Let me stick my oar in here. Since the Brockville Rifles is being discussed, let's review its geographical position. Sorry if this is pedantic, but you should get my drift. Brockville lies on the St Lawrence about an hour's drive east of Kingston and about the same west of Cornwall and south of Ottawa. All four centres are home to one or more reserve units. Let's deal with the three in the Seaway Valley, the SD&G Higglanders in Cornwall, the Brockville Rifles in Brockville and the PWOR in Kingston. (In the last, there is another reserve unit, the H&PE Regt, another hour's drive to the west in Belleville.) So let's address these four units covering a few hundred kilometres of Highway 401.
Could we achieve major personnel savings by having one battalion headquarters and four sub-units stretching along the southern border of Eastern Ontario? (I know the Hasty Ps have a company in Pterborough, so maybe it becomes five.) First - what about personnel administration? I submit that each will have to maintain an orderly room and an adjutant et al by any other names to service their personnel. The same with a QM and a recruiting cell and a tasking cell and a . . . Oh, and did I mention somebody to sort out the pay issues? Maybe in these cases where the geographical spread is fairly large, the savings are only in the nature of a few relatively senior positions, along with perhaps the honouraries. Is it worth the hassle? We are not talking about, say the Minto Armoury in Winnipeg, with two infantry regiments under the same roof. To my tiny mind, we will end up with five 'separate' units, one commanded by a LCol and the others by (bolshie-minded) majors, each self-administering, but suddenly with three angry senates and honouraries all pulling all the political strings they can reach.
Will someone please explain the errors in my thinking to me? Please use real life examples in similar geographical and demographic situations.
