DND warns capability of Canadian military and equipment is dropping

[BWilly]

FIRST READING: New 'anti-racist' Canadian military scrapes new lows for morale, capability

More than half of Canada’s naval and air fleets are now unfit to “meet training and readiness requirements”

nationalpost.com

This is absolutely ridiculous to see laid out like this. How do we fix this? Is there a bottom where everyone says enough is enough? Do we do away with the DEI and go back to a warrior ethos? Is there a happy medium? I'm interested to hear everyone's thoughts and solutions.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Old news, I'm afraid, and DEI should be the least of our worries:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/nato-canadian-armed-forces-europe-1.7135390

 

[PuckChaser]

Unless DEI siphoned a billion dollars from O&M last year (Coles Notes: It did not), it's not the problem. Chronic under funding of both O&M and capital procurements (as well as their glacial pace) is fueling the decline.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Drop "warrior" bit and focus on being the best "Peer warfare experts" we can be. All the other missions can flow from that standard, like we did in the past.

 

[rmc_wannabe]

DEI didn't undercut Project Management, implement Byzantine financial processes, fail to do a proper lifecycling management assessment for spares, or make defence procurement beholden to the economic needs of Ste Poutaine de Caliss, QC.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Unless DEI siphoned a billion dollars from O&M last year (Coles Notes: It did not), it's not the problem. Chronic under funding of both O&M and capital procurements (as well as their glacial pace) is fueling the decline.

DEI is a bunch of nonesense; it's not even a recent underfunding, it's been like that my entire career of almost 20 years, coupled with operation demands that don't allow for things like maintenance.

Add in lack of people, hiring freezes and the massive growth in bureaucratic processes and it leads to way less happening than it sould.

Anyone that thinks a 'warrior ethos' will overcome decades of underfunding and chronic overtasking is probably rage baiting.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Positive Space training was one of the first things cut paused when we were hit with the moratorium on TD not too long ago.

 

[McG]

The current state of readiness has everything to do with a $1B budget cut that “wasn’t a budget cut” on top of pre-existing underfunding of the sustainment budget. Of course things are getting worse. If you want a quick fix, double the NP budget and give DND contracting authority to match its initiation authority. Accept that it may take a few years before ADM(Mat) can spend everything. You will have immediate in-year results.

Do we do away with the DEI …

DEI should be the least of our worries

Unless DEI…

DEI didn't undercut …

Congratulations. You (Tristin Hopper) took this topic about a real defence problem and took it down a path completely irrelevant. DEI has nothing to do with the equipment availability problem, but it is great chum to keep the partisans distracted from what is really wrong.

 

[KevinB]

News flash, equipment shortages etc have been happening since the 70’s.

You can’t keep replacing 2 items with 1 and wonder out why things don’t last when the corresponding maintenance budgets get cut too…

 

[Navy_Pete]

News flash, equipment shortages etc have been happening since the 70’s.

You can’t keep replacing 2 items with 1 and wonder out why things don’t last when the corresponding maintenance budgets get cut too…

Can't cut a maintenance budget, if you don't do maintenance!

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Can't cut a maintenance budget, if you don't do maintenance!

Maintenance is so 20th century, oh look AI (aka Squirrel)

 

[dimsum]

Congratulations. You (Tristin Hopper) took this topic about a real defence problem and took it down a path completely irrelevant. DEI has nothing to do with the equipment availability problem, but it is great chum to keep the partisans distracted from what is really wrong.

Also it’s an “easy fix” (narrator: It isn’t) to drop DEI and everything will become all rainbows and unicorns.

I guess we’ll see in the next few months with our southern neighbours.

 

[childs56]

Can't cut a maintenance budget, if you don't do maintenance!

The healing fence works good..... until you need the equipment

 

[markppcli]

View attachment 89917

FIRST READING: New 'anti-racist' Canadian military scrapes new lows for morale, capability

More than half of Canada’s naval and air fleets are now unfit to “meet training and readiness requirements”

nationalpost.com

This is absolutely ridiculous to see laid out like this. How do we fix this? Is there a bottom where everyone says enough is enough? Do we do away with the DEI and go back to a warrior ethos? Is there a happy medium? I'm interested to hear everyone's thoughts and solutions.

