During World War II the Canadian Army was a small cadre force augmented by citizen volunteers. It was a colonial institution, dependent on the British Army for doctrine and staff training. After the war, the army became involved in a lengthy struggle to define its concept of professionalism. Modernizers aimed for a well-educated officer corps that was integrated with other elites and able to influence national security policy. Traditionalists wished to preserve regimental traditions and leadership based on social class. Contention between these factions resulted in stalemate, with modern management undercut by internal politics. The result was the failure of professional norms in the 1993 Somalia operation. Subsequent reforms have put a modern “constabulary-realist” model of professionalism in place.
Samuel P. Huntington , The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations ( New York: Vintage, 1957); Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (New York: Free Press, 1971).
2.
General Sir John Hackett, The Profession of Arms (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1983), 9, 202, first published in 1962 as the Lees-KnowlesLectures at Cambridge University.
3.
Adrian Preston , "The Profession of Arms in Postwar Canada, 1945-1970: Political Authority as a Military Problem," World Politics23, 2 (January 1971): 189-214.
4.
Colin S. Gray, "Defence Policy and the Military Profession: What Are Canada’s Soldiers to Do?" in Canadian Military Professionalism: The Search for Identity, Wellesley Paper 2, ed. R. B. Byers and Colin Gray ( Toronto: Canadian Institute of International Affairs , February 1973), 75-84.
5.
Stephen J. Harris, Canadian Brass: The Making of a Professional Army, 1860-1939 ( Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988); Stephen J. Harris, "Tracking Development of Canadian Leadership and Practice" (presentation, Conference on Leadership in the Armies of Tomorrow and the Future, Fort Frontenac, Kingston, ON, February 6-7, 2002).
6.
E.g., Franklin Pinch, "Military Manpower and Social Change: Assessing the Institutional Fit," Armed Forces & Society 8, 4 (Summer 1982): 575-600; Charles A. Cotton and Franklin C. Pinch, "The Winds of Change: Manning the Canadian Enlisted Force," in Life in the Rank and File, ed. W. H. Sinaiko and D. R. Segal (New York: Pergamon, 1986), 213-31; Deborah Cowen, Military Workfare: The Soldier and Social Citizenship in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008).
7.
David French, Military Identities: The Regimental System, the British Army, and the British People, 1870-2000 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005).
8.
Anthony Kellett , "Motivation and Behaviour: The Influence of the Regimental System, Part I-Esprit de Corps" (ORAE Report No. R109, Department of National Defence, Operational Research and Analysis Establishment, Director Social and Economic Analysis, Ottawa, June 1991).
9.
Donna Winslow , "The Role of Culture in the Breakdown of Discipline during Peace Operations,"Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology35 (August 1998): 345-68.
10.
David J. Bercuson, The Fighting Canadians: Our Regimental History from New France to Afghanistan (Toronto: HarperCollins, 2008), 11. Bercuson says, "In the Canadian army it is sometimes rumoured that some failure was caused by a regimental ‘mafia’ taking care of its own." He does not cite the report of the Somalia Inquiry. See the discussion of the incident below.
11.
Richard A. Preston, Canada’s RMC: A History of the Royal Military College ( Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969), 329.
12.
Guy Simonds to Secretary, Chief of Staff, April 23, 1951, Officer Production, Department of National Defence, Directorate of History and Heritage, RG 73/306 (all subsequent references to the Directorate of History and Heritage archives are noted as "DHH"); Guy Simonds to Secretary, Chief of Staff, April 26, 1951, Production of Officers, the Service Colleges, DHH, RG 71/306.
13.
Minutes of a Special Meeting, Chiefs of Staff Committee, May 3, 1951, DHH, RG 71/306.
14.
LCol. H.F. Wood, "Man Management, Part 1,"Canadian Army Journal10, 3 (July 1956): 22-31.
15.
Col. G.M.C. Sprung, The Soldier in Our Time: An Essay ( Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1960), 99.
16.
Charles Foulkes to Chiefs of Staff, CSC 1231.1, March 15, 1982, Officer Production, DHH, RG 71/306.
