Ottawa Citizen - July 11, 2011
By Colin Kenny
Who isn’t in favour of young people entering the work force? But there is also something to be said for the experience and wisdom that older workers can bring to making key decisions.
Which brings me to the Canadian Forces.
By the time officers climb to the level of general or admiral, the Canadian taxpayer has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in honing their skills.
By the time they hit their early 50s it should be payback time for Canadians – this is when these people are at their peak. Unfortunately, this is also the time that they are pushed out the door, into the arms of a giddy private sector delighted at the opportunity to make use of their advanced tactical and strategic decision-making skills.
This year alone, half a dozen 3-star generals below the age of 55 are being sent packing, taking their pensions to very green private sector pastures. What’s wrong with this picture? Can’t our military structure be adjusted to make use of prime talent when it hits its peak years?
Let’s take a look at some numbers. Last year the Canadian Forces took in 7,522 personnel while 5,293 were taking off their uniforms. Sounds good, right? A net gain of 2,229 badly needed people –– more than twice as big an intake as the previous two years combined. That’s a good thing – our military personnel have been badly overworked, and the Forces should be growing.
But new people have to be trained. By older, experienced personnel. So there’s a two-edged problem here. For a start, gaining seven untrained recruits and losing five trained and experienced people – many with 20 years of experience or more – isn’t bolstering our military capacity in anything close to the way that the raw numbers would suggest.
Secondly, in recent years the Canadian Forces have been desperately short of trainers – partially because our military has been running flat out to fulfill its regular duties on top of its monster assignment in Afghanistan. So gaining recruits and losing experienced people hits the Forces twice in one of its weakest spots – training capacity.
So we are losing people we desperately need – experienced people in the middle ranks – people with training skills, and people with technical skills, who are also in short supply.
But the Canadian Forces also needs to get longer tenure from people in whom it has invested mightily – top-ranking officers. Of course nobody wants desks filled with generals doing nothing. But there are plenty of ways to use top brass in their early 50s, many of whom have built up superb tactical and strategic thinking capacity. The private sector certainly knows that – it has shown itself to gobble these people up after Canadians have paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop their skills. So isn’t our military doing more to reap the rewards of our investment in them for as long as it can?
The Canadian Forces lacks surge capacity at senior levels – when events like the Olympics or political summits come along, strategic and tactical military know-how could complement the resources of beleaguered Canadian police forces.
The Canadian government lacks input from senior military officers that it could use in places like the Privy Council Office, the treasury board, and Canadian diplomatic missions abroad. The PCO directly advises the Prime Minister on all matters of import, including the military. But the federal civilian bureaucracy appears to feel threatened by outside military knowledge. Why else would it keep appointing 1-star generals to the PCO when 3-star generals are leaving the Forces? Wouldn’t a 3-star general be likely to offer more useful advice?
Our embassies and high commissions tend to be staffed by mid-level military attachés. That’s fine – but the role of these officers is to connect with local military brass and glean information to help guide the Canadian government make diplomatic and military decisions. The more senior the attaché, the more potential access and the more experienced assessments.
So why discard talented people who could shine in these roles?
There are various ways more experienced people could be retained. One of the most sensible ways would be to move personnel along more slowly on the promotion path. Officers currently tend to take on assignments for a couple of years, sometimes less. Like many civil servants, at the very point they have mastered a job, they move on. Why not keep people in assignments a few years longer, and make more effective use of them over longer careers?
It costs both corporations and governments piles of money to nurture good thinkers, decision-makers and problem-solvers. The Canadian Forces is very capable in the way it develops these skills, but too often lets them slip away when they reach their peak. Let’s stop wasting carefully developed talent in an institution that is so critical to Canada’s well being.
[Colin Kenny is former chair of the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence. kennyco@sen.parl.gc.ca]