00:00:00.000Today on True Patriot Love, we're going to meet with Brian Islett, and we are going to talk about defense, and specifically, Karen Hogan's audit reports on housing and recruitment.
00:00:12.060It is unbelievable when you read the reports, not hitting our targets, not even actually looking at the applications that are filed.
00:00:22.040You know, I thought when I started that we were actually had no one, we actually had no one interested in getting into the military.
00:00:28.620Well, I read the report, and it turns out that was totally wrong.
00:00:33.980190,000 applications over three years, only 15,000 taken.
00:01:54.680You know, I spent about a week on the budget before it passed.
00:01:59.380And one of the key pillars in the budget was defense and, of course, increasing the spending.
00:02:04.000And I was kind of astounded with some of the things that were in there from the military and the armed forces perspective.
00:02:10.480You know, the budget proposes $81.8 billion over five years to be spent in addition to what currently is being spent today.
00:02:20.140So, that's the increase that they're talking about, which is a huge increase, you know, and that's one of the reasons our deficit sort of climbed to this, you know, magic number and $65 billion going forward.
00:02:34.600So, $20.4 billion over the next five years to recruit, retain a strong fighting force, including a generational pay raises for the CAF and support of the CAF healthcare.
00:02:48.740And he did a lot of that, and I think Kearney went and gave everyone a 20% raise.
00:03:01.100He also then, you know, they also put in the budget a $19 billion repair and basically invest in defense infrastructure over five years.
00:03:12.740So, they have kind of a recruit, train, healthcare infrastructure to accommodate these gentlemen and ladies, ladies and gentlemen, and basically create a better training infrastructure and expand ammunition.
00:03:33.680So, you know, you tie those two together, you're $40 billion over five years.
00:03:38.700So, they're going to roughly $8 billion a year.
00:03:41.720So, let's, you know, just if we go to the recruitment side, they're looking on average at $4 billion a year.
00:03:50.000So, as you and I talked about, you know, before the show, if they take out the pay raises, which are about a billion, you know, blended over about a billion dollars a year for the existing 65,000, you know, men and women in the military,
00:04:05.460we're talking about $3 billion for, to recruit people and to bring them aboard.
00:04:13.160So, if you're, you know, I don't know, say, what's the average salary of, you know, it varies by position, I know, but like $100,000?
00:04:26.680The officers probably now with that raise, but the NCM or the non-commissioned members, the junior ranks are definitely not $100,000 until I think you get to the rank of like a senior sergeant or a warrant.
00:04:42.420So, you know, I've looked quickly at the pay, the starting guys, I could see roughly were about $7,000 a month, kind of $6,000 to $7,000 a month is where they were, somewhere in there.
00:04:56.760That's a lot more than I was making when I could have really used that a few years ago.
00:05:02.800Well, that's what the increase, because they just went up, they just went up, you figure they went up 20%.
00:05:08.020So, you know, if they were, they were making $5,000, they got to $6,000, and if they're making $6,000, they got to $7,000.
00:05:14.420So, you know, they're roughly between $6,000 and $7,000 now, I think.
00:05:18.180So, plus healthcare benefits, so city costs $100,000.
00:05:21.900So, if you look through the plan, they're talking about recruiting upwards $30,000, maybe $40,000, depending if raises kind of tail off, people per year.
00:05:32.660And so, when I looked at it, and I said, okay, so I asked Christoph, I said to him, you know, 30,000 to 40,000 people a year, where are they going to get 35,000 to 40,000 people a year?
00:05:44.700And then what popped up, and I, you know, I sent you the deck, and I'm going to throw the deck on the screen.
00:05:49.380And it was really interesting, because there's an Auditor General report, Auditor General of Canada came out, and it said, you know, basically reviewing the recruitment strategies and how many people they've had for the last three years.
00:06:05.240So, from 2022 to 2025, and they basically, you know, said 192,000 people applied, but basically they weren't able to get even 19,000 of them aboard, recruited, and they fell short.
00:06:24.480So, over three years, they were only able to get 5,000 a year, and now they're talking, basically, of bumping that up to 30,000 to 40,000 a year.
00:06:36.220So, you know, it's very aggressive, and I understand, you know, they're putting a bunch of money behind it.
00:06:43.140They're really not giving us a plan on how to do it.
00:07:01.700I want you to tell the story first, and I want to actually read what the Auditor General said, because your story pretty much ties to what she said, right?
