Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - April 12, 1983, Winnipeg, Manitoba Focus free press editorial writer Fred Cleversey recently spent two weeks with the Canadian armed forces attached to nato in this is the second of an occasional series of articles in which he will discuss can Adas relationship with the Alliance and the effectiveness of our military contribution to by Fred Cleverley West Germany Canadas nato forces do not have enough personnel and equipment to fill any thing More than a Reserve role in the no one really knows whether Canada has enough men and equipment to do the Job it has committed itself since assuming this reduced role in there has not been a full scale practice to see if the brigade group in place can be fleshed out by flying All the additional troops needed from Canada has As claimed by for Mer rear Admiral Jeffry belched on All its defence agreements by not committing enough personnel and nor Are the canadians in nato a joke to their enough personnel Are assigned to Canadas nato forces to fill out its brigade the multitasking of Canadas described As a Way of life by the chief of the defence general Ramsey has prevented a dry run that would see All the people put in place at one the Best that can be accomplished is to allow individuals assigned to nato to get there once every three or four in Canada Cut its nato forces in the Small German Vil Lage of with its Barracks built by hitlers troops after the reoccupation of the Rhineland in became head quarters for Canadian forces Canada negotiated itself out of the Forward defence zone and carved for itself a role As part of the i theatre Reserve for natos Central army group in not sure which came says lieutenant colonel Robert the senior operations officer for the Canadian mechanized brigade when All this was i do not know whether we arrived at our ceiling in numbers because of our Reserve role or whether we were Given the Reserve role because of our because of the numbers we have right and because of our physical location i think it would probably be unreasonable for us to have any other role fight there is nothing but Confidence that Canada can do its Job in if it is required to do at the top of the Canadian military the doubts creep in the closer one gets to the individuals who have to Fly the drive the tanks and shoot the Canada has in its main deployment areas military this is 100 above the 1971 manpower ceiling of Lahr has and nearby Baden Soellinger these two stations also have nearly 600 civilian employees who represent the Mili Tarys efforts to get around the when Canadian forces in Europe were at their Peak strength of in there were so few civilian employees that they did not appear in strength the desperate attempts to Cope with the manpower ceiling can be found in the Security at the Canadian at other nato bases the Security is in variably provided by armed military at Canadian bases the Security checks Are carried out by unarmed Many of them the Youthful dependants of serving civil Ian employees Are not counted in the manpower everyone agrees that the Canadian brigade group cannot fight a War last ing More than a few Days with out More no one knows How Long it will take to get these people into place in Germany in shape to fight a if there is sufficient strategic warning it can be each year the flies whole divisions into last year Canada flew about half the number needed in an and this due to budget the number involved in the flyover will be Cut by about one Down to about 800 speaking of the flyover general Withers says i think we achieve High the plan is to put whole with More than 50 per cent of the brigade is there at All the command and control Structure is familiar with oper and is jiving what we Are getting is As opposed to taking a whole major general Francois the commander of Canadian forces has Confidence in the reinforcement every Man i need in Europe is they Are not Only numbers being thrown around by the units in Canada know who Are we know where they they know they Are earmarked for Richard is also confident that there will be Zirtie for Canada to put into operation its first Ever full fledged reinforcement of its nato the reinforcing of the brigade is related to the air resources which you will put at my i could do it in two fifteen wide bodied aircraft is All that i need the forces have you have to be careful As to what extent you practice things like if you look at military history you will discover that Seldom has a War started by much closer to the actual Battlefield than either generals Withers or i Alden says there Are actually two plans for the use of Canadian forces in the event of an one is the plan to put the reinforced brigade into the but the written into every is the plan to go exactly As we with what we have on the Alden says there Are reasons Why Canada has never exercised the Complete there Are too Many other uses for Canadas limited Mili tary there he the annual support of the support of Cadet which takes a lot of people who in be assigned Over for real peacetime these people have to stay Back in Canada and do their other throughout the i think every one who is supposed to does but Over a two to three year we cannot denude everybody out of Canadian operations to do it All at once unless there is a concentrated plan by everybody to do last sum Mer 300 including part of special service were in Toronto to support the International monetary fund that kind of thin thing happens every there were the the Commonwealth games in the Quebec summer you name it and it is a requirement for forces every year for Between 500 and peo h on the question of whether Canada could reinforce its brigade if it had Alden says that is a question in not sure that anyone can give a definitive answer our whole premise is that things Are not going to happen and