A Canadian White Ensign proposal

[Edward Campbell]

.... On the Royal issue, if my regiment had been renamed "The Canadian Dragoons" in 1968 I am pretty sure that I would support an initiative to bring back "Royal", and I am pretty sure that my colleagues that share my regimental birthday would do the same for theirs.

Having said all that, we need to extend the Navy Centennial like my daughter needs a new Jonas Brothers album.

Isn't that what happened to the Royal Canadians Engineers? Is there an equivalent feeling amongst our sapper brethren?

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

Isn't that what happened to the Royal Canadians Engineers? Is there an equivalent feeling amongst our sapper brethren?

A good point, but was the "Royal" aspect as big a part of their identity? I am fairly sure that my colleagues around the mezzanine refer to themselves as "Royals." For my own part, "RCD" is how we call ourselves.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Isn't that what happened to the Royal Canadians Engineers? Is there an equivalent feeling amongst our sapper brethren?

If the engineers want it back that's a task for them to take up. This discussion is Naval in nature so I fail to see how the RCE wishes for or against being royal again matter much in this discussion.

 

[Edward Campbell]

A good point, but was the "Royal" aspect as big a part of their identity? I am fairly sure that my colleagues around the mezzanine refer to themselves as "Royals." For my own part, "RCD" is how we call ourselves.

I really don't know any more.

There was, back in the '60s and '70s, a fair amount of moaning from both former RCE and RCSigs people. Less from the former than the latter because, I think, the smaller construction engineering and Air Force engineering branches - the latter with its own "combat" component (runway repair, etc) - were more or less absorbed into a fairly big combat engineer oriented organization while the (relatively) very small Royal Canadian Corps of Signals was, by and large, absorbed by the large RCAF communication branch.

Sorry, sailors, for hijacking your thread, but the "loss of identity" issue, from the 1960s, impacted on more than just the RCN.


__________
P.S. I expect that, in due course, someone will be along to remind your mezzanine mates that they're supposed to call themselves "Royal Canadians," but that's a nit I'll leave unpicked. 

 

[Halifax Tar]

Sorry, sailors, for hijacking your thread, but the "loss of identity" issue, from the 1960s, impacted on more than just the RCN.

No one said the Navy was the only one who lost anything. It was simply a Navy-centric discussion.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

__________
P.S. I expect that, in due course, someone will be along to remind your mezzanine mates that they're supposed to call themselves "Royal Canadians," but that's a nit I'll leave unpicked. 

But you did chose to nitpick, and in doing so you helped me make my point that sometimes these little things are indeed important to us. Thanks!

 

[Edward Campbell]

But you did chose to nitpick, and in doing so you helped me make my point that sometimes these little things are indeed important to us. Thanks!

It was, maybe still is, "just one of those things" about which RHQ and e.g. the Regimental Association, on one hand, and the troops in the field, on the other chose, evidently still choose, to agree to disagree. I suspect that The RCR is not unique in having these foibles.

There is a famous, maybe apocryphal story about a big parade, back in the '50s - all three battalions on parade. After the parade someone - a duly appointed someone I hasten to add - cried: "Three cheers for Peter Bingham and his Royal Canadians!" (that was 1RCR); three cheers followed. Then the voice cried "Three cheers for _________ and his Royal Canadians!" (that was 2RCR), three cheers followed. Before the duly appointed crier could bellow his salute to 3RCR a somewhat slurred, but still very loud and sufficiently clear, voice from the crowd chimed in with "Let's hear it for Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians!" I guess the next thing heard was "Left! Right! Left! Right! Left!" Maybe it's just legend, it was before my time, but I hope it's true.


Edit: corrected a format error  :-[

 

[PPCLI Guy]

This is not a minor undertaking and, I suspect it is one that has virtually no support amongst the flag and general officers in the CF today and even less amongst the senior bureaucrats and the politicians they direct advise. I doubt many members here have any idea, at all, about the enormous amount of staff work required to amend the National Defence Act. No matter how strongly retired members may feel and no matter how supportive, or at least indifferent, serving members might be, it, a proposal to recreate the Royal Canadian Navy is simply not going to get on the Department’s executive’s agenda.

But recreating the RCN would be neither simple nor easy.

All true.  This would NOT be a simple undertaking, but it is, of course, doable.  The trouble with ideas movements like this though is that they assume infinite capacity - they never take into account the concept of opportunity cost.  It is hard enough as it is to get items of vital importance through the ringer, and so we already have a system whereby policies and programs compete with each other, and each require the expenditure of small "p" political capital.  This means that for every "project" that gets developed and pushed through the process, some other project withers on the vine.

