Justin Trudeau hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[YZT580]

Except the revolving doors of leadership, especially in the CAF, mean a lack of knowledge and understanding.

It's easy to fire the folks doing long term planning and readiness peeps because their outcomes are not immediate.

I am presently working on a mandatory file that's on a five year cycle. Lots of pushback because nobody remembers the last one, so therefore it's not important.

totally understand. In 2002 to 09 I was working on plans for 2010 to 25. Biggest problem everyone was in dream land focusing on the distant future and no one wanted to concentrate on the nuts and bolts of getting to the starting gate. Any number of govt. initiatives have that same idea. They budget and document so as to justify continued expenditure rather than budget and documenting to get the project up and running and signed off

 

[FJAG]

I never said it was a report. It is a statutory requirement, that we have managed to reduce to a five year cycle instead of annually. And with an attention span that does not survive APS, and a PME system that tells people they need to be Commanders instead of institutional leaders, it is a continual struggle to remain compliant.

I'm now imagining a positional group email that can be automatically generated by the system at a desired cycle.

This actually gets me the the DOGE kerfuffle discussion and why merely finding positions or money that are "underutilized" or "misspent" isn't enough. You need to root out the myriad of legislation, regulations, policies, programs and other trivia that requires people to administer them. Government is highly adept at building empires but bollocks at taking them down.

 

[Good2Golf]

I know everybody loves to blame Ottawa. But I don't think those folks who work at C Prog really like the bureaucracy either. They are doing what they have to do to try and get kit delivered.

The PMO and ‘aligned’ DMs and ADMs get my blame. They entirely make and follow the orders that are executed to spend or not, taxpayers money as they deem appropriate. If PMO gives PCO the time of day and lets them direct (via TB/TBS) the PS effectively, stuff gets done…Tanks, C-17s, Chinooks, ESSM, UWSU, etc. it is entirely the will of the true elements of power in the GoC to spend or withhold from the Program. Probably a few folks out there who successfully ran a few yellow dockets around town for final signatures then the final journey across the canal from 101 to the James Flarhety Building to get stuff done.

 

[ytz]

The PMO and ‘aligned’ DMs and ADMs get my blame. They entirely make and follow the orders that are executed to spend or not, taxpayers money as they deem appropriate. If PMO gives PCO the time of day and lets them direct (via TB/TBS) the PS effectively, stuff gets done…Tanks, C-17s, Chinooks, ESSM, UWSU, etc. it is entirely the will of the true elements of power in the GoC to spend or withhold from the Program. Probably a few folks out there who successfully ran a few yellow dockets around town for final signatures then the final journey across the canal from 101 to the James Flarhety Building to get stuff done.

Agree with this. I have a good example of this. The same team that delivered the C-17 ahead of schedule and under budget, rolled over and became PMO Fixed Wing SAR and had all kinds of problems. Mostly the same procurement officers, same Project Manager, etc. What was the difference? All kinds of political demands on the new project.

But fundamentally, as we see here, most people don't understand how government works. And they don't understand the difference between bureaucratic competency and political direction. Bad enough when most of the people here don't get it. But even worse with the public who can't tell the difference between Canada Post and the RCAF!

A lot of people assume their interactions with client facing government services (particularly municipal and provincial) mean that the professional class in the federal PS is exactly the same. A lot of the reason why the use of contractors has mushroomed is somewhat because the public doesn't understand what the professional PS does and how importance it is to have this in house, as state capacity.

 

[dapaterson]

FWSAR also suffered from requirements owners not standing up for their requirements.

 

[ytz]

FWSAR also suffered from requirements owners not standing up for their requirements.

I was there. A huge part of this was Industry Canada refusing to advance the MC unless they got a more competitive process. That's not a CAF/DND problem. That is a political failure by the government of the day prioritizing industrial benefits over military necessity.