Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/103039
Leadership L "Fiscal restraints are not a new occurrence. The last decade has fortunately afforded us the opportunity to refurbish much of our equipment and reinforce many of our capabilities. This will serve us well as we move into the foreseeable future." any visioning I'm going to do. I think it would be fair to say that I benefited throughout my career from the tremendous leadership that I've seen right from the time I entered as a Cadet to now. I took over from a leader, a classmate... Q...albeit from a different military College… ...exactly, from a different College, but I could see how he added energy to any room he entered. So visioning within that context, now that we are out of the combat phase of our [Afghanistan] operations, our forces are able to focus on the lessons learned from combat. We can restore our equipment and focus on bringing lessons into doctrine as well as providing a training regimen, as [Commander of Canadian Army LGen] Peter Devlin says, that excites our young men and women and prepares them for the next thing; it is a very uncertain world out there, and we need to be ready with an array of capacities in our armed forces. Q Speaking of capacities, how will you be able to justify keeping the capabilities that have been identified and required for the Canada First Defence Strategy with all the current constraints? Photos: MCpl James Ross those dollars and it's amazing that we ever actually get anything out of this tortured process; the heartening thing is that we have. We are going to very clearly continue to state the operational requirement for those things that are written in the Canada First Defence Strategy and we will continue to provide our military advice all along to add value to the process. Q With the transition to the training mission in Afghanistan, do you see a challenge in retaining our personnel? We used to have a recruiting challenge; in fact it's now a great story. As we moved up from 55,000 to 68,000 regular personnel we didn't have too much trouble getting people in; the economy, ex- Well, justification is easy. I've been given a direct order by the Prime Minister to keep all my capabilities, and all my people as well, while seeking efficiencies to get under the budget line. While we should and will be part of the solution as we cut the debt, we must hold on to capabilities that have been so hard won over the years. So my marching orders are to hold on to all these things while the government continues to commit to an investment plan for the CFDS. Overall, it is a very heartening message. Q Knowing the budgetary pressures, do you see a way of ensuring that we not have too many delays in equipment procurement? [Laughs] Do I ever wish I held some levers to unblock delays in military procurement! It is an enormous issue in Canada as well as for all our Allies because as you invest the dozen of billions of dollars to upgrade in-service combat equipment that is going to be with you for a generation or two, you need to identify the right statement of requirement for the next generation of equipment. We've got excellent industry out there looking to fight hard for www.vanguardcanada.com DECEMBER 2012/JANUARY 2013 13