00:07:09.000Yeah, so I started my, I was finishing my degree in criminology.
00:07:15.660I already had a diploma in police foundation.
00:07:18.320So, I knew one way or another I was getting into the law enforcement military field with my education.
00:07:23.320It was what I wanted to do, and it was what my education made sense to do.
00:07:27.740So, I put, so I think it was the final year of university, 2011, for me, I started applying to reserve regiments in and around the London area.
00:07:37.040I was at Western, sort of not realizing that nobody was really going to want to take me on as I was sort of planning on leaving.
00:07:44.480I didn't, I didn't really know how to go about it.
00:07:46.860So, my serious application, I think, went in probably around late 2011-ish to the big machine, because it's mostly done online.
00:07:55.880So, between 2011 and 2000, I believe the end of 2012.
00:08:02.480So, it was anywhere from, I don't want to exaggerate, so it was probably 12 to 16 months, I can't remember exactly the time, but it took 16 months for me to submit my initial paperwork, sort of my intentions online, to meeting with recruiters, meeting with different regiments, sitting down, aptitude testing, and they build a file.
00:08:22.080So, your file is your sort of recruitment application file of what trades you're applying for.
00:08:28.720I was applying for, I think it was infantry, artillery, armor, like I wanted a combat arms trade.
00:08:34.580So, you meet with various people, and you write aptitudes, and they figure out where, and you have to actually score high enough on an aptitude test to get in specific trades.
00:08:45.420I think the height, I know this, the highest aptitude requirement for a trade is armored officer.
00:08:51.520So, this is the guy who's in a tank commanding a troop of tanks, which I don't know how many tanks that is, but it's a bunch, and all the crew of those tanks, and they're moving really quick.
00:09:01.580So, you got to have a, I knew a few guys that were doing this in training, and they were very bright dudes, and this is the highest required aptitude scores to be a troop commander.
00:09:08.820So, my original application, my first job was infantry, but when I had left London, and I had moved to Toronto, and the recruitment center for the reserve there is on Yonge Street, north end of Toronto, after a year plus of my application already being in, I showed up to meetings with the recruitment staff, where they had told me that they didn't know who I was.
00:09:32.000They knew I had an appointment, but they couldn't find my recruitment file, and this happened twice.
00:09:35.820So, twice, they had completely lost my physical file, and had no idea sort of where to start, and kind of sent me back home, even though I'd taken a half day off work to go and accommodate this meeting with these recruiters to keep the process moving, because it had been over a year at this point, now well over a year.
00:09:54.480And then multiple times I was told that my file had completely physically disappeared by multiple people, so it was a little disheartening.
00:10:03.480But it kind of speaks to, just going back to the numbers that you said there, so if they're able to sort of haphazardly, with this horrific lack of organization, bring in 5,000 people a year, if they want to 8x scale that to 40,000 a year, I can only imagine that there's going to be 25,000 files lost.
00:10:26.660Like, I hope most of this now has gone digital, and it's all sort of streamlined online, and these things don't just evaporate into the ether like mine did.
00:10:32.660But it's absolutely delusional to believe that the people that work there now, with the same skills, the same, you know what I mean, intentions, the same motivations, are going to be able to 8x leverage their current abilities to bring in skilled people that are meeting the aptitudes that are required, very bright people for certain positions, especially officer positions.
00:10:56.660I just, I don't think that has any bearing on reality, and if I can speak to, and again, this is not an indictment of people that work in recruiting, there are, I'm sure there are lots of bright people there, I've met a few of them, I was lucky enough to actually have met a few of them, and I work with them later on training.
00:11:12.920But typically, if I can speak in generalizations, the people that end up at recruiting are kind of the rejects from the battalions, from the regiments that are maybe injured, or lazy, or some combination of those things, and because they're not really valued in their home regiment or battalion, they're sent to recruiting.
00:11:35.440So you're already dealing with a pool of people that is less motivated, you know what I mean, less ambitious, they're kind of, they just want to show up and go through the motions, they don't care who gets hired or not.
00:11:46.120I know several people that have ended up in these roles. And it's, it's, I just like, again, delusional to believe that these same folks are going to come in and 8x with the same tools, but maybe 20% more pay.
00:11:58.840We saw how well people worked during COVID and the lockdowns when everybody worked from home, like they were, they were real motivated, you know what I mean?
