OTTAWA (CP) - The commander of the Canadian army can't make financial ends meet and is looking at drastic cuts in the ranks.

Lt. Gen. Mike Jeffery, who took over command of the army last fall, says he can't maintain the status quo with the money he's got. "The institution requires more dollars to keep it running than there are dollars available," Jeffery told The Canadian Press in a recent interview. Jeffery said he can restructure things to save money and try to save more with better management, but in the end, he's likely going to have to "cash in people to pay the bills."

He would't give any exact figures, saying the numbers are still being crunched, but he offered a hint:

"When my predecessor was going through some of this exercise earlier there were options that included the potential for going from three to two brigades and clearly that is an option . . . if you want some idea of magnitude."

Losing the equivalent of a brigade would mean several thousand people out of a force with an authorized strength of 21,000, and a combat strength of perhaps 10,000.

Defence analysts were aghast.

"It causes any number of problems," said Jim Hanson, associate executive director of the Canadian Institute for Strategic Studies and a retired general. "I think if I was chief of the land staff I'd think seriously about cashing in my second career at this stage of the game."

"Any commitment is going to become more and more difficult notwithstanding the spin of NDHQ that it's quality, not quantity that counts," said Alain Pellerin of the Conference of Defence Associations.

"We are into big trouble," said Brian MacDonald, a retired artillery colonel.

"We are in the interesting position of seeing a once proud and magnificent institution just simply, suddenly crumbling in front of us."

The general's comments follow on the news that the air force plans to scrap a third of its fighter-bombers and come after the navy tied up one of its West Coast destroyers for lack of a crew. Rumour suggests that an East Coast destroyer may get the same treatment, also for lack of sailors.

Defence Minister Art Eggleton, who recently found another $600 million for the military in the supplementary estimates, has said repeatedly that the Forces will get what they need to do their jobs.

Jeffery said he didn't set out to cut the ranks.

"Shrinking the army is not the objective. It may indeed, and probably will, be a byproduct.

"The bottom line is I believe the army can do what is required of it, but if we don't change what the army is and don't change some of the dynamic, there will come a point when it can't."

He said new equipment and a restructuring of the army can mean that a smaller force remains highly capable.

"We tend to equate capability to numbers of people and numbers of pieces of equipment. I and most professionals don't accept that description."

But given a budget shortfall, which Jeffery suggested was probably around $600 million a year, something has to give.

"I'm living beyond my means. You can't do that in running your own household . . . and the government is not going to allow me to do it either."

David Rudd, executive director of the Institute for Strategic Studies, said Jeffery deserves credit for facing facts.

"Kudos to him for recognizing that the financial handwriting is on the wall," said Rudd. "However, if you do chop people, that will inevitably decrease your ability to remain involved in peace support operations or our ability to deploy a brigade in support of our allies."

Rudd also said there will be that many fewer people to cope with natural disasters at home.

Jeffery stressed that quality equipment and good training will let him field an effective force despite manpower cuts.

But, as it was said about the old Soviet army, quantity has a quality all its own.

"Smaller means smaller, there's no question about that, notwithstanding that overall capability," the general conceded.

Sean Henry, analyst for the Conference of Defence Associations, said the talk about maintaining quality is headquarters "spin."

"All the Canadian army can do right now - and even that is stretched - is produce 1,700 people every six months to go to Bosnia.

"That 1,700 commitment to Bosnia is dominating the entire army."

Those soldiers, Henry added, are little more than "glorified security guards."

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When it is getting this far it has gone too far. Two Bde's cannot maintain the current operational tempo and provide troops available to meet our other commitments. Does Air Command still have a Band? Cut that. Cut the skyhawks and the Snowbirds. Those won't affect operational capabilities. How much does it cost to run RMC? I have notice that the quality of officer that comes out of there is no greater than one who comes DEO or RESO. The CF could save a bundle buy closing that school and offering the ROTP package to students at civi universities.

Eliminate costly airborne taskings to reserve units (QOR), reduce the number of HQs, reduce the size of HQ's. Eliminate the armoured regiment from each Bde (they don't have modern tank Sqns and we don't forsee this changing so why keep them?) but do not reduce the number of Inf through elimination of a Bde.

One may retort that the quality of the officer from a civilian university may not be the same as one graduating from mil col. I would disagree and cite that the number of failures on many courses is often the not correlated to the officer's place of scholastic training.

Compounding this is the equipment issue. Much core equipment, and even non-core equipment is reaching block obsolence early because of overuse in the past decade, lack of maintenence funding and replacment. Delays in procurment plans meen that maintenence costs on kit that should have been replaced long ago soar, and shrink funding for procurement further.

Training must now be reduced in order to extend the lives of equipment, save money for above problems, and because Canada has over committed the troops we have, there is not enough time to train properly before the next deployment.

This leads to reducing commitments to our allies, and scrapping capabilities, which the Liberals are finding all too easy a solution. They just continue to let to contraction go in order to maintain the critical mass, that makes an armed forces effective. How many times can this cycle continue before the CAF fully implodes?