For the sake of argument, let's assume the validity of the argument - be it the new Ensign, or the return of the Royal prefix.  My question then is what policy or project should be sidelined in order to proceed?  Is it the new shipbuilding program?  Upgrade to LAVs?  Transformation writ large?  The SAR project?  Processing long overdue CFOO and MOOs?  Approval of new Armouries?  Protecting existing allocations of funds to the Forces?  And what of new, as yet unidentified critical requirements?  If the available staff horsepower and command political capital is expended on Ensigns or Prefixes, what will we not be able to proceed with?

Not all ideas / movements / projects are created equal.  They are in competition.  It is imperative that we focus on the critical, the must-have, as opposed to frittering away our efforts on the marginal or nice-to-have.

 

[Infanteer]

Just curious, what did the Executive Curl cost the CF in terms of withered projects?

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I fail to see how the Navy getting a new flag or whatever back is going to have an iota of impact on you MO. Or how this caused such emotion in you start using slander.

No one was slandered. Pull in your horns. That's your only warning.

No one said the Navy was the only one who lost anything. It was simply a Navy-centric discussion.

And ALL posters here are entitled to their say and opinion. Navy or not. You don't have to agree, but we don't play by your rules. Live with it. Ignore what they say or factually rebut it. As long the general theme of the thread is intact, it can take as many tangents, within reason, as it will. You want to deal with strictly navy pers? I'm sure there is another navycentric forum out there somewhere that would be glad to have you.

Milnet.ca Staff

 

[Edward Campbell]

Just curious, what did the Executive Curl cost the CF in terms of withered projects?

My guess (an old, outsider's guess) is that the cost was very small, within the context of Navy Centennial staff work, etc.  I'm guessing one middle ranking Navy Log/Fin officer did the work necessary to fund the changes and then I suspect one admiral spent a little bit of the precious political capital PPCLI Guy mentioned by getting agreement from a few fellow admirals, generals and bureaucrats at a coffee break during another meeting.

All-in-all, it could have been and, unless things have changed a lot, should have been a fairly minor bit of business, done "on the margins" so to speak. I also suspect that making the Navy jack roughly equal the old white ensign could be done for about the same overall cost.

The existing, approved jack that I suggest could serve as a new, Canadian white ensign , flown (is "worn" the right naval term?) according to old traditions.

But changing back to the RCN, amending the NDA to change the very nature of the CF? That's another, bigger, very "costly" matter which I doubt interests any cash strapped admirals.
 

 

[dapaterson]

Having said all that, we need to extend the Navy Centennial like my daughter needs a new Jonas Brothers album.

You mean, like, really?  That would be, like, sooo cool and neat, like.

 

[Michael OLeary]

My guess (an old, outsider's guess) is that the cost was very small, within the context of Navy Centennial staff work, etc.  I'm guessing one middle ranking Navy Log/Fin officer did the work necessary to fund the changes and then I suspect one admiral spent a little bit of the precious political capital PPCLI Guy mentioned by getting agreement from a few fellow admirals, generals and bureaucrats at a coffee break during another meeting.

All-in-all, it could have been and, unless things have changed a lot, should have been a fairly minor bit of business, done "on the margins" so to speak. I also suspect that making the Navy jack roughly equal the old white ensign could be done for about the same overall cost.

But, somebody actually had to do the staff work, and sell the idea up the chain of command.  It wasn't done with simple Internet consensus. And ignoring that requirement reduces any discussion of desired change to little real value in terms of achieving change.

 

[Halifax Tar]

But, somebody actually had to do the staff work, and sell the idea up the chain of command.  It wasn't done with simple Internet consensus. And ignoring that requirement reduces any discussion of desired change to little real value in terms of achieving change.

Then why do you insist on taking part in the discussion ? If you feel its of little value, whether it is or not, then why do you keep coming back to this thread ? Why not just ignore it ?

 

[57Chevy]

shared in accordance with provisions of the copyright act

A Diamond Jubilee Initiative to Reinstate the Royal Designation to Canada's Navy and Air Force.
ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY - ROYAL CANADIAN AIR FORCE
from Wednesday, January 19, 2011
http://rcn-rcaf.blogspot.com/2011/01/white-ensign-club-of-montreal-to-hold.html

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[Michael OLeary]

Then why do you insist on taking part in the discussion ? If you feel its of little value, whether it is or not, then why do you keep coming back to this thread ? Why not just ignore it ?

