident and should have been done years ago but getting positions removed is an admin nighmare as is hiring civi staff sometimes. This direction should help in getting the approvals necessary to do that work
4) L1's are directed to get rid of dumb tasks that add no value to the CAF -I can think of about 15 different admin tasks that are done on ship that can be jettisoned. War diary, fair nav log, all the extra secondary duties that take away from the primary duties and don't add value...
5) Stop doing operations that are low value -this is a big one for the RCN, its spells the death knell for OP CARIBE, which in turn changes the posting focus to the ships that are doing both force generation AND operations (something the army in particular has a harder time doing concurrently). Which means OP PROJECTION, OP REASURANCE are still going to be a thing. BUT it also means that the ships on the road to high readyness should have enough people to properly fill out the crews (or at least more people). For engineering this is critical moreso than Ops (who can work on simulators and such to keep their skills sharp). It also means AOPS will be a priority posting as well, as forcegen for that platform is in its infancy. I expect the rest of the CAF to cut operations with a small footprint that are not critical.
6) A bunch of more L1 planning direction that basically says MTF on this issue.
How does this solve the problem? Well first it doesn't per say but it properly acknowledges the problem (step 1). Second it recognizes that recruiting and the schools need help (plenty of empty positions in those orgs, no reason we can't bulk them up), so start filling in the training gaps. Third it empowers the L1's to take long overdue action to reorganize their formations to match what they actually do/should look like instead of what the paper says they should look like.
The one negative impact I see with this that jumps out immediately is that filling positions with civilian staff inevitably means miliary who retire and then do the same job in civi clothes the following monday. So it might exacerbate the problem in the short term. edit- the more I think about this impact the more it might be considered a side grade. The job is still being done, and in some cases better, as corporate knowledge will be retained past three years, though that pers is not unavailable for postings elsewhere.
1) CFRG and the School positions are the primary focus for the Career Managers. - infered task, get people trained
2) Ceremonial aspects (parades etc...) are to be curtailed if they serve little function or are not core to the CAF - Remembrance day stays, change of command parade goes, ceremonial divisions "because we haven't had them in a while" goes
3) All L1's are directed to find positions that can be better filled with civilian and fill them with civilians, cut positions that haven't been filled in years, cut positions that make no sense -this seems self evident and should have been done years ago but getting positions removed is an admin nighmare as is hiring civi staff sometimes. This direction should help in getting the approvals necessary to do that work
4) L1's are directed to get rid of dumb tasks that add no value to the CAF -I can think of about 15 different admin tasks that are done on ship that can be jettisoned. War diary, fair nav log, all the extra secondary duties that take away from the primary duties and don't add value...
5) Stop doing operations that are low value -this is a big one for the RCN, its spells the death knell for OP CARIBE, which in turn changes the posting focus to the ships that are doing both force generation AND operations (something the army in particular has a harder time doing concurrently). Which means OP PROJECTION, OP REASURANCE are still going to be a thing. BUT it also means that the ships on the road to high readyness should have enough people to properly fill out the crews (or at least more people). For engineering this is critical moreso than Ops (who can work on simulators and such to keep their skills sharp). It also means AOPS will be a priority posting as well, as forcegen for that platform is in its infancy. I expect the rest of the CAF to cut operations with a small footprint that are not critical.
6) A bunch of more L1 planning direction that basically says MTF on this issue.
How does this solve the problem? Well first it doesn't per say but it properly acknowledges the problem (step 1). Second it recognizes that recruiting and the schools need help (plenty of empty positions in those orgs, no reason we can't bulk them up), so start filling in the training gaps. Third it empowers the L1's to take long overdue action to reorganize their formations to match what they actually do/should look like instead of what the paper says they should look like.
The one negative impact I see with this that jumps out immediately is that filling positions with civilian staff inevitably means miliary who retire and then do the same job in civi clothes the following monday. So it might exacerbate the problem in the short term. edit- the more I think about this impact the more it might be considered a side grade. The job is still being done, and in some cases better, as corporate knowledge will be retained past three years, though that pers is not unavailable for postings elsewhere.
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I think we need a DLN course on who is authorized to create and impose a DLN course, that's mandatory for everyone.