What’s rediculous is trying to relate equipment failures and DEI hiring practices. No one’s missing parts because we’re trying to recruit minorities. We’re missing parts because of bad contracts and a 1 billion dollar cut to our budget.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Unless DEI siphoned a billion dollars from O&M last year (Coles Notes: It did not), it's not the problem. Chronic under funding of both O&M and capital procurements (as well as their glacial pace) is fueling the decline.

From my view, the problem with DEI initiatives is that they eat away at your most important commodity: Time.

There are 365 days in a year or broken down in to hours, 8760hrs in a year. Given a standard work week of 40hrs or (8hrs x 5days), you've only got 2080hrs of those 8760hrs available for whatever it is you want done.

I've been out for sometime now but I do remember quite a bit of institutional effort being dedicated to DEI initiatives in both time and resources. Mandatory DLN courses & Briefings, Workshops, Mandatory Reading Materials, etc. Ball-park figure I would use is it probably added up to a full 40hr work week with the amount of material that was expected to be digested....

So 40hrs of work on DEI initiatives per serving regular force member. Publicly available information states that the Regular Force strength is roughly "60000ish" and is about 15% short of the establishment strength.

40hrs x 60000 people = 2,400,000 work hrs.

That's over 2 million work hours of time spent on DEI, that provides no objectively measurable output to the bottom line of the CAF.

This isn't even accounting for the personnel that have been repurposed from their real jobs to new organizations stood up like the Chief Professional Conduct & Culture. This reallocation is happening in an era of scarce resources as well.



My Thought: Perhaps things wouldn't be moving at such a glacial pace if the institution got its priorities straight?

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

DEI is a bunch of nonesense; it's not even a recent underfunding, it's been like that my entire career of almost 20 years, coupled with operation demands that don't allow for things like maintenance.

Add in lack of people, hiring freezes and the massive growth in bureaucratic processes and it leads to way less happening than it sould.

Anyone that thinks a 'warrior ethos' will overcome decades of underfunding and chronic overtasking is probably rage baiting.

DEI is just a small part of a larger problem which you eloquently referred to as "chronic overtasking". IMO, the entire Defence Team lacks institutional discipline. Then again, that could also be said for our Govt writ large.

 

[rmc_wannabe]

DEI is just a small part of a larger problem which you eloquently referred to as "chronic overtasking". IMO, the entire Defence Team lacks institutional discipline. Then again, that could also be said for our Govt writ large.

I will detatch DEI from this and go bigger hand/map.

The whole "Defence Team" concept of DND and CAF being one entity has exacerbated the problem you brought up with chronic overtasking.

The CAF has very clear roles and responsibilities it needs to fill in defence of the realm. It also has an established reporting chain that logically bypasses the head of the Public Service (the Clerk of the Privy Council).

DND Public Servants are still Public Servants. Anything the PCO directs as a mandatory initiative (be it training, advisory councils, awareness campaigns, etc.), DND is on the hook for compliance, but the CAF is pulled along for the ride.

I recently had to complete WMT 101 and WMT 102 through the Canadian School of the Public Service. Why? Because it was mandated that all DND/CAF employees complete it to be in compliance with a larger government initiative. The training cited policies and scenarios that do not exist in the CAF or would be dealt with very differently (an absentee DND PS employee gets a talking to or a write up, Cpl Bloggins is facing administrative or disciplinary measures).

I think if we want to move away from the chronic overtasking, we need to reestablish the line in the sand between DND and CAF.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

I will detatch DEI from this and go bigger hand/map.

The whole "Defence Team" concept of DND and CAF being one entity has exacerbated the problem you brought up with chronic overtasking.

The CAF has very clear roles and responsibilities it needs to fill in defence of the realm. It also has an established reporting chain that logically bypasses the head of the Public Service (the Clerk of the Privy Council).

DND Public Servants are still Public Servants. Anything the PCO directs as a mandatory initiative (be it training, advisory councils, awareness campaigns, etc.), DND is on the hook for compliance, but the CAF is pulled along for the ride.