there will be some sort of International ten Sion and based on these the Canadian forces Airlift and the other Airlift we will be it air Canada or someone does have the capability of bringing these people if there is no strategic warning different units get different priorities in the use of the personnel already in for All the artillery guns needed by the brigade group Are in what is missing Are the 85 men needed for one Alden says these guns could be at the expense of some other artillery regimental if All of Canadas Leopard tanks can be with full Battle trained although to do so would leave some of the less Essen tial aspects of the armoured Compo nent of the brigade some recon Naissance vehicles would be left it is the infantry component that will suffer the Alden says that we will just go Short and Start operations with three companies rather than we will keep the Basic infantry company As a they can move vehicles up there to the with All our but at some without some will have to be left there is no ability to troops must be airlifted to Europe to strengthen forces if War Breaks doubt that without reinforcements our service battalion is far less effective than it should one of the problems it has is that trucks should have two a Driver and a cod Riv one Driver cannot go 24 hours a Day Devine Regina the Many slogans in Premier Grant Devines Reper Toire is one that says Saskatchewan will not participate in the it has been a Staple of the premiers whether at the rotary club in Regina or the Canadian club in new if there were any truth to the state then it most certainly vanished with the recent release of the Provin Cial budget by finance minister Bob there could be no disguising the reality of economic which is mirrored in the faces of the highest number of jobless in Saskatchewan since the dirty although this province still can Point to having the lowest unemployment rate in the nation per the budget was clearly aimed at address ing the unemployment even though the tory governments rhetoric since it took office last april has been focused on economic the first full budget of the Devine govern ment was geared to creating the foundation of the billion which carried a million was a nine Point Job creation sensing that the primary concern of the people is the government Laid aside tax Breaks to the business Community and focused its spending on efforts to put people Back to the government plans billion in Public sector spending to sustain it also unveiled a from the Start to the end of a reserves also have to arrive in time to get themselves general Richard comments i was watching last year when they had gone from Gage town to to just about getting off aircraft collecting their kit and being put on buses and trucks and driven to where the brigade had been deployed which was another 10hour the Guy arrives finally at the Forward Echelon and a sergeant yells at him that youre for a get in the Back of this the first thing he knows is that he is in a Slit where the hell is he the individual described May not have been part of the flyover for several a further complication to his the problem is one of Canadas total military strength has been albeit since it is now about almost Short of the mini mum number considered necessary for its Basic it is somewhat ironic that the greatest growth Field has been in the number of generals in the in 1980 there were 109 officers of the rank of brigadier general and two years later Canada has a senior German officer in nato admit Ted he was somewhat confused by Canadas he said he thought with More than 100 there must have been a misprint in the total strength of he thought the latter figure should have been faces the recession Dale Eisler in Saskatchewan cultural and recreation facilities Grants program that will run Over five years and announced an Extension of its Winter works program with the Federal in the Devine government has earmarked million in the budget to create aside from the obvious emphasis on stimulating there Are equally telling aspects to the budget that provide a window on the state of the Saskatchewan while it is True that with a Strong mix of natural resources and a dominant agriculture has been the last to feel the recessions there is no doubt it has the most significant figure in the budget is its million Al though not Large by standards in other any deficit at All in this province is the Revenue shortfall in Andrews budget Marks Only the fourth time since the province adopted its current accounting principles that the govern ment has been forced into a deficit the last one was last no when Andrew brought Down the reworked balanced budget of the former nip which had died with the election so badly had the provinces Economy faltered that the november budget contained a prior to the Only other deficits came Bac Toback in the Early and both were in the million the history of balanced budgets in Saskatchewan is no Ever since the economic combined with a devastating drought in the there has been an unstated demand on provincial governments to balance the the psychological scars of the Are still very real to Many and they expect their govern ment not to mortgage their future in Case the hard times but even with those an Drew had Little Choice but to dip into the red the Revenue base of the government is eroding while de mands on the expenditures Side Are so serious is the problem of declining resource revenues that former nip Premier Allan Blakeney expressed a measure of sympathy for the situation the conservatives find themselves to get a grip on the size of the you need to look no further than projected Oil last when the Blakeney government brought in its ill fated Oil reve Nues were projected to reach almost million for the in Andrews budget a year Oil revenues Are projected to reach Only the dilemma has been created by