brihard.bsky.social
Did a bit of CAF stuff, did a bit of school stuff (and going back for more), trying to keep up with global and national events. Interests in law, public safety, IR, and natsec.
107 posts
80 followers
216 following
Discussion Master
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(left)
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His legal training and graduate education certainly adds value. Anything in particular from his background that would specifically speak to the NS space such that he would jump out for NSICOP generally or chair specifically?
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They could model legislation off ours in this case. Our Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act allows domestic prosecution if: Cdn accused OR Cdn victim OR accused later enters Canada. It domestically criminalizes Rome Statute offences and any offences under customary IHL. Actually a robust law.
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Dammit, I came here to say this.
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I’m literally supposed to be balancing work and grad school and a kid this year and they go and do this!?
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Oh man I forgot this meme. I loved it the first time I saw it.
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I like it. Seems like he’s here to calmly and maturely govern. He has shit to do and doesn’t want to get dragged into nonsense, nor put up with it from others. Boring and competent is good.
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And you just know that an intended next step is revocation of and retroactive disqualification for birthright citizenship to any minors, born in the U.S. to non-citizens, who have been removed with their parents.
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I feel like it’s only a matter of time before they start demanding we de-list Proud Boys and the Threepers…
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At this point it would just be GoT’s The Red Wedding dubbed over with new audio.
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Rookie numbers. You gotta *work* to earn those sanctions.
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I am shocked and in denial.
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There’s a name I haven’t seen in a while! And yeah- instructing should be career advancing. “She/he is worthy of teaching the next generation.” Not “Who can we dump on the school.” Trick would be doing this without it just becoming a box tick for regimental favourites.
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Ok- so if that is in fact a new problem and it fundamentally changes the math on PRs, fair enough. Scrap the initiative. I think I started out (maybe a different reply) saying it’s numerically insignificant anyway.
How does the U.S. do it for green card holders?
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Addendum: or that those units will never actually hold or use kit with that degree of control?
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Right. But in the context of PRes combat arms in the domestic context, and what they actually hold and use, is this actually a problem with current or incoming systems? Is this an obstacle to recruiting PRs as, say, PRes Inf, knowing most will never actually need a Secret clearance anyway?
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With equal respect, for a decade and a half I used, and at a very basic level taught other reservists to use, the 521 and 522 radios. I only had ERS for the first three years, and that’s all most of my troops ever had. Most reservists don’t get Lvl II clearances but are able to use basic comms kit.
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Yes, at enhanced reliability level absolutely. Simply possessing and using the regular tactical radios isn’t a barrier. The maintenance and crypto stuff that enters into the classified realm is a bit farther along. I was only ever a PRes dude who ate crayons; no clearance (Secret) til I deployed.
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No but fighter jets and artillery and subs, or videos of troops jumping out of a chinook, a RHIB full of boarding party, or SARTECHs jumping out of a Herc is a tangible “ooh let’s buy more of that!” The public can sorta wrap their heads around it a bit more.
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The real challenge seems to be recruiting (and retaining!) more technical skills that enable the rest of the force. Lifestyle is a more compelling issue after the first few years, when “what do I want to be when I grow up?” sets in. Retention and recruiting must be addressed hand in hand. 2/2
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*Super* hard, but yes what you say is true to greater or lesser extents. Easy to be geographically static as an Inf NCM or a naval tech; harder as a LogO or Sigs NCO. But attracting kids to an initial stint for the ‘fun’ army stuff isn’t too hard. Issue is process more than lack of applicants. 1/
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Easy enough to fill spots in reserve combat arms units that only need enhanced reliability. Can still train (and facilitate training), and deploy on DOMOPS. Most reservists only get an actual clearance if deploying. Tougher to use them in the RegF if lack of citizenship precludes clearance.
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Agreed. The hiring is absurdly slow. My original point was simply that increased hiring necessitates increased DP1 throughput. That in turn means much more demand on NCOs and training support staff. It’s a zero-sum game; other things will need to slow down pending realization of trained growth.
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The PR enrollment, so far as I can tell, is numerically irrelevant. It shouldn’t matter; CAF has all the raw material to be an easy sell if the kit is decent, training meaningful, and there’s a reasonably decent climate without an excess of utter chickenshit. Recruiting shouldn’t be super hard.
