Canadian Fiscal Policy

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Dartguard

Or they will reduce Immigration totals, close the puppy schools,Sweep away the silly punitive enviro regulatory cement and really ask tough questions about the size of the Civil service and especially DND. We have 147 General positions for an effective Force of 55,000? The terrifying thing for Official Ottawa is there are fewer places to hide.Change is coming especially to the Command Division of 24,000 FTE's in DND Ottawa. The Navy can't even find 65 Sailors per new AOPS. What the heck do 147 General/Admirals actually deliver? Not to mention the Deputy Minister Empires.

You have an extremely strange obsession with the size of DND in Ottawa. I lived through the last round of supposed cuts. We added a lot more contractors in place of the public servants cut. And DND can't spend the money it has, cutting more of the engineers and project managers and ops advisors (all the military folks who help the engineers understand requirements) will not deliver more. Certainly won't help get those 65 bodies onto a ship.

And Ottawa now has more operational units. The air force setup 7 Wing (Space) and 3 Canadian Space Division in Ottawa. Both the Aerospace Engineering Test Establishment and the 414 Electronic Warfare Squadron are in Ottawa. On the CAF side, the Joint Warfare Centre, the Experimentation Centre and the Joint Operations Command are all in Ottawa. When the drones come, they'll fly off the coasts, but be controlled from Ottawa. JTF 2 and SOF Command is in Ottawa. More and more operational work is moving to Ottawa for a whole bunch of reasons, from cost effectiveness to synergy to reducing the time between command authority and action. It's a lot easier to support a SOF operation in Africa when the SOF Command, supporting drone operators, satellite surveillance and comms operators are all in one building, just 15 mins from the Minister's Office and 30 mins from the CDS.

We have too many generals. But at least some of that is the reality of international cooperation. For example, I was on course at the Air Warfare Centre in Trenton two years ago. The Commander there was a Colonel. Her counterparts at all the major NATO and Five Eyes equivalent institutions are 1-2 stars. That position should be a BGen to give that person sufficient authority in multilateral forums. But if we go by some artificial count, I guess we ignore the norms of military diplomacy and look like the scrub country who send a Colonel to a room full of Generals. The CAF is now upgrading that position thankfully.

You would understand more of this, if you actually served, and weren't just running off anecdotes from your son and father.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by thewave46

Still don't know what crypto does that gold doesn't to be honest. At least I get to look at the gold I buy.

I've started collecting Roman aurei (all of them are of pure gold) a few years ago (as a hobby). Fascinating to look at and handle. I have all but one of the Julio-Claudian Emperors now (just missing Caligula, the priciest by far; a good quality coin of him is at least $50k).

I greatly recommend it Their value is totally correlated with gold anyway (and therefore, with bitcoin).

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lio45

I've started collecting Roman aurei (all of them are of pure gold) a few years ago (as a hobby). Fascinating to look at and handle. I have all but one of the Julio-Claudian Emperors now (just missing Caligula, the priciest by far; a good quality coin of him is at least $50k).

I greatly recommend it Their value is totally correlated with gold anyway (and therefore, with bitcoin).

This is so cool. I would totally do this, if I had the spare cash. What's your total collection worth right now, if you don't mind me asking?

[Dartguard]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

You have an extremely strange obsession with the size of DND in Ottawa. I lived through the last round of supposed cuts. We added a lot more contractors in place of the public servants cut. And DND can't spend the money it has, cutting more of the engineers and project managers and ops advisors (all the military folks who help the engineers understand requirements) will not deliver more. Certainly won't help get those 65 bodies onto a ship.