00:12:06.340So this is, this is just more of the same nonsense. I, I, I hope it works. You know what I mean? Let's, let's cross our fingers. And hopefully this comes true. But I, my expectations are pretty low, given my personal experience.
00:12:18.520Yeah, no, no. And, and, you know, it's, it's almost like you wrote this report because here, you know, I just want to break this down and, you know, to your, to your earlier point, they didn't fix the systems.
00:12:30.820So in the 2025 auto general report, the systems are still archaic manual. And, and basically she goes on to actually detail talking about the fact that when these 190,000, so if she breaks it down, she actually has a chart in the report that we'll throw on the screen.
00:12:49.960And, and, and she basically says in 2024, 25, 70, they had 77,000 applications. Then the next, or sorry, the year before 2023, 24, they had 70,000 and 22, 23, they had 43,000 total applications in the three years, 191,000.
00:13:10.740So they've closed 103,000 applications without any explanation.
00:13:23.180So no one wrote anything. No one wrote on any of the documents and said they, why they closed. They, they literally just stale dated and closed them.
00:13:32.100So these weren't, these weren't people that are treated out of the system for aptitude or other reasons. They just went into the ether and vaporized.
00:13:39.180Yeah, they were, so they only had 8% or 15,000 that were closed by recruiters for reasons or not meeting the criteria.
00:13:51.640So out of that 190,000, only 15,000 don't meet the criteria. 103,000 of them, they just disappear. They stale date them out. They drag them along, which looks to me like they're not really trying to get them aboard at that point.
00:14:07.140And then 73,000 are viable. Out of the 73,000, when now she, this is three years, right? This is over a three-year period.
00:14:17.120Out of the viable ones that still stick around, 58,000 are still in progress when she does the report.
00:14:23.460So they haven't even been brought up. So you think about it. It's a three-year period. You've whittled it down from 190 to 73,000, 58,000 of them still are in progress.
00:14:40.660So it's not, the funny thing is this was kind of weird because when I went into this, you know, and I started reading and I was getting ready for our show, I thought to myself, well, you know, I don't meet a lot of people that join the military.
00:14:52.500So maybe people don't want to join the military. You know, I, having, you know, lived in Canada, born in Canada, lived in the States, I always liked the military, quite frankly.
00:15:01.940You know, I tried to convince my middle son to join the military. So, you know, I thought it's, I do think it is a great profession and I always thought of it very highly.
00:15:11.120But I thought, okay, maybe people, you know, as time went on, they just phased out, but it didn't phase out. There are people who are interested in joining the military, like organically, who just never get a chance or never get seen.
00:15:26.160So this is exactly what happened to me. I was so keen on joining the infantry and I had friends that had convinced me to go to specific regiments that had different opportunities to become airborne.
00:15:38.740And I met so many amazing people there when I, when I finally ended up getting there.
00:15:44.360But it's, it's exactly what I just said. It's, it's these, these people that just sort of lack motivation. They lack administrative savvy.
00:15:54.940They're, they're there to push papers around and there's no accountability.
00:16:00.360And again, it's kind of a double-edged sword because you don't want people just smashing people through the system either to meet some kind of arbitrary quota.
00:16:08.740So that you get people that are not as qualified or wouldn't, you know what I mean?
00:16:15.200They're much less likely to be successful on training because some of the training is really hard in the combat arms.
00:16:20.400It is no joke. And Canada produces some of the best.
00:16:23.800I'm very biased here, but if not the best combat arms, infantry soldiers in the world.
00:16:28.400And, and, and you got to make sure that you, you pick the right person for that role.
00:16:32.620But at the same time, there are, I was very close after the second visit to recruiting where they said, yeah, like, sorry, pal, we don't know what's going on and where your file went.
00:16:44.320And like, we're real, but I was so keen and I was so, I was such a geek about it.
00:16:50.120And, and I really wanted to get there that I was going to, no matter how many times they closed the door, I was going to keep pushing it open.
00:16:58.860All the same systemic flaws exist and they're going to use a giant funnel to try to push through, uh, forgive, forgive me for saying this, uh, you know what I mean?
00:17:11.26010 pounds of crap through a five pound bag. It doesn't, or in this, in this sense, it would be 40, 40 pounds of crap through a five pound bag.
00:17:18.180It just, it doesn't add up. There's, it's delusional. It makes no sense. It's a perfect example of how disconnected the leadership is from the reality on the ground of the actual people who work there.