the near state of chaos in the International Oil falling world prices have taken a heavy toll on Saskatchewan 50 per cent of which is exported to the United states at world in the past there has been a Large Gap be tween the Domestic and world prices of the difference has been shared Between the Federal and provincial and has become a major source of Revenue for the the falling world Price has virtually eliminated the Export As it is Revenue from the Oil Export tax will be Down from million last year to million in this budget but even with shrinking the Devine government has apparently fought off the urge often Felt by of tory governments to Cut deeply into pro Grams to reduce the size of the while there have been cuts in Low profile areas of the Saskatchewan government has committed itself to an increase of per cent in the health As the province will put a heavy emphasis on technical school in the Case of some will mean a 44percent increase in their annual operating in the budget turns out to be an Effort to weather the storm of it neither Breaks new nor does it signal a govern ment in the process of trying to re it is an despite Devines of the eco nomic facts of life in tories find jobs fund details hard to get a via As the shining Light of the provincial budget some Are wondering whether it is real or merely a figment of the governments when announced in the the million jobs fund was described As an important that allegedly double the amount allocated the previous included Mil lion through tax Mil lion in new and old no budgetary capital authority and million from a new agreement with the the government also intended to seek Federal help in sharing costs of projects to protect existing jobs and create new and while Vic Schroeder admitted the scheme would not help All of the unemployed he believed it would have an he was proud of his govern ments ability to respond to a equally Howard Pawley announced the formation of a Cabinet committee to Deal with the Job that did not impress Gerry who believed that this belated organization was evidence of Lack of prepare under the dome Arlene Billinkoff while he hoped the fund would be the nip record made him How Many jobs would be created through this scheme that was difficult to answer because of the responded labor min ister Mary Beth neither would she attempt to estimate the Cost of creating a Job because she did not want to mislead the number would depend on the Type of never the she was certain this creative approach would be depended on fed eral As Pawley a coordinated cooperative approach was essential to meet the unemployment therefore he had submit Ted a list of new capital projects to in search of cos sharing and creation of this thrust was proof of governments efforts to fight he but was it really a thrust asked Brian according to his Analy there was no new the government had merely moved allocations for capital spending by Crown corporations and various when the facts were he believed the Public would be Digap disappointment was already evident when Ottawa downplayed the need for massive stimulation of the Economy by the Public with that what would be the Impact on the jobs fund Ransom obviously in Schroeder said the province would still try to get Federal he did not know whether the full million would be spent without that some would be spent As Dolin announced a new initiative from the jobs it was a million project to provide subsidies for those who would hire unemployed Young once Mercier tried to find out How Many would be helped and the minister refused to the critic concluded that this initiative was the same pro Gram As last but he still wanted therefore he believed that consideration of labor spending estimates was the Ideal since that depart ment was in charge of coordinating the the minister the jobs fund was not within her Juristic there was a separate item where it could be that made no sense to if this department was coordinating the surely the minister should provide some was she afraid of talking was the program a charade which the government was attempting to foist on the Public it was a matter of insisted but Mercier to one should discuss the jobs fund during consideration of a Section on employ ment because it included salaries of two people who would be coordinating that therefore he asked the minister about the effect of the fund on there were Many such As Federal and private the length of jobs and responded to predict with any accuracy the Impact of a which was an estimate in the first was speculation and she did not want to be involved in she merely hoped to create Many with that Type of Mercier concluded the jobs fund was a jobs fraud it was a hoax and would not create new the govern ment was taking Money from other areas to improve its he asked again How Many jobs would be created from this and Dolin continued to talk about the More he the More stubborn she insisting that he was out of order because the jobs fund should be debated at another the government was supposed to be the Savior of the unemployed with this chided Don some would have been proud to Tell How Many jobs would be he what did this ministers silence indicate it indicated that with Volans refusal to respond and tory determination to harass committee business would not proceed that therefore the chairman moved the debate May have ended that but it would new democrats were Correct when they said there was a special area in which to discuss the jobs but did that require total silence from the minister who was presumably involved in the scheme perhaps Dolins Lack of experience was a but was there also a directive from above was the government embarrassed to have too close a study of its wonderful Promise at this time were there too Many Loose strings eventually the jobs fund May devel but judging by current it May be just a ;