And Ottawa now has more operational units. The air force setup 7 Wing (Space) and 3 Canadian Space Division in Ottawa. Both the Aerospace Engineering Test Establishment and the 414 Electronic Warfare Squadron are in Ottawa. On the CAF side, the Joint Warfare Centre, the Experimentation Centre and the Joint Operations Command are all in Ottawa. When the drones come, they'll fly off the coasts, but be controlled from Ottawa. JTF 2 and SOF Command is in Ottawa. More and more operational work is moving to Ottawa for a whole bunch of reasons, from cost effectiveness to synergy to reducing the time between command authority and action. It's a lot easier to support a SOF operation in Africa when the SOF Command, supporting drone operators, satellite surveillance and comms operators are all in one building, just 15 mins from the Minister's Office and 30 mins from the CDS.

We have too many generals. But at least some of that is the reality of international cooperation. For example, I was on course at the Air Warfare Centre in Trenton two years ago. The Commander there was a Colonel. Her counterparts at all the major NATO and Five Eyes equivalent institutions are 1-2 stars. That position should be a BGen to give that person sufficient authority in multilateral forums. But if we go by some artificial count, I guess we ignore the norms of military diplomacy and look like the scrub country who send a Colonel to a room full of Generals. The CAF is now upgrading that position thankfully.

You would understand more of this, if you actually served, and weren't just running off anecdotes from your son and father.

So did you ever have access to General Leslies report from some time ago as I understand that it was not really spread around too much.
BTW its not an artificial count. I get that Canada has to interact with our American allies and to send and have diplomatic/political/military positions.
Are those positions ever really scrutinized? And you and I know its not just the General officer position but the support staff that come with them.Things and offices in Ottawa tend to balloon for the mainly quasi political reasons you have stated. The ice cream cone is VERY top heavy . I would like to see General Leslies recommendations but I doubt if they will see the light of day.

Canada had 64 Generals leading an Army, at its peak in World War two, of 385,000 soldiers in Two Corps. Eight divisions spread out from Italy to the Aleutians. Getting shot at. Ottawa has become too comfortable.

With the developments down South last night Canada may be in a very uncomfortable political position should Mr Trump win again. We are not ready. Trump is a very transactional guy that uses small words to understand complex issues. Our Generals may have a very difficult assignment dealing with our American friends next January. The renewal or review of the FTA is coming up. Do we have enough in the cupboard to please Mr Transactional?

Sadly Truenorth the list of Units you have stated that are now in Ottawa just describes an organization that is in Shock. Like a body that has suffered a serious injury the blood rushes to the core. What you have described are the crown jewels of the CAF especially in sense, experimentation and direct action. Thank God we at least have that but the shaving of the melting Ice Cube that started in 1971 is coming to a wall.

Thank you for your service and I mean that.The political class in this Country do not deserve the commitment ,dedication and professionalism you bring to the table .The Canadian Forces deserve Better from our Leaders.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Dartguard

So did you ever have access to General Leslies report from some time ago as I understand that it was not really spread around too much.

BTW its not an artificial count. I get that Canada has to interact with our American allies and to send and have diplomatic/political/military positions.
Are those positions ever really scrutinized? And you and I know its not just the General officer position but the support staff that come with them.Things and offices in Ottawa tend to balloon for the mainly quasi political reasons you have stated. The ice cream cone is VERY top heavy . I would like to see General Leslies recommendations but I doubt if they will see the light of day.

Some of Leslie's changes were implemented. Some were not. Fundamentally, unless we give up sovereignty, you will need certain overhead. For example, if we implement a decision to simply buy all our equipment from the US and directly follow American doctrine, we can eliminate a whole lot of procurement and doctrine jobs. But I'm guessing most of the public isn't going to like billions of dollars going out without really benefiting the Canadian economy. Going to be hard to justify higher defence spending with that approach.

Originally Posted by Dartguard

Canada had 64 Generals leading an Army, at its peak in World War two, of 385,000 soldiers in Two Corps. Eight divisions spread out from Italy to the Aleutians. Getting shot at. Ottawa has become too comfortable.