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NATSEC at the nitty gritty level isn’t politically sexy. Relatively nobody wants to hear about foreign collection of HUMINT, or the Canada Evidence Act, or foreign agent registration etc. It’s poor fodder for a punchy election platform.
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Not sure there’s a way around that when CAF needs to interoperate I. Classified environments and clearances to agreed upon allied standards are required.
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Quickening clearances, streamlining recruiting, and getting recruits into BMQ is fine, but the NCO corps is hollowed out. DP1 training, especially for technical trades, is a dog’s breakfast. RCN in particular needs a major operational quasi-pause to allow technical recruit training to catch up.
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I applaud this. We should be pillaging the hell out of academic flight from the U.S. Entice the innovators and the academic refugees to come here and research those advances here. Canada has world class experts in many fields; we could build significantly on that nucleus.
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Certainly, and I don’t mean to suggest ‘value’ is only pecuniary- I’m actually starting at NPSIA in the fall very much for the less tangible value. Maybe clamp down on the fraudulent storefront ‘career colleges’, increase student housing builds at/by real schools, and reassess from there?
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Weird mention of will “establish a new RCMP Academy within Depot”. Not sure what they mean by that. There’s really nothing at all about federal policing reform.
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Would it be worth breaking it down to prefer and encourage certain fields/levels of study? I recognize that now we’re putting more value in certain programs, but… Certain programs maybe do have more value. Grad studies versus undergraduate versus diploma mill ‘colleges’ aren’t all the same fruit.
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“It’s in the habitable zone. Unleash the fart-telescope.”
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Somehow that Gunther clown got fired from being a cop in Texas. I’d love to know how he pulled that off and parlayed it into a Twitter grift.
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What are we looking at here? Is this the “fuck it, we’ll do it live!” index?
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Apple Podcasts has it if you happen to have an apple device. I almost feel like they need double the episodes just to keep up with events.
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Oh my god yes. Right as I’m rewatching The Wire.
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Sometimes someone else fucks up so hard that they blow right though the ‘unjustified collective punishment’ phase into ‘everyone else gets a freebie today’.
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Ok, but did you share cabinet level war plans on a group chat after accidentally inviting a reporter in?
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This specifically was on my mind- living the posting life, having jobs but not a career, is a huge economic constraint. I moved from CAF to policing and have seen enough domestics where utter economic dependence is a huge barrier to escape and help. There’s no viable bailout.
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When considered socioeconomically as *families*, a RegF family might disappear into the normal distribution because of proportionately higher income compared to avg. But that may skew away from proportionately lower spousal income. And with that inequity, “dependant” becomes more loaded still. 2/2
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I can see that. Even as a simple start point, a comparison of RegF spouses as a cohort to a comparable general population cohort for educational, career, and economic attainment would be interesting and would probably be an easy early flag of “here’s a tangible problem”. 1/2
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You’re a couple levels above me academically here, but are you talking about wanting to do a broad socioeconomic + social determinants of health study of CAF and veteran families?
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The episode was bang on, though limited to what’s open source. The broader recognition of 764/‘the com’ as a networked phenomenon has come late, but now US, Britain and Canada are all seeing it as crossing into the national security space. That’s a huge shift from a year ago. It’s scary shit.
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Offhand I don’t think there’s been meaningful work done in this space since the 2017 ACVA report on veteran mental health and families, and I have no distinct recollection of any serious policy coming in the wake of that study. Families are forgotten, save for “talk to the MFRC and otherwise STFU”.
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100%. Vets ourselves at least have relatively ready access to lots or resources and supports- much better than civilians. Spouses? Good luck. Saw that in my own family growing up as an army brat.
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I mean, it feels good in a smug sort of way, but we have enough of our own issues with Trump. Not sure we really want him developing more of an emotional link between Canada, and his perceived internal enemies. There’s a different, darker kind of animus in the latter.
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Oh, I agree. I’m just pessimistic about it.
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No party really cares about vets more than necessary. Some individual MPs or ministers will, but it’s an afterthought portfolio. The interest and engagement from parties and government stops when the negative news stories do.
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That was a fantastic episode. Well done!
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Definitely. I’m a CAF vet, and generally attentive to radicalization and hate crime issues. There are absolutely some shitbirds who served in CAF and end up sliding that way. There’s an allure to some, being in a homogeneous out-group. It’s a gross tribe, but a tribe nonetheless. Some seek that.