17.
BGen. D. R. Agnew, Commandant, RMC to Brooke Claxton, October 26, 1953, DHH, RG 71/306; Guy Simonds to Brooke Claxton, HQC 3590-1 (CGS), May 14, 1954, DHH, RG 71/306.
18.
Marcel Chaput, "Analysis of Results of Canadian Army Staff College Entrance Examinations" (Canadian Army Operations Research Establishment Working Paper 59/3), December 1959, DHH, RG 81/249.
19.
Col (ret) John Joly, in Dishonoured Legacy: The Lessons of the Somalia Affair, vol. 1, Commission of Inquiry into the Deployment of Canadian Forces to Somalia ( Ottawa: Public Works and Government Services Canada , 1997), 164-65.
20.
Frederic Thompson, "The Profession of Arms in Canada, 1945-1970," prepared for the Chief of the Defence Staff, April 1970, DHH, RG 73/1223, ser. 9, File 3156.
21.
Gen. J.V. Allard, "Foreword,"Report of the Officer Development Board, March 1969, DHH, RG82/140 (hereafter cited as OPDB Report).
22.
23.
24.
25.
It is interesting to note that the current recruiting campaign of the Canadian Forces follows much along these lines, showing the armed forces rescuing airliner crash survivors in the Arctic, interdicting drug smugglers on the high seas, and rescuing hostages someplace hot and dry overseas.
26.
27.
Department of National Defence, "Canadian Officership in the 21st Century: Strategic Guidance for the CF Officer Corps and the Officer Professional Development System, September 2000," version 3.2, July 5, 2000, DHH, RG 2001/25, box 3.
28.
Douglas Bland, The Administration of Defence Policy in Canada, 1947-1985 ( Kingston, ON: Ronald P. Frye, 1987 ), 59-63.
29.
Confusion and rivalry between the Deputy Minister and the Chief of the Defence Staff had been built in by legislation. The National Defence Act assigned "management and direction" of the Canadian Forces to the Minister and "control and administration" of the Forces to the Chief of the Defence Staff without defining any of the terms. In Canada, Deputy Ministers have all the powers of their Minister, except the power to make regulations, through the Interpretations Act.
30.
Bland, Administration of Defence Policy in Canada, 70-85.
31.
Pinch, "Military Manpower and Social Change"; Cotton and Pinch, "Winds of Change,"236-40, 245.
32.
Cowen, Military Workfare, 136, 151.
33.
Ibid., 153.
34.
Charles A. Cotton, Rodney K. Crook, and Frank C. Pinch, "Canada’s Professional Military: The Limits of Civilianization,"Armed Forces & Society4, 3 (May 1978): 365-89.
35.
Charles A. Cotton, Military Attitudes and Values of the Army in Canada (Toronto: Canadian Forces Personnel Applied Research Unit, December 1979). Also see Charles A. Cotton, "Institutional and Occupational Values in Canada’s Army," Armed Forces & Society 8, 1 (Fall 1981): 99-110.
36.
Ibid.
37.
Gauthier et al. v. Canadian Armed Forces, Human Rights Tribunal, decision rendered on February 20, 1989.
38.
Charles A. Cotton , "The Institutional Organization Model and the Military," in The Military: More Than Just a Job?, ed. Charles C. Moskos and Frank R. Wood ( New York: Pergamon, 1988), 43, 54.
39.
L. Tanner, "Gender Integration in the Canadian Forces: A Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis" (ORD Report R9901, Department of National Defence, Ottawa, 1999), 68-69; Also see Lt (N) K. D. Davis and Virginia Thomas, Chief Land Staff Gender Integration Study: The Experience of Women Who Have Served in the Combat Arms (Sponsor Research Report 98-1, Personnel Research Team National Defence Headquarters, Ottawa, 1998).
40.
