Biggoals2bdone said:
If you go by that list in the QR&O's, the Naval ranks are not to be used (because they do not appear), so it must be outdated or erroneous.
You may think it rude/insulting that someone ask for an answer when YOU consider it answered already...but I consider it just as rude when someone answers what I consider to be a different question then the one I ask.
I'm not asking why don't we use colloquial names for ranks (i.e Sapper, Gunner, etc)...but why the Navy has its own element specific ranks while the other 2 elements do not.
Please re-read QR&O 3.01. Para 2 explains quite clearly that naval ranks shall be used by personnel who wear the naval uniform. Admittedly, it shouldn't have been too difficult to include those ranks at Para 1, but whoever wrote it didn't seem to feel the need. Nevertheless, the reader is still directed to the Schedule, where it's all laid out.
As to why naval ranks survived and the more traditional army and air force ones did not can be explained simply by the fact that the naval leadership felt this was more important an issue than the army or air force leadership did. When the CF was first reorganized in 1968, the direction was that there would only be one rank structure, the CF one. Whereas this was not a huge departure for either the army or the air force (many other air forces use a similar rank structure) it was astronomical for the navy. Simply put, hardly any navy in the world uses anything similar to the CF rank structure (the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy - yes, that's officially what it's called - being a notable exception). The thought of lieutenant-colonels commanding HMC Ships was just too much to bear and so naval personnel resisted. It wasn't easy though. The CDS at teh time was adamant that only CF ranks be used and I remember seeing old photographs with pictures of sailors with their ranks listed as,"Cpl(S), LCol (S), etc. The situation was constantly debated for a few years when the Minister finally came down and said that naval ranks (Column II of the Schedule) could be used for internal correspondence in Maritime Command as forms of address. All official CF correspondence and forms still had to use CF rank. I distinctly remember seeing my name listed as "Cpl" on a flight manifest. In 1986, it all changed again and naval ranks were recognized across the board. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, the idea was discussed in the air force, but never gained much momentum as most of the air force seems content with the status quo.
On another note with regard to the "ridiculous" (as described by another poster) traditional air force ranks (flight lieutenant, squadron leader, etc), somebody didn't seem to think that was a problem when rendering Canadian naval ranks in French. Apparently, an official languages complaint years ago accused the French ranks we were then using (commandeur, capitaine (M), etc.) of being aglicisms and, therefore, unacceptable. As a result, somebody decided to borrow titles from the
French Navy and we were saddled with capitaine de corvette, capitaine de frégate, etc. This follows the old RCAF pattern and interestingly, the German pattern of naming the rank for the level at which the hlder is expected to command. This might work better if we still had corvettes in service ....