I recently had to complete WMT 101 and WMT 102 through the Canadian School of the Public Service. Why? Because it was mandated that all DND/CAF employees complete it to be in compliance with a larger government initiative. The training cited policies and scenarios that do not exist in the CAF or would be dealt with very differently (an absentee DND PS employee gets a talking to or a write up, Cpl Bloggins is facing administrative or disciplinary measures).

I think if we want to move away from the chronic overtasking, we need to reestablish the line in the sand between DND and CAF.

Yes Yes Yes!

A fantastic post. My point about person hours wasn't just about DEI either. DEI initiatives are a symptom of a larger problem which you've clearly identified above.

 

[Halifax Tar]

From my view, the problem with DEI initiatives is that they eat away at your most important commodity: Time.

There are 365 days in a year or broken down in to hours, 8760hrs in a year. Given a standard work week of 40hrs or (8hrs x 5days), you've only got 2080hrs of those 8760hrs available for whatever it is you want done.

I've been out for sometime now but I do remember quite a bit of institutional effort being dedicated to DEI initiatives in both time and resources. Mandatory DLN courses & Briefings, Workshops, Mandatory Reading Materials, etc. Ball-park figure I would use is it probably added up to a full 40hr work week with the amount of material that was expected to be digested....

So 40hrs of work on DEI initiatives per serving regular force member. Publicly available information states that the Regular Force strength is roughly "60000ish" and is about 15% short of the establishment strength.

40hrs x 60000 people = 2,400,000 work hrs.

That's over 2 million work hours of time spent on DEI, that provides no objectively measurable output to the bottom line of the CAF.

This isn't even accounting for the personnel that have been repurposed from their real jobs to new organizations stood up like the Chief Professional Conduct & Culture. This reallocation is happening in an era of scarce resources as well.



My Thought: Perhaps things wouldn't be moving at such a glacial pace if the institution got its priorities straight?

But institutional priorities are set by a body outside the institution. If the Gov decides our priority is to count the holes in the ceiling tiles then that's our priority.

At least that's the way my simple storesmen mind understands things.

 

[Good2Golf]

I will detatch DEI from this and go bigger hand/map.

The whole "Defence Team" concept of DND and CAF being one entity has exacerbated the problem you brought up with chronic overtasking.

The CAF has very clear roles and responsibilities it needs to fill in defence of the realm. It also has an established reporting chain that logically bypasses the head of the Public Service (the Clerk of the Privy Council).

DND Public Servants are still Public Servants. Anything the PCO directs as a mandatory initiative (be it training, advisory councils, awareness campaigns, etc.), DND is on the hook for compliance, but the CAF is pulled along for the ride.

I recently had to complete WMT 101 and WMT 102 through the Canadian School of the Public Service. Why? Because it was mandated that all DND/CAF employees complete it to be in compliance with a larger government initiative. The training cited policies and scenarios that do not exist in the CAF or would be dealt with very differently (an absentee DND PS employee gets a talking to or a write up, Cpl Bloggins is facing administrative or disciplinary measures).

I think if we want to move away from the chronic overtasking, we need to reestablish the line in the sand between DND and CAF.

This!

It didn’t help that DND had a DM (Jody Thomas) who deliberately biased the balance between CAF and DND towards the bureaucracy, under the maskarovka of purging the CAF of the Vance & Friends nexus, appeared (by actions) to press the CAF towards existence as another Government public service entity, vice a defensive force in being.

Hard to know what was at play, whether it included an element of familial retribution for her father *not having seen a career culmination as *CDS, or whether she was enabled by her close friend Katie Telford to support behind the scenes actions to support the PM and supporters agenda of friendliness to China…to wit the subsequent near-vacuum of any deliberate pursuit of awareness and establishment of a defensive posture against Canadian government and society and the covering of the PM’s backside (as the National Security and Intelligence Advisor) with the “didn’t think it (foreign interference) was noteworthy of the PM’s attention’…

A lot there, but a large portion of Thomas’ legacy will be the hard drive towards bureaucratizing significant share of senior CAF leadership.