[R-G] Cdn Military Revamps Domestic Ops.

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=1353971

Military readies reservists for threats to 'domestic front'
Adrian Humphreys,  National Post  Published: Wednesday, March 04, 2009

The Canadian military has embarked on a wide-ranging plan to turn its  
reserve soldiers into focused units trained and equipped to respond to  
a nightmarish array of domestic threats, including terrorist "dirty  
bomb" attacks, biological agent containment, Arctic catastrophes and  
natural disasters.

The creation of seven units within each region of the country --  
including unusual all-terrain vehicle (ATV) squadrons and perimeter  
security teams to cordon areas of potential devastation -- prepares  
reserve soldiers for operations on the "domestic front" while freeing  
regular force soldiers to concentrate on foreign battlefields.

"There is a recognition, certainly within the military and we have  
heard the government say, that domestic security is the number one  
priority. A number of these conclusions come from the post-9/11 world  
we live in," said Brigadier-General Jean Collin, commander of the army  
in Ontario, during an exclusive interview with the National Post.

"The reality is an army needs to train, an army needs to equip itself  
and an army needs to be ready."

The remodeling of the reserves will see the development of specialist  
units in four of the military's regional divisions -- Atlantic,  
Quebec, Ontario and the West. The units will include perimeter  
security teams prepared to cordon off an area if there was an atomic  
detonation, nuclear accident or similar source of wide contamination  
and "Arctic response" groups that are trained and equipped to live and  
operate in the far north.

The changes highlight both a renewed focus on domestic security and  
the increased role of reservists, who are part-time volunteer soldiers  
augmenting the ranks of full-time soldiers, who are referred to as the  
"regular" forces. The place of reserves in the Canadian Forces in  
Afghanistan was shown yesterday when one of three soldiers killed by a  
roadside bomb was a reservist from Ontario.

"Some of the stuff we are now asking the reservists to do is because  
we need them; because the regular force simply does not have  
sufficient people, sufficient resources, to do it on their own," said  
Brig-Gen. Collin.

"And the reservists have certainly demonstrated that they have the  
capability to do all this and more."

Brig-Gen. Collin, who has served in Bosnia and Afghanistan, has also  
been a special advisor to the Chief of the Defence Staff on homeland  
security issues.

The military divides operations into two broad divisions: away  
missions, such as the action in Afghanistan, called "expeditionary  
operations," and home missions, such as helping with floods in  
Winnipeg, called "domestic operations."

"The lead -- the main contributor -- for expeditionary operation is  
the regular force. They form the core for expeditionary operations and  
are augmented by reservists," said Brig-Gen. Collin.

"What we have now said is that for domestic operations, the core will  
actually be provided by the reserve force, augmented by the regular  
force.

The reserves take a dominant role in domestic operations in the  
future, once they are properly equipped and trained to do so."

The remodeling of the reserves, ordered at the start of 2009, is  
expected to take two to three years to complete.

The remodeling will also likely see the reserves play a larger role in  
domestic security situations, including the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in

Vancouver and the G8 summit of world leaders that has been announced  
for 2010 at a resort in Huntsville, 220 kilometres north of Toronto,  
he said.

The national plan places the reserves at the forefront of grim  
scenarios that are the stuff of apocalyptic Hollywood movies.

"We all know the threat from dirty bombs, chemical contaminants. This  
is certainly one of the more dangerous situations that can arise,"  
said Brig.-Gen. Collin.

"You can certainly get it from a terrorist act. You can also get it  
from a man-made disaster. You can get nuclear contamination from a  
nuclear power plant -- Three Mile Island, Chernobyl.

"We are training to establish a perimeter. Do I see a scenario when we  
might be obliged to keep people in? Probably. You need to be trained  
to be able to make sure that you don't become a casualty in the  
process of doing that security."

The Arctic units -- companies of about 120 people in each region, that  
can come together as a single force if needed -- poses a challenge of  
a different sort, primarily training for the harsh conditions of the  
far north.

"We are going to have up to an entire battalion of soldiers who are  
prepared to go live and operate in the north and that entire battalion  
will come from the reserves. We are having them trained now, as we  
speak, to operate in the north," said Brig.-Gen. Collin, who himself  
just returned from a visit to several remote aboriginal communities  
where he suffered though the deep cold in a military-issue tent.

"It was bloody cold... But you can dress, equip and operate up there  
if you know what you're doing," he said.

Currently, about 120 reservists from southern Ontario are involved in  
Exercise Polar Warrior, a week of training in Arctic warfare and  
survival in Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug, a First Nations community on  
Big Trout Lake. To equip the ATV Squadron, the first commercial  
vehicles are arriving in the coming months. They will not be armed or  
painted in camouflage and are not intended for combat use. They could  
be deployed in rural and remote areas to traverse wooded ravines or in  
an urban setting that has suffered devastation, such as an earthquake  
or massive explosion.

The plans also call for turning over responsibility for the force's  
Reverse Osmosis Water Purification Units -- mobile, high-capacity  
machines for cleaning water to drinkable standards -- to the reserves.  
The machines have been used abroad, in Sri Lanka helping victims of  
the 2004 tsunami, and also domestically in Kashechewan, Ont., when the  
community's water supply was tainted by E. coli bacteria in 2005.

David Bercuson, director of the Centre for Military and Strategic  
Studies at the University of Calgary, said the changes make sense  
given the current global security situation.

"Reserves are all local and spread out across the country. It seems to  
me the people best situated to help the first responders would be the

reservists. It makes a lot of sense. Also, the regular force is so  
stretched and stressed right now," said Mr. Bercuson.

Mr. Bercuson was surprised to hear, however, of envisioned scenarios  
that might require a form of constabulary or policing function for  
reserves in civilian containment and security.

"People in Ottawa sometimes forget that the reserves are volunteers.  
If you try to change the reserves in ways they don't want to change,  
they just might not show up."

National Post

ahumphreys at nationalpost.com