Go through this list:

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-...-officers.html

Tell me the positions you think shouldn't be flag ranks. It's possible some organizations can be combined and GOFO/Exec positions merged. But I don't believe it's as easy as you think. Doing that, tends to lose oversight. But sure. Maybe more Colonels and fewer generals. Also, this list flexes a lot. For example, there's GOFOs assigned to the Fighter Capabilities project. Those positions close out after the F-35 reaches FOC.

Something you don't seem to understand is that every country has been going through rank inflation because warfare has changed substantially and everything from what we procure to how we fight and who we fight with is more complicated. A Captain leading a platoon or company today can call in firepower that only Divisions run by Major Generals used to have in World War II. A LCdr on a ship can call up satellite surveillance today that even 15 years ago would require cooperation from an agency led by stars/leafs. Another big portion of rank inflation is budget and responsibility inflation and what that means for competition with the private sector. Take the General I worked for at DGAEPM. Her remit was literally tens of billions of dollars worth of assets and direct command of several hundred of the most highly trained engineers and techs in the CAF. What do you pay such a person to keep them? Her predecessor quit and went to Amazon as an exec. Since the only way militaires can really pay more is with a higher rank, rank inflation happens to be a compensation tactic.

I've seen the same "We have too many Generals" complaint with the Brits and the Americans too. It's a perennial complaint, put forward by those who don't understand the current changes.

Originally Posted by Dartguard

With the developments down South last night Canada may be in a very uncomfortable political position should Mr Trump win again. We are not ready. Trump is a very transactional guy that uses small words to understand complex issues. Our Generals may have a very difficult assignment dealing with our American friends next January. The renewal or review of the FTA is coming up. Do we have enough in the cupboard to please Mr Transactional?

Like I've said earlier, I don't think Trump cares about specifics. He's been complaining about other countries taking advantage of the US since the 80s. If he can get away with it, he'll isolate the US to the maximum extent possible, regardless of that the US does. I don't think he cares at all what Canada does. He runs off a narrative that can't be changed.

Arguably the thing that does have an impact on Congress, however, is buying kit from their districts. And this is why the F-35 and P-8s, etc are being bought. If we need to, we'll probably buy something like new tanks, artillery and electronic warfare kit from the US.

Originally Posted by Dartguard

Sadly Truenorth the list of Units you have stated that are now in Ottawa just describes an organization that is in Shock. Like a body that has suffered a serious injury the blood rushes to the core. What you have described are the crown jewels of the CAF especially in sense, experimentation and direct action. Thank God we at least have that but the shaving of the melting Ice Cube that started in 1971 is coming to a wall.

There's a reason some of the most sophisticated units are now in Ottawa. Quality of Life and operational efficiency. AETE couldn't recruit test pilots and test engineers. And they were always flying to Ottawa for meetings with all the tech staff anyway. So they moved to Ottawa from Cold Lake to stave off possible recruiting collapse and actually save money. The special forces folks are in Ottawa because they need to work with a whole bunch of other specialist and they need a decent commercial airport with lots of links. It's the same reason the RCAF stood up the Space Wing and Division here. They need to work with Cyber and EW folks. The idea that Ottawa is just full of generals and their admin assistants is just a ridiculously outdated point of view. More and more operational activity is being centered in Ottawa because it's just easier to have everybody in one city, that also happens to offer a decent quality of life to our families.

If we could get away with it, we'd move even more units to Ottawa or at least closer to Ottawa. Politics is the only thing that prevents this. Consider the new Air Expeditionary Wing (2 AEW) set up in Bagottville. Their job is to help mobilize the air force into theatre quickly. Their engineering units are in Nova Scotia and Cold Lake. Their mobile air traffic control unit is in Trenton. The overall mobilization group is co located with the Army in Kingston. And all strategic lift operates out of Trenton. The obvious basing choices would have been: 1) Trenton 2) Kingston 3) Cold Lake. Instead Bagottville was chosen. And that was done by the previous government to help win seats around Saguenay.