00:17:29.820Um, and yeah, my, my story is a shining example of, of what's going on.
00:17:34.440Do you think, Brian, you know, the more I read this and I was reading again this morning and there's, you know, in the auto general support,
00:17:40.980there's quite a few examples of, you know, she takes samples of 51 people and she follows them for a while.
00:17:46.720And it's the same as your story, right? Like they get lost. They, they go multiple times for meetings.
00:17:52.940So she followed up and finally they're not as resilient as you. They just fall off.
00:17:57.620But do you think it was a funding issue? So, you know, when I was reading it, I'm thinking, okay, 2022 to 25,
00:18:04.460you know, you heard all the horror stories about, you know, funding for the military diminishing, not having enough funding, funding lacking.
00:18:14.600You think they were just kind of slow walking it because if the more people they brought aboard, the more issues they had, right?
00:18:21.820So they had to pay them, they had to house them, they had to, you know, they had to get ammunitions and weapons.
00:18:27.660They had to do all these things and they just didn't have, so they, they kind of just slow walked it until, you know,
00:18:33.980the government finally came and now they've made a commitment in this budget to do it.
00:18:38.840So, you know, hopefully that'll make a difference. I don't know. It just seems, it seems kind of, you know,
00:18:44.800and this is from a layman's and outside point of view from, you know, Joe Public, which I am, is quite frank.
00:18:50.900It seems almost impossible that a military, which should probably run on discipline and logistics, right,
00:18:58.660has a challenge with some of the things we're talking about today.
00:19:01.180Like when we talk about recruitment, housing, like how can they not be good at the logistics of,
00:19:07.240it just, it boggles my mind unless there's, there's a motivation somewhere.
00:19:11.000And that, that's, so if I'll, if I'm trying to understand your question, like,
00:19:17.720is it a strictly a funding issue versus a personnel aptitude issue?
00:19:22.400Yeah. Well, I'm thinking, you know, I'm thinking maybe they slow walked it or they just lost the,
00:19:26.860the applications because quite frankly, they weren't going to want to hit their quota.
00:19:31.820So the 19,000 quota, they were probably just thinking, eh, you know, we will hit 5,000 and we'll just do that
00:19:39.220to appease everyone. We'll use some of the funding. It looks like it was motivated because quite frankly,
00:19:44.400I have a hard time believing in these numbers that 190,000 people showed up, put an application.
00:19:51.320And, you know, as you alluded to earlier, people who joined the military want to join the military,
00:19:57.440give it a lot of thought. I lived, like I said, in two countries primarily, but, you know,
00:20:03.700everyone I knew who joined the military always has a great story about why they have a rationale.
00:20:09.200So these are people who, you know, came with an intent and then, you know, were discouraged by,
00:20:16.420like you said, like people who are either unmotivated or probably some goals or some goal setting on their
00:20:23.860part or, you know, not to meet the objective. So they decided they weren't going to do it. They
00:20:28.600created a, they created an agenda and therefore they didn't reach their goals. So they, they didn't
00:20:33.340get to the nine 19,000. They ended up at 15 or 5,000 a year. Um, it just seems like when I read
00:20:40.260between the lines, it seems like funding or motivation wasn't there. Yeah. I think that's
00:20:45.960a fair assessment. I think that it's going to be divided across a few categories here. I think
00:20:50.700motivation is the motivation or discipline slash skillsets of the people in recruiting is probably
00:20:57.86080% of the problem. Um, nothing, nothing is universe, nothing is completely true all the
00:21:03.220time sort of thing. So I would say 80, 80 plus percent of that is you're putting weak people
00:21:07.960in positions that are actually quite important in terms of you're the front face of the military.