The cutting has to stop. The illusion of leaner and meaner must be revealed for the farce it is. The CAF has gotten leaner alright, and the places where fat should have been trimmed-civilian NDHQ, National Defence construction (read patronage contracts to local construction firms supporting local MPs, I mean really, how many times does a bases offices need to be renovated when we can't even give soldiers sufficient ammo?), Brass, pork barreling, etc, etc. The Liberals need to make a firm commitment, stop the cycle, give the forces what it needs to fulfill the missions it was given in the 1994 WP.

Regards,

OTTAWA (CP) -- Defence Minister Art Eggleton says the government has made no decision on cutting the number of soldiers in the army.

"I have no plan to reduce the number of troops," he said Tuesday.

His comments came after Lt. Gen. Mike Jeffery, who took over command of the army last fall, said he can't maintain the status quo with the money he's got.

"The institution requires more dollars to keep it running than there are dollars available," Jeffery told The Canadian Press in a recent interview.

Eggleton said all kinds of measures are being looked at to help make ends meet in the military.

"This is an ongoing process. The government has already put over $3 billion into the Defence Department in the last couple of years.

"There's no decision to reduce the number of troops."

The Defence budget is about $11.5 billion. Eggleton recently announced an extra $624 million.

But analysts say the army is still short about $600 million a year.

Jeffery said he can restructure things to save some money and try to save more with better management, but in the end, he's likely going to have to "cash in people to pay the bills."

In the Commons, Eggleton said he wants to ensure existing military resources are used as efficiently and effectively as possible.

"We're determined to make sure that our troops get the resources that they need."

Jeffery said he was mulling over cutting the equivalent of a brigade of troops, which would mean several thousand soldiers.

The army has an authorized strength of about 21,000, but only about 10,000 are combat troops.

Jeffery's comments came after the air force announced its intention to scrap a third of its CF-18 fighter jets to help pay for modernizing the rest of the fleet. It is also cutting some of its long-range maritime patrol planes and reducing the flying hours of the survivors.

The navy has one of its big destroyers tied up at dockside in Esquimalt, B.C., for lack of a crew. Some defence analysts speculate the navy may do the same with an East Coast destroyer and possibly even a frigate or two as it struggles to find money and manpower to keep the ships at sea.

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And once again I will point out the money pit that is RMC. The army covers the entire cost of tuition for students to that institution while ROTP candidates at civi U's have their tuition subsidised by the provinces. The CF provides discount quarters and rations to RMC candidates while ROTP Civi U pay full price for these neccesities. Another drain is the prep-year offered at St Jean. There is no reason the military should be operating a Gr 12 highschool program. I realize that this was intended as an alternative to CEGEP for Quebec students, but it is being offered across the country as an alternative to Gr 12/13 to other provinces. Why is the CF paying for what these people can attain for free from their local public school systems?

First I think it would be a mistake to cut RMC. First of all cutting it would n't save that much money (and again i state money saved doen't necessary equate to money earned. And I feel that cutting it would be determental in the long run. We need a "military university (a la West Point) to enhance a professional offcier corps.

Secondly to mud - If we abadon peacekeeping, the Canadian pulic would see litrtle justifaction in our being. Our image is so wrapped uop in peacekeeping (our mistake) is consider by a lot of the public as are reason for being.

I hoping that Gen Jeffry was just ringing the bell to wake those that need the dire straights we are approaching. I know that was (is) a plan to reduce Reg F regts by one Coy/Sqd/Bty which I feel is a mistake.

And for those of us in the Reseves, I'd be somewhat worried with the words downsizing, budget restraint, cost effectiveness and restructing get bandied about. I can see the writing on the wall.

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Any major changes would have to be heavily investigated first. It may be that the current system is the best to develop officers. Most antecdotal evidence I have heard supports the "RMC no better than anywhere else" theory. However, the evidence is no more than antecdotal, and could support a healthy debate long enough to resolve it.

We were supposed to have an ex this weekend, but we can't because we don't have any more money. So a lot of our people arn't going to qualify for warrier. (or whatever they call it now)

As for RMC enhancing the officer Corp. I think the school is there to produce an officer Corp, and the various command and staff collages and leadership schools are inteded to enhance the Corps.

In the end, sometimes it is quicker and easier to quit plugging the dyke. Stand back and let it burst so the people above will take heed; prepare yourself to resolve the crisis efficiently after a commitment is made to match resources to requirements. This is not the desirable course - Sun Tzu wrote to the effect that the truly great among us never achieve recognition because they manage problems while they are still too small to be perceived. Our professionalism should (and will) prevent us from presenting the politicians and citizenry with the consequences of their decisions until it is too late. Eventually the dam may burst from our sheer inability to cope any longer.

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I can't tell if you are truly agreeing or being sarcastic. But note that I said this is not preferred and that we should not choose to adopt a neutral or negative course of action.

Notwithstanding that, I have noticed that some problems are resolved only when everything goes to complete s*** (despite the best efforts of the underlings) and draws attention further up the chain. From this I conclude that a cynical person could achieve the same result more quickly by not bothering to stem the tide in the first place.

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Exactly. When we know of a problem and fail to take whatever action is within our capability, we are not supporting the higher intent (whatever it may be). Nothing is more frustrating than watching an enterprise flounder while people stand by because they perceive it is "not my job".

The "your lack of planning is not my emergency" philosophy is no longer appropriate (if it ever was).

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