Sig Op course at CFSCE - Live off base?

[MatthewMeredith]

Hi everyone!

I'm about half way through my BMQ and just had a question about the living situation while I will be doing my QL3's in Kingston. I am recently married (my 1 year anniversary will be two days after I finish BMQ!) and my wife and I are hoping to live together while I am at the CFSCE. I know there is a possibility that I could get into a PMQ; Is there any way that my wife and I can live completely off base? She's looking to move out to Kingston on July 1st, but she doesn't want to get an apartment if it'll end up that we have to move into PMQ's on the base.

Can anyone who has been through the CFSCE clarify this? I tried the search but couldn't find any answers. Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[BearPusher]

Your best bet would be to talk to your course staff about it asap. Not sure if you're going atis or acciss. As the new acciss ql3 is much shorter than the sig op ql3's or poet and tech ql3's and it might not qualify to get your family moved, unless you end up being posted there.

 

[Sig_Des]

Also, you may want to confirm that you'll be doing a new ACISS DP1 as opposed to the old QL3. From what I recall, the DP1 is only something like 73 training days, and who knows, you may spend little time on PAT. Wouldn't be worth getting an apartment for three & a half months.

 

[Bucky]

Get ready for the surprise of your life, man... You sitting down?

You probably won't be going to Kingston after BMQ!

"But where will I get my trades training!?" you might ask. The short answer is "Kingston." The long answer is...

Recently, Kingston became absolutely overrun with PATs (that's you, or will be after you finish BMQ), and someone decided that the best place to put them would be with the HQ&Sigs Sqns (they seem to like Petawawa, in particular). So you'll likely have a stop up here in the meantime. That's something new, so maybe your staff or recruiter hadn't heard about it.

The way it used to work was that once you finish BMQ in St Jean, you'd go to Kingston (CFSCE), and be on PAT platoon for a while. during this time you'd get sent out to get your BMQ-L (Soldier Qual), and your Driver Wheel crse for the LSVW. Both of these courses are, in fact, prerequisites for your SigOp QL3 (now called ACISS DP1).

Since the change, all of the waiting and courses are taking place as you live and work alongside the actual unit you'll be working with (or one very much like it). You'll likely come up here, get a feel for the job, and some OJT, then get sent out on SQ, then back to the Sqn, get a driver course (we're running one in house right now for our current crop of PATs), then sent to Kingston for your DP1.

More bad news: you likely won't be able to move your wife up here, or down there. If, for some reason, she inclined to just kinda "tag along" and get an apartment, then you'll likely be close enough to hang out in the evenings and on whatever weekends your course staff permits you to have off.

To clarify, though: You will not be able to vacate single quarters while on your DP1. Among other handy reasons, room inspections are part of the course, and CFSCE has a particularly high standard for those. They ain't gonna come inspect your apartment. Also, the military has a great relocation program for persons who are getting posted after completign their trades training. They will get your wife and you from wherever you lived before you joined the army, to wherever you get posted. That's it. they don't want to hear that she's been following you around from base to base the whole time.

Look up Brookfield or IRP for more info about that.

But the long and the short of it is: not yet. Tell her to wait until you know where you're going and for how long before she makes any plans.