00:21:12.540You don't want the reject who, you know what I mean, is constantly being, can't keep up with the
00:21:19.920rest of the platoon going to then face the applicants who are coming and being like, yikes, you know what I
00:21:24.160mean? I don't, if this is who the military is, I maybe, maybe this isn't what I thought it was
00:21:28.440kind of thing. So that's one of the problems right there. And then all the correlating issues that
00:21:32.580are happening along with this person's lack of motivation or discipline. And then you have
00:21:37.800the marketing campaign of the military for the last few years that has been nothing short of an
00:21:43.960embarrassment. You have rainbow flag, this, you know what I mean? Purple hair, this,
00:21:50.480you can come here and be whoever you, you know what I mean? And again, this, this has nothing to do
00:21:57.100with being black, white, gay, straight. Nobody cares about that in the, I've never met someone
00:22:02.120who does there. There's apparently the military, especially the combat arms is full of toxic bigot
00:22:08.200males. You know what I mean? Who are ready to, who are ready to take down anyone who's not a cis white
00:22:13.460male or insert woke, you know what I mean? Word there, but it's, it's not like that at all. I'm sure
00:22:19.680there's problem people and they get their names come up and they get kicked out or they go to jail,
00:22:23.920they did something stupid and then you lose them. But when you have a marketing campaign that
00:22:28.380surrounds, we need to get this minority represented. We need to get more women doing this. It's like,
00:22:33.780how about we just blanket, look for people that want to be here and then make sure that the roles
00:22:39.200they're trying to fill fit their skillsets and aptitudes. And we just do that instead of targeting
00:22:44.560specific people that historically have less interest or success rate in accomplishing these really
00:22:53.260difficult training. And I, and I think these things kind of bleed into one another. And when you're
00:22:57.880losing all these files and you're having good people that are in the cost of living in Toronto
00:23:02.760at the time for me was insane. Like I had to work as a, I had a full-time job at a, at a, a sales role
00:23:09.340in a, in a company I had, I had to bartend and bounce on the weekends. And then I also had to do
00:23:14.560my, my reservist stuff when I finally got through. So you've got people that are trying to get a job
00:23:20.220that are being literally just a tritted out out of laziness who need money. They need work. So when
00:23:26.780you, when you, when you've gone through this for months and months on end, these problems just
00:23:30.620compound. And then maybe they see the commercial of the purple haired, you know what I mean?
00:23:35.160Whatever that's obese and on the front lines. And it's, there's a, there's a funny story of a friend
00:23:41.720of mine actually was working in recruiting at, at a, and he, this, this guy is in the special forces
00:23:47.080now. And he's about as dialed in as it gets. Like he's not one of the examples of the negative
00:23:51.360people that I've given you. And he was telling me that across his desk or one of his colleagues'
00:23:56.060desk came the application of a, of a, of a small person, a midget or a dwarf. Forgive me if these
00:24:03.500aren't PC terms. I don't know what the, the, the new lingo is to call it, but anyway, so this person
00:24:08.700and God bless his or her soul. I can't remember that it doesn't matter that they, they want to
00:24:14.000be involved in, man, let's find something for this, this, this guy or gal to do. But he, he was
00:24:18.800recruited into the infantry where you have to carry a firearm that is as tall as this person. And you
00:24:25.580have to carry a backpack that can weigh in excess of 50, 60, 70 pounds at times. And that like,
00:24:32.040that's just not a thing for someone that maybe, maybe weighs 50, 60, 80 pounds or whatever. Like
00:24:39.200that, that's not realistic. And this person is going to end up being a liability. That doesn't
00:24:43.260mean there isn't something they can do that they can absolutely be a valuable supporter behind the
00:24:47.100scenes. But like this woke stuff has to go and it's, it's absolutely part of the problem. And I think
00:24:53.380these things are all bleeding together. And we just need to get more savvy people in these roles
00:24:58.280who are, who are a better face of the organization, who, when someone walks in, they see a checked out
00:25:03.200woman, you know what I mean, man, who's got his time in and is actually wants to share and bring
00:25:10.480people in. And I think that would make a difference too. Yeah, no, no, I agree. And you know, it's so this
00:25:16.240budget, you know, just going to go back for a minute, this budget, which actually calls for a 38%
00:25:22.820increase in unemployment in the next five years. So over the next five years, the budget actually
00:25:28.980increases the unemployment expenditures in the country by 38%. So they're expecting a higher
00:25:35.120unemployment rate, unemployment rate from today, which is already 7%. So, you know, it should be if
00:25:41.240you think about it, really, technically, it should be very easy to find good people to come aboard and
00:25:47.280have the strongest military, you've ever had, quite frankly, because we're almost at, you know,
00:25:53.340if you increase our unemployment rate from seven, 38% increase, so you're probably you're upwards
00:26:00.180towards 10%, which is really depression rates, right? Like that's, that's a high unemployment.
