There was a time, circa 1960, when we had four brigade groups (12 battalions of infantry, several of them mechanized, four armoured regiments with 300± modern tanks between them, etc, etc) all wearing the “old red patch” of the 1st Canadian Division. But there was no Div HQ, there was a designated division commander but, as far as I know, he had no real staff. There were no division troops, not even a Div Sig Regt – that unit, which had existed in the 1950s in Camp Borden, was disbanded in the late ‘50s; there was a field force Signal unit (I Sig Unit) in Kingston but it was, really, a test and evaluations unit. With special emphasis on EW, and was the embryo on 2 (EW) Sqn and, now, the umpteenth EW Regt.
The operational requirement for a division was based on our commitment to NATO/Europe but, by the mid to late ‘50s the NATO strategy had changed and no one thought there would be enough time to ship two more brigades plus division troops to Europe – the formal commitment remained in place but there was neither the will nor the way to accomplish it. the "old red patch" remained on our shoulders because there was no pressing need to not have it there and it was a slight moral booster - separating the field force from the rest.
I’m not sure what the operational requirement for a formation above brigade level might be now, in 2010. Presumably we are not doing this just because we have underemployed generals, and ’gardening leave’ is no longer available as a tool to keep them out of the way, or because we just want change for the sake of change and/or to camouflage the fact that we have neither the will nor the way to do much of anything except put up camouflage.