April 1997

Land Force Reserves and Restructuring [page 1]

LGen Maurice Baril addresses members and guests at the Reserve Forces Night Dinner.

The Commander of the Army, Lieutenant-General Maurice Baril was the guest speaker at Reserve Forces Night. In his address the Commander paid tribute to the contribution made by the reserves to operations. He said, "There is no way that the Army could have been able to sustain its operations in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Haiti". But it is a contribution with increased risk. General Baril listed the names of a number of reserve soldiers who have been killed or injured while taking part in Peacekeeping operations.

The General addressed Reserve Restructuring, he said that, " The aim of the restructure process is to increase the number of soldiers in our units, while at the same time deducing personnel assigned to headquarters, infrastructure and operating maintenance costs, while maintaining resources for training".

Based on the observations and recommendations of the Special Commission on Restructuring of the Reserves, General Baril said there will be three major changes in the reserves:

a requirement to maximise the ability of the reserve to contribute to the operational capability of the total force and meet the mobilisation needs of the army;

budgetary and financial constraints;

unit evaluation.

On the first item, many in the audience were left to wonder when was the last time that the reserves failed to proved more than the requested number of augmentees for an operation or deployment? On the second, for years reservists have made an art form out of doing more with less, will the future now be doing something with nothing? On the third, reserve units face challenges unlike those in the regular force, historically reserve unit score higher than regular units on Individual Battle Task Standards (IBTS) evaluation.

Unit Evaluation

Each reserve unit will be evaluated during the next three years to determine their viability and place within the new total force. LGen Baril spelled the criteria that has been adopted:

units will have to demonstrate a capability to meet primary mobilisation tasks and reasonable augmentation requirements;

they must show a capacity to recruit and retain effective strengths;

have the capability to train individually and collectively, and be cost effective, and;

a units historical performance, battle honours and geographic link to the community will also be a factor in survivability.

Maj Diane Cardoni (L) and Maj Katherine Racine, both of 25 Service Battalion, and Capt Jennt Newton (R) have a discussion with Commander of the Army

 

After his speech LGen Baril field questions from the audience. One of the first questions addressed the reduction in the size of the various Area Headquarters across the country. While questioner was trying to make the point that reductions were being made on the backs of the reserves, (as an example LFCAHQ had a strength of 197 personnel, of the 58 positions cut, 54 were reservists). The General shot back that the questioner was living in the past.

On another point, he was asked if reserve units would receive some form recognition for the number of soldiers that had left the reserves to join the regular force, one unit had lost 75 soldiers, from Private to Sergeant. The General said, "No". On recruiting new members, Baril said, "Recruiting stinks and it must be changed". When asked about military public relations he responded by saying, "We have not done any decent public relations for over 4 years."

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