In the Spring of 2019 hundreds of soldiers from CFB Petawawa were deployed to Ottawa to help contain the flooding.
by Eva Cohen, Founder & Principal of Civil Protection Youth Canada
How quickly everyday life as we know it can change!
In a recent speech to the Ottawa Defense and Security Forum, Chief of Defence Staff General Jonathan Vance, made it clear that the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) must also adapt, and quickly. He was referring not to the latest global upheaval caused by COVID19 but to the dramatically changing world security situation.
Both Russia and China are becoming militarily more capable and aggressive. For these reasons, the CAF must change its strategy and structure to be ready to detect, deter, and ultimately defeat threats to Canada – especially in the Arctic, the ‘gateway’ to North America.
In 2013 the Canadian Armed Forces dispatched over 2200 personnel to help Alberta deal with the worst flooding in History.
Gen Vance also talked about a recent ten-fold increase in the demand for the CAFs’ assistance in domestic disaster response operations. He welcomed the opportunities for the CAF to help Canadians at home, but he made clear that the “size, structure and training of the CAF are not designed to cope with the new climate change related events.”
The CAF should be the asset of last resort not a presumably inexpensive and readily available first go-to as it has become in recent years.
The main task of the CAF is to protect Canada from external enemies seeking to harm our national interests at home or abroad. That is what they are equipped and trained to do. Constant requests for the CAF to take the front lines domestically detracts from their readiness to carry out their primary role.
The public is largely unaware of the costs to deploy soldiers, and the true monetary value and outcome of domestic operations is not questioned. However, as we need to invest in better disaster preparedness, readiness and recovery, the question arises if the frequent domestic call of the CAF is merely symbolic; to boost morale and demonstrate the federal government is there to assist. Knocking on doors and reassuring the public has become a routine military task.
Canadian soldiers build a sandbag wall to contain the swollen Ottawa River in 2019.
Maybe that’s enough. The majority of Canadians don’t question the validity of our system and they live blissfully with a false sense of security. Our system works as it should, we have plans, mandates, and responsibilities. We have been told for years: “know the risks, have a plan, have a kit”. In a time of crisis hunker down, wait until someone comes to your rescue.
The question begs: Do Canadians deserve better?
Other countries with similar jurisdictions, mandates and responsibilities – such as Germany – take a different approach. In these countries, the central government, sometimes the military, pro–actively assists local capacity building by providing structure, governance, training and specific second response and recovery capabilities that extend beyond everyday emergencies. This response structure is nationally scaleable to readiness for catastrophic events. Well organized and equipped community volunteers are trained to carry out civil protection tasks such as logistic support, command and control, urban search and rescue, emergency communications and power supply, water purification, dike protection, high capacity pumping, debris clearance, emergency infrastructure repair, bridge building and repair and many more.
In these countries the armed forces are truly the asset of last resort – assisting those local capacities only if additional manpower is required.
“There has been over 1000% increase in CAF deployments to disasters since 2004” Gen Vance said. Today, we are not dealing with consecutive disasters, very often we are handling simultaneous demands for emergency assistance.
In Canada, we need to change the status quo. We must ensure that there is local capacity – not only in form of those managing the emergency but also in the form of organized and trained community assets to adequately address increasing all-hazard threats.
This January hundreds of troops were deployed to Newfoundland to help the province dig itself out from a massive snowfall.
We need a system that includes citizens and social capital as part of the solution. It has to be an all-hands-on-deck approach – and it must be based on the same structure and reliability as the military. We know that a prompt and organized response saves lives, property and money. Our current resources are in constant reaction and recovery mode. So how can we find the extra capacity to implement a system change?
By shifting the focus to training community volunteers the practical skills needed to build such capacity, the CAF – including the Reserves – can simultaneously increase their own civil protection capabilities.
The wider community of willing citizens across Canada needs to share the responsibility. To end up with a coherent, efficient and sustainable system, this can only be done with the encouragement and the support of governments at all levels, preferably operating under a unified national strategy.
As a nation let’s remove the burden from the CAF of a role for which they are not structured. The current reality now dictates, the CAF needs to be fully prepared for many other dangerous eventualities!