BGen. D. G. Loomis, "The Regimental System," Mobile Command Letter, Special Supplement, July 29, 1975, DHH, RG 79/39. It is interesting the while most advocates of regimentalism, including Loomis, claimed the greatest advantage was combat cohesion, Loomis would criticize the "industrial" system for producing . . . excessive combat cohesion!
41.
Ibid.
42.
Douglas Bland, Chiefs of Defence: Government and the Unified Command of the Canadian Armed Forces (Toronto: Brown, 1995), 101-4.
43.
Paradis was selective in what he drew from the Personnel Applied Research Unit (PARU) report. The PARU report assumed that social changes were permanent and placed Canadian society increasingly at odds with the traditionalist worldview and regimentalism. While it suggested a number of reforms to decrease tension between recruit expectations and army life and between operational and support occupations, revival of the regimental system was not one of them. See Cotton, Military Attitudes and Values, 97-100.
44.
LGen. J.J. Paradis , Speech Given by LGen. Paradis on Unification, November 14, 1979, DHH, RG 81/747, folder 10.
45.
Annex C to Mobile Command Brief to Unification Review Task Force, SO3 Pers (P&D) Brief for Unification Task Force, Civilianization of the Forces, October 26, 1979, DHH, RG 81/747, folder 10.
46.
Deborah Cowen says that the military imagined its recruit pool as a small town that was "authentic, simple and white." Military Workfare, 192.
47.
Task Force on Review of Unification of the Canadian Forces, "Final Report," March 15, 1980, 39-41, 52.
48.
Ibid., 65-66, 70, 77.
49.
Bland, Chiefs of Defence, 111.
50.
Review Group on the Report of the Task Force on Unification of the Canadian Forces, "Report," August 31, 1980, 18.
51.
Ibid., 19.
52.
"Personnel Concept,"Canadian Forces, May 1983.
53.
LGen. J. J. Paradis, Speech Given by LGen. Paradis on Unification.
54.
Dishonoured Legacy, vol. 1, 242-49.
55.
Ibid., vol. 2, 511.
56.
Ibid., vol. 2, 689.
57.
Ibid., vol. 4, 1017-27.
58.
Ibid., vol. 2, 522.
59.
Auditor General of Canada, "1994 Report of the Auditor General of Canada, Chapter 24- National Defence-Defence Management Systems,"http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/parl_oag_199411_24_e_5929.html#0.2.L39QK2.6NA0GI.L2SJQE.SM,par.24.81-24.92 .
60.
Dishonoured Legacy, vol. 2, 623.
61.
Ibid., vol. 4, 1021. Also see vol. 1, 260.
62.
Ibid., vol. 2, 697.
63.
David J. Bercuson , "Up from the Ashes: The Re-Professionalization of the Canadian Forces after the Somalia Affair," Canadian Military Journal9, 3 (2009) http://www.journal.dnd.ca/vo9/no3/06-bercuson-eng.asp
64.
J.L. Granatstein , "For Efficient and Effective Military Forces" (paper prepared for the Minister of National Defence, March 25, 1997, 19).
65.
Ronald G. Haycock , "The Labours of Athena and the Muses: Historical and Contemporary Aspects of Canadian Military Education,"Canadian Military Journal2, 2 (Summer 2001): 13-14.
66.
Bercuson, "Up from the Ashes."
67.
Canada, Department of National Defence, "The Debrief the Leaders Project (Officers)," May 2001, 20-22.
68.
"Debrief the Leaders," 23, i.
69.
Morris Janowitz, Professional Soldier, 418.
70.
Department of National Defence, "Canadian Officership in the 21st Century (Officership 2020): Strategic Guidance for the Canadian Forces Officer Corps and the Officer Professional Development System," February 2001.
71.
Department of National Defence, "Duty with Honour: The Profession of Arms in Canada,"Canadian Defence Academy-Canadian Forces Leadership Institute, 2003.
72.
"Duty with Honour," 7. Although referencing Huntington and Janowitz, this formulation seems to be based on Sir John Hackett’s definition in Profession of Arms that "the function of the profession of arms is the ordered application of force in the resolution of a social problem, 9."