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I have to hand it to the CDS for actually calling out the L1s on their BS. It's been a long time coming honestly
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Lots of positions have been vacant for years and we are getting killed by it; things like frontline LCMM and procurement jobs shouldn't be cut just because they are empty. It takes 3-5 years to build the basic experience so not feasible to plug with military.
Btw, there is now a hiring freeze. Even if you could find people (that don't exist) for the civilian jobs, we may not have SWE to fill it. For improving training that may also require creating new positions, so they are telling us to make magic happen while limiting tools.
A lot of 'dumb tasks' are coming from outside the CAF. Some top end support for pushback for TBS etc against new procurement requirements applying to all procurements, or things like the SBCA kicking in at $20M would be more use than dropping random secondary duties if they want to make real changes at the CAF level.
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110%
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I'm not so sure. Our UK friends had - maybe (likely) still have - a bunch of positions marked RO - Retired Officer.
I was a director in a job that could, perhaps should have been a civil service job ... except that it required a fair bit of military judgment and, in our system in the 1980s, we found it very, very difficult to hire a civil servant when there was a hard requirement for military skills and knowledge. The problem was (still is?) a mix of civil service and military reluctance. I eventually, 1990s, converted my deputy director from a LCol to and ENG05; it was a looooong (3 years) uphill battle against both uniformed and civilian opposition. The military (my branch) didn't want to lose a LCol's position and the civil service didn't want to approve a position the required relevant and recent military training and experience.
The UK had no such problem. My counterpart in their MOD was a Group Captain [Col] (RO). The RO designation meant he was a civil servant and could expect to be in that job for five to 15 years (two or three 'normal' military tour lengths). The selected officer could be a recently retired suitable Cdr/LCol/WgCdr, a Capt(N)/Col/GpCapt or a Cmdre/Brig/AC. The MOD, NOT the civl service, did the selection BUT the officer had to retire (if not already retired) and be accepted into the civil service (a formality, I think) before taking up her or his post.
There were quite a few of them in the MOD - radio spectrum, for sure, ComSec, too, I'm about 99.9% sure and several others in tech fields. It seemed to work for them.
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Didn't say it was easy. But we both can point to a half dozen positions in our current lines that really don't need to be there (and probably people who are in them that don't need to be there either). Consolidation and justification need to be looked at. I didn't read the direction as "if its vacant bin it" more of a take a good look and prioritize.
Weinie
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How many of these positions r because we have to report, because of X finding. When I joined the Army, we were largely able to set our course. Now, it is whatever is the focus of the moment, and because there is a requirement to submit "X" ,Y", and "Z:" reports.
Until we unfuck ourselves from this, we r stuck in the bureaucracy that imposes itself on us. And unfortunately, we will still need staff officers to deal with this bullshit.
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Not arguing. Like I said, not easy. But before we hit full on unrecoverable for things we need to take action, even if it slows down the leak. X finding jobs are going to be the first to go IMHO. Like all things military new priorities are overwriting old priorities. Some of those XYZ reports are legacy and don't need to be done anymore, or god forbid, be done in a different way that doesn't require tons of admin.
Weinie
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You are young in the Force. May the Force be with you.
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Re: Your Point 5 (stop doing ops that are low value)
I can foresee the RCAF getting into some heated arguments with the CA and RCN, such as below. These are completely made up.
- CA thinks Maple Resolve (or something like that) is high value because of trg. RCAF doesn't think it's the best use of its Tac Hel sqns
- RCN thinks OP PROJECTION is valuable while there is an SNMG 1 (can't remember the operation name) also going on. RCAF doesn't agree that PROJECTION is as valuable as SNMG 1 so it doesn't want to send a Cyclone det.
Weinie
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The CDS. Lets get back to basics, people.
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Which para?
Haggis
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A new CDS will be along in 24 to 30 months. Possibly a new government, too, which will have even less interest in defence, particularly if it interferes with their woke green agenda. All the L1s and their mandarins have to do is delay, deny, distract and deceive until a new boss is appointed who they like, as per SOP.
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The CAF is screwed. It's not going to get better, this is just acknowledgement that it's going to trend downward.
The bill for massive deficit spending and economic malaise is going to be coming due and that will be the Government's primary concern.
