Vanguard Magazine

D DEFENCE POLICY 32 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2017 www.vanguardcanada.com Some of the most significant changes will aect the Reserves, with initiatives to make transfers between the Regular and Reserve forces easier. Director, Social Content & Events will go towards increasing the personnel complement of the defence team by 3,500 Regular Force, 1,500 Reserve and 1,500 civilian positions. Beyond simply increasing numbers, dozens of initiatives have been proposed to modernized multiple elements of defence human resources. There will be a major effort to diversify the forces, includ- ing bringing into official policy the target of increasing female membership in the CAF to 25 per cent. Beyond this, there will be a sweeping review of the military's terms of service, efforts to drive enrollment times to reasonable timeframes, and the creation of additional military occupations for cyber. Some of the most significant changes will affect the Reserves, with initiatives to make transfers between the Regular and Reserve forces easier. The system of Class A, B and C service will be revisited, reservists will be given an expanded list of dedicated tasks (including cyber operator, long haul truck driver, information officer) with a focus be- ing placed on generating full time capability from reservists' part time service. All of the above represent sound policy proposals that will be very difficult to im- plement. Given the number of substantive changes to personnel policies and massive expansion of procurement required to move the money provided, one wonders if Trudeau's Cabinet realized just how much additional Cabinet and Treasury Board time they were signing themselves up for if they intend to execute the policy as outlined. The challenge of implement- ing such a broad set of defence changes, more than the back-end loaded nature of much of the spending, is likely to be the most significant problem associated with the new policy. This government had by all appearances placed its policy priorities elsewhere across government prior to the release of Strong, Secure, Engaged. Canadians should have a good idea by early next calendar year of whether Trudeau is serious about implementing his new policy, or not. By that time, his government will need to have devoted significant time to considering and ap- proving many of the individual initiatives contained in the new policy for them to start moving out on schedule. Let's hope both the bureaucracy and government are taking short summer holidays so they hit the ground running this fall. Reference: 1. Due to the expected timelines, the increase to the CSC budget is rela- tively modest in the initial 20-year window, as the start of that build program is still at least 5 years away, and the acceptance of the first ship would not follow for several years beyond that. David Perry is the Senior Analyst and a Fellow with the Canadian Global Aairs Institute. He is the author of multiple publications related to defence budgeting, transformation and procurement, includ- ing 2015 Status Report on Major Defence Equipment Procurements, Defence Budget 2015, and Putting the 'Armed' Back Into the Canadian Armed Forces. He received his PhD in political science from Carleton University, where his dissertation exam- ined the link between defence budgeting and defence procurement. He was previ- ously the Senior Security and Defence Analyst of the Conference of Defence As- sociations Institute and the Deputy Direc- tor of Dalhousie University's Centre for Foreign Policy Studies where he remains a fellow. His research has been published in Defence Studies, Comparative Strategy, In- ternational Journal, and Journal of Military and Strategic Studies and he is a regular columnist for the Canadian Naval Review. He oen provides comment for Canadian and international media on defence and security issues.

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