00:26:05.960If you're in the country, we have about 30 million people who are actively able to work. So that would
00:26:11.040be 3 million people in the country would be unemployed. And that's what they're projecting
00:26:15.980in their in their budget that they've just gotten passed just got through confidence vote. So you
00:26:21.560should be able to convert a bunch of those people who are skilled, which that's where I want to jump
00:26:26.100to next, you should be able to actively bring skilled people in and put them into really great jobs,
00:26:33.200and that for them to excel, heading towards a career in the military, which a career in the military,
00:26:40.480at the end, you end up with a pension and benefits, you know, that's something we should actually look
00:26:45.560at actually adding some more money to, you know, making it more attractive again. So you do your
00:26:50.540time in the military, you do your 10 years, then you come out, you get your defined benefit plan,
00:26:55.340you get your benefits, though, all those things are things that we should be promoting highly,
00:26:59.360right? You know, salary increase, the benefit plan. And quite frankly, if you're out of work,
00:27:04.980look at it as an option. Like, and I agree. Yeah, because you know, in the report in this report,
00:27:12.260they actually actually goes through and the auditor general and she says, Well, they're having a tough
00:27:17.940time, the armed forces are having a tough time recruiting skilled people. I'm like, Okay, well,
00:27:24.260you know, are you actively recruiting skilled people? You know, are you creating and and so
00:27:31.700I was I was a little shocked, because if you're having so many applications tonight, if you're doing
00:27:37.520all this, how can you say you're actively recruiting skilled people? Are you going to trade schools? Are
00:27:43.260you talking to people? Because I know right now, and you know, Brian, where you're living,
00:27:47.940where I'm living right now, quite frankly, all the guys I know who are on skilled trades are calling
00:27:54.240me every day. So my phone rings off the hook every day with five or six calls from guys in the trades,
00:28:00.620because you know, I did some home building, I've been in industrial construction, quite frankly,
00:28:05.220that are asking me, Do you have work? You know, do I need to travel? Do I need to be going anywhere?
00:28:10.080And I feel like saying to them, Have you looked at the military? You know, have you if you consider
00:28:15.640going into military for like, even a five year stint? And there are there are carpenters in the
00:28:23.480military, there's electricians in the military, there's plumbers in the military, you can be an
00:28:27.080HVAC guy in the military, and it comes with all the benefits of the government, like you said,
00:28:32.200incentives and sort of long term strategies, pensions and healthcare, like all those things
00:28:36.840can be done in the military, if someone's interested in doing that.
00:28:40.040Yeah, well, you know, and so this is interesting. So I'm going to jump ahead of it, then I'll come back.
00:28:44.980But the thing that I found, which was then the next auditor general's report, so she actually comes
00:28:51.120out and she says, we didn't plan for housing. And I'm like, what do you mean you didn't plan for
00:28:58.220housing? So they said, you know, the military didn't do a good job at figuring out their housing
00:29:02.680requirement. So then they, you know, you look at it, and they're there, if you do the numbers,
00:29:08.100the number of, you know, 65,000 people, they only have housing, whether it be barracks or multiple
00:29:16.060housing for people of roughly 27% of that 65,000 people actually live in one of those units,
00:29:23.960the rest live off base. And so they're short, I think they had, they're short almost 3,500
00:29:32.720dwellings right now. So this is, you know, apartments, homes, whatever it is, they're short.
00:29:38.900And they're short a bunch of beds for whether they, if they increase the reserve, well, we didn't even
00:29:43.680talk about that. They're talking about increasing the reserve by bringing in the public service.
00:29:47.760So, you know, we're going to go to 40,000, then they're talking about bringing another 300,000
00:29:53.380reserves from the public service, you know, which I don't know, what does the reserve make a couple
00:29:58.320hundred dollars a day? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, so they're going to come and they're going
00:30:03.860to do their 10 days a year, whatever they do, you know, which is, which is a little bizarre.
00:30:11.540I don't know your thoughts on that. Like, you know, I don't know what to do in 10 days.
00:30:15.240And the fact that you're, you're making public service people do it, right?
00:30:20.480I don't, I'm not even sure where to begin here with the, with the intentions from the, the all
00:30:25.880seeing all knowing CDS here, but that is another capital D delusional way of thinking. I joined in
00:30:35.040the reserve. So I went through the reserve experience and then I moved over to the reg force. And like I
00:30:40.060said, I was, I was, so I had to be there three days. So a long, a Friday, Saturday, Sunday,
00:30:46.300twice a month to go through basic training, which was, I think 12 weeks or so, something like that.
