I've been trying to figure out where I am coming from on this issue myself. I guess I am primarily in data gathering mode. Which seems appropriate.
There is the Canadian Army and there is the Canadian government. The two are not the same although one works for the other.
Sometimes the Army is tasked by HMCG to work overseas in places where people shoot at it. Other government departments, exclusive of the RCN and the RCAF are seldom tasked in that fashion.
Sometimes the Army (or the RCN or the RCAF) is tasked by HMCG to work within Canada. Very occasionally this is because they may get shot at but usually it is just because the existing domestic agencies are temporarily short of manpower or lack a capability held by the CF.
When the CF works overseas or domestically it needs data to conduct operations effectively. The more data (arguably) the more efficient operations can be. They won't necessarily be more efficient but they can be. It is probably easier to stipulate that a lack of data will guarantee an inefficient and ineffective response.
When data is not readily available (intelligence is readily available data) then the CF has to go out and find it for itself (conduct reconnaissance and surveillance).
It seems reasonable that if that recce and surveillance has to be conducted in a "non-permissive" environment then the equipment provided should ensure to the greatest extent possible that its operators will come home safely to the wife and kids. No argument on that from this corner.
But there are two other aspects to this discussion:
1. Canada doesn't have to operate overseas at all. It chooses to operate overseas. It chooses, to a great extent, the threat environment in which it wishes to operate.
2. Canada does have to operate domestically.
HMCG decides IF Canada is going to operate overseas, IF it is going to operate in a "non-permissive" environment and what level of threat they are willing to manage.
Those decisions are driven strictly by how much money HMCG believes they can extract from the Canadian Taxpayer.
ERC's Two Harolds (Wilson and MacMillan) have more to say about domestic operations. Domestic operations are event driven and occur at short notice. HMCG is required to react in a timely and effective fashion.
The Canadian Taxpayer demands that their money be used first to meet the domestic need and only secondarily to meet expeditionary needs.
The good news for HMCG is that domestic operations generally occur in a permissive environment where people are not shooting. If there is a data shortfall (lack of intelligence) then reconnaissance and surveillance operators have a reasonable expectation of coming home to the wife and kids. This suggests that the platforms used to conduct recce and surveillance domestically do not have to be as robust as those that are deployed overseas.
But.
Domestically HMCG expects to have a detailed intelligence picture on a continuous basis throughout the national territory. That means the government needs to employ many eyeballs on an ongoing basis. Not all of those eyeballs need to be in the military. Not all of those eyeballs need to be in protected platforms.
HMCG can employ civilian suppliers of intelligence.
It can employ civilians on a part time basis, like the Canadian Rangers, to keep their eyes open as they go about their daily lives.
It can employ people in CSIS, CSCE, the RCMP and the Coast Guard to keep their eyes open and act within approved limits in low threat environments.
It can employ people in the CF to use available resources, even if they are overkill for the task on hand to add to the intelligence picture.
It can employ the Militia and CASARA and the CCGA and similar agencies to keep their eyes open for a short period of time during a crisis.
Where am I going with this?
It is about sensors not platforms.
It is more important that HMCG's spending priorities focus first on providing Binoculars, Night Vision Devices, EO/IR turrets, Acoustic Detection Systems and Radars to provide intelligence than focusing on the platforms that carry the observers.
A user of the intelligence doesn't particularly need to know, or concern themselves with, how the intelligence was gathered, only that it is available so that they can plan and act.
If taxpayers are only giving HMCG a limited number of dollars to work with, and they expect a domestic focus, then HMCG is quite within its rights to focus on supplying lots of sensors to people who can employ them domestically from their jeep, their ATV, their snowmobile, their boat or their ultralight.
If it needs additional sensors for the domestic gaps then it seems to me it is valid to mount those sensors on the least expensive platform available so that more sensors can be bought and deployed.
Once those needs have been met (although the probability of those needs ever being met is equivalent to meeting the health care needs of Canadians), once those needs have been met then residual dollars can be spent on the expeditionary role.
Because the expeditionary role is a discretionary item then there is no reason why Canada couldn't decide to limit its contribution to the maintenance of Peace, Order and Good Governance to a single, massively armoured and well armed mobile observation post, or a single well defended ship or a satellite surveillance system.
HMCG doesn't have to do anything overseas. It doesn't have to send a Division, Brigade Group, Battle Group or Combat Team.
But if it chooses to send something overseas, in harms way, then it has a duty of care to ensure that it is the most survivable system available.
I don't think that the kitting problem can be addressed first by looking at the discretionary requirements of an expeditionary force. I think that it is critical to focus on the domestic requirement first, that that requirement be met with the least cost expenditure on systems, that the expertise gained by meeting the domestic need be made available to the international community, and that the funds made available for expeditionary purposes be allocated on the basis of protecting that expertise so that it can be returned, intact, to Canada and the wife and kids.
In this particular case this would result in HMCG ensuring that the Canadian Rangers, CASARA, Coast Guard, Mounties and Militia were well equipped with sensors. That those same sensors would be mounted on cheap platforms for use by those agencies domestically. That those same sensors would be utilized on better protected systems for use by the Canadian Expeditionary Force.
Those portions of the CF that focus on domestic ops, like the Militia, could be equipped with the same sensors and cheap platforms to learn transferable skills that could be employed with the expeditionary troops.
Which would you rather have? 100,000 pairs of binos and cameras (with radios) reporting from multiple locations or a single Global Hawk cruising over a limited area, occasionally and looking at a series of points.