If you think my questions are too difficult, or that the process of change has nothing to do with this thread, please feel free to ignore my posts.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Then why do you insist on taking part in the discussion ? If you feel its of little value, whether it is or not, then why do you keep coming back to this thread ? Why not just ignore it ?

I'm pretty sure this was addressed.

Yup, it was. Just in case you thought I was kidding and getting an early jump on April Fools, I wasn't. However, here it is again just in case you didn't understand it the first time.

And ALL posters here are entitled to their say and opinion. Navy or not. You don't have to agree, but we don't play by your rules. Live with it. Ignore what they say or factually rebut it. As long the general theme of the thread is intact, it can take as many tangents, within reason, as it will. You want to deal with strictly navy pers? I'm sure there is another navycentric forum out there somewhere that would be glad to have you.

Milnet.ca Staff

Last time.

Milnet.ca Staff

 

[Infanteer]

I've been following this thread with interest.  I am not really "for" or "against" the idea in principle - I support change if they make things better.  That being said, a few observations:

1.  We need to be careful when making a zero sum game out of proposals for new projects.  Instituting the executive curl did not - likely (I could be proven wrong) - require hundreds of man-hours of staff work to be siphoned off from the AOR replacement project or a diversion of funds that could have put an extra hull in the water.  Saying that costs in smaller ventures like these necessarily require operational off-sets is, as T2B put it, arguing somewhat to the extreme.

2.  That being said, there are costs, as Edward's post above illustrates.  We can say there is a bit of a formula for "change" - it requires time (ie: manhours for staffwork), resources (ie: money), and political capital (ie: your boss and his boss's time and energy).  The executive curl is a good example to work with.  On a scale of 1 (least) to 5 (most), it probably cost 1-2 in terms of all three factors.  Introducing a new fleet of fighting vehicles into the Army, conversely, is likely 5s across the board.

3.  This, like the executive curl, or renaming an Air Force Squadron or putting the Army in khaki uniforms all constitute tinkering.  I'd consider tinkering to be changes that are largely cosmetic - in the end, they don't have immediate or secondary effects on how we do our jobs.  Many point that these changes are easy - if they are so easy, why aren't the very smart Admirals and Generals instituting them now?  A better understanding of tinkering, its advantages and disadvantages, and why we choose to do it or not would probably add to this discussion (which isn't so much about a ship flag, but rather the value of the impetus to change it).

4.  If the formula for change is valid and the principle of tinkering makes sense, then I guess we get a better idea of the cost:benefit relationship.  Are the resources expended for the sake of tinkering (which usually isn't much) worth it?  I don't know, but it's probably worth trying to figure out.

 

[McG]

1.  We need to be careful when making a zero sum game out of proposals for new projects.  Instituting the executive curl did not - likely (I could be proven wrong) - require hundreds of man-hours of staff work to be siphoned off from the AOR replacement project or a diversion of funds that could have put an extra hull in the water.  Saying that costs in smaller ventures like these necessarily require operational off-sets is, as T2B put it, arguing somewhat to the extreme.

Individually, these may not be huge things - but at the aggregate level all of the acctual & proposed turn-back-the-clock & bling exercieses (executive curl, sea badge, bring back RCN, an new ensign, etc) there is a substantial consumption of resources at both the national level (the staff officers who plan & organize and the approval boards that give the thumbs-up, to the clerks who must scower each pers file individually to determine eligibilities & the supply system that must replace whole inventories of little things).

I have seen many operational capability projects & NP procurements, some without even large price tags, wallow for lack of a staff officer or because a decision board was too backed-up on other good ideas.

I agree with your assesment that this would be cosmetic tinkering.  Any benefits would be marginal and short-lived as sailors' minds quickly return to thier real concners which are left unchanged by the tinkering.

Isn't that what happened to the Royal Canadians Engineers? Is there an equivalent feeling amongst our sapper brethren?

The R in RCE was a significant part of the Corps identity.  As a branch without the R, I can't think of a single member of the CME who feels our heritage or accomplishments are in anyway reduced for it.  We know who we are, whe know what we have done, we know what we can do, and we are quite proud of it all.

 

[Snakedoc]

Maybe even to post the first version of a staff paper, asking for advice on how to make it better, asking for people outside the emotional argument to point out logical holes that need to be sealed before it launches.

I would think a staff paper would have been done up on topics similar to this in the past.  However, if someone wants to write one up and share it, I think this would be a great idea.