00:30:51.080So twice a month, I had to give them six days total of a month for many weeks. And then you can sort of
00:30:56.800accomplish, if you're a relatively smart person, you can figure out basic training in that amount
00:31:01.280of time. It's not that complicated to figure out how to make your bed. And then, you know what I mean?
00:31:05.580And do some navigation and how to clean your rifle and handle the rifle safely. But to think that we
00:31:10.140can bring in that many people, I think her, I think her quote was seven days. We want to get them
00:31:16.600battle ready times 300,000. I don't know where this training is going to be going to be conducted.
00:31:22.860I don't know where the logistics of, like you said, feeding and housing and training and equipping
00:31:27.920all these people is going to be there. I think you, you, you mentioned procurement and we can probably
00:31:33.580move into that shortly. But when, when I was in, when I was in procurement work for the military
00:31:40.020police branch at headquarters there in Ottawa, the, there was so few firearms. I was, I was procuring
00:31:46.640new firearms. I was on the team of people that was procuring new firearms, getting all the admin
00:31:50.240drawn up and getting all the signatures and money allocated $5 million. I believe it was or something
00:31:55.040like that. The, the military police were finishing a shift and then handing their pistol off to the next
00:32:02.580police officer to that was in the rotation. You know what I mean? Cause now their, their patrol has
00:32:08.100started that there wasn't enough pistols to go around the detachments. So now we're going to bring
00:32:13.640in 300,000 people to use what equipment, the ones that we're sharing amongst each other and
00:32:20.300cannibalizing amongst each other so that we can have parts for it does. None of this makes sense.
00:32:25.160And the CDS is absolutely just out to lunch with everything, almost everything she says. And I saw
00:32:32.600a quote of her being questioned about the, the, the, the quotas or whatever that were in place to get
00:32:39.540women and minorities or whoever. And she said, well, it's not a quota, but we're trying to target these
00:32:43.760people. And it's like, look, we need to just bring in people who want to be here, who are going to stick
00:32:49.140around. It doesn't matter where they come from. It doesn't matter what color their hair or eyes is
00:32:53.900like stopped with this. It needs to go. And that 300,000 number is laughable on a good day. Like
00:33:01.860maybe, maybe 1% of that would be realistic to bring in that many people in a given amount of time to get
00:33:08.160them actually trained battle ready. That if something was to go sideways, we're going to put them out
00:33:13.800there and they're going to be a contributing part of this machine to, to react to emergencies or threats
00:33:20.320or something like that, because it's having been through very intense training through several
00:33:26.680different portions of my career. It's very easy to kill the guy beside you or yourself, or, you know
00:33:34.340what I mean? Just, or, or, or slow people down to the point of where now that every you're, you're such
00:33:38.340a liability that things are going to go sideways. They're like insert reason why that doesn't make
00:33:42.920sense. And the fact that they even bring this up in meetings is honestly terrifying. I can't believe
00:33:49.080how delusional this lady is. Yeah, no, no. Well, you know, the results are, you know, just that,
00:33:54.740that proves it right. What we're seeing, you know, 11,700 residential housing units on the bases and,
00:34:01.320and wings across the country. And then we have 26,000 bed spaces available, like the dormitory type
00:34:07.400beds. That's what we, that's the inventory of the military. So like some of these plans are like,
00:34:12.520we're so far away from completing a lot of these plans, whether it be recruitment or reserves or
00:34:17.700whatever, because we don't even have right now the infrastructure. And the sad part is right now,
00:34:22.940you know, I just alluded back to trades and skilled workers and everything else. And it frustrates me
00:34:29.680because the coordination of all these tactics and, and goals are so disjointed where in my mind, you,
00:34:37.720you know, you're projecting to have a high unemployment rate. Okay, great. You can recruit people
00:34:41.760to come in that are skilled from there. You don't have enough housing. You don't have enough,
00:34:46.520you know, the, the housing you do have quite frankly, I stopped reading the housing AG report
00:34:52.300because it made me so mad. I was just so pissed off that these people were living in the number one,
00:34:58.920most of them didn't get anywhere to live. And when they did get a place to live, it was terrifying.
00:35:03.360Their 1930s homes that are falling down. Most of them are unfinished. I couldn't believe that they
00:35:09.700were putting people in unfinished dwellings. I'm like moldy. Yeah. Well, I would use the word
00:35:14.580squalor for some of the things that I've seen in places that I lived. I lived in gauge town for
00:35:20.720the better part of a year during my infantry training. And it was a regular routine for me
00:35:26.880to take mouse feces out of the inside of my bed, like inside my sheets, the mice would be living
00:35:33.000because it was warm. I would get up and you'd have to make your bed. And then you go off and you do
00:35:36.260your thing, you do your training all day and you come back and there's mouse feces in my bed almost
00:35:41.640daily. Wow. Yeah. No, no. And, you know, and when I started getting there with, you know, the water,
00:35:48.960you know, the water wasn't good. The housing wasn't good. I'm thinking to myself, my goodness. So,
00:35:53.780so what would motivate me? Cause that came to the next thing that she did report on, which I thought
00:35:58.080was very good. They have as many people. So, you know, we're, we're bringing in these 5,000 people
00:36:03.220and we have as many people quitting as we do. We're recruiting. So the net net, the interesting,
00:36:11.200and I didn't even bring it up earlier and I forgot it, but then in the report, she says basically
00:36:15.860that they did recruit 15,000 people and they had 15,000 people leave.
00:36:23.060So the net net zero. Sorry, I'm laughing. It's just, it's so crazy.
00:36:26.600Yeah. So the net net zero. So your goal of, of increasing and, and what it was is they,
00:36:32.420they couldn't get, they were the, the reasons that they did get, that they did know down,
00:36:36.800they couldn't get the training they want. They couldn't get the skilled training they want.
00:36:41.180And they didn't see, they didn't see the direction. So they could, you know, it wasn't
00:36:46.060going anywhere. They couldn't see it. So they, they lasted four years. And quite frankly,
00:36:50.660they had almost an impossible time of keeping skilled people. And so I'm thinking to myself,
00:36:56.160okay, you know, I'm trying to think, so you need to build, you need to build housing. You need to
00:37:04.900build infrastructure. You have 65,000 people. You're recruiting 15,000 people. Would you not link
00:37:11.600the two together? And there's a, there's a picture on a report of actually, it's a, it's a guy on a roof
00:37:17.560with another guy, all dressed in military fatigues. And I'm thinking to myself, would that not be your
00:37:23.380force? Like, would that not be the skillset that you would be growing? So those, those ladies and
00:37:28.660gentlemen in the, in the armed forces would, would learn how to build homes, how to, how to do all
00:37:34.900the trades that they need to do that. And quite frankly, when, when they do leave, if they wanted to
00:37:39.900open their own companies, become builders, become developers, they would learn that business. Right.
00:37:44.940And, and I think where's the disconnect here? Like why, why would someone who goes into the
00:37:50.940military making a decent salary with a benefit plan who has to really stay for 10 years, not even make
00:37:57.280it to four years. And I think that's what they need to address. They need to go back and look at it and
00:38:02.200say, I'm not staying because I can't see the direction. I can't understand my training. I can't
00:38:08.060understand how I'm getting any skills.
00:38:09.640I think so I can, I can speak to that a little bit, at least my interpretation of that and talking
00:38:15.840to guys over the, the, the 11 plus years that I was there, many of the bases that these huge,
00:38:24.080that you'll, you'll house multiple battalion type, uh, thousands of people basically live on these
00:38:32.040bases. They're in places in Canada that nobody really wants to live anymore. You know what I mean?
00:38:36.860So now you have social media, which has completely changed the game of people's access to information
00:38:41.160and things they can learn and know and see how other people are living. And you're trying to send
00:38:46.120someone from, uh, Gen Z or, or, you know what I mean? Insert whatever, whatever the 18 year old
00:38:52.400person is now. And you're going to try to convince them that they should go live in Shiloh, Manitoba.
00:38:57.340And this is not, this is nothing against people from Shiloh, Manitoba or anyone in Manitoba or
00:39:02.080Winnipeg or anything like that. But there is not a lot there for a young single man, or, um,
00:39:08.920you could maybe argue for a young single woman, she'll be able to have her pick of the young
00:39:12.520single guys that are there. Cause it's probably 95, five men and women in the Canadian military,
00:39:17.980depending on where you are in the country might be a little bit different, but it's vastly filled
00:39:21.880by men. So you're going to try to convince these young people to go live in Petawawa, Shiloh,
00:39:26.740you know what I mean? Gage town. And these are, these are, can be great places. If you're a
00:39:31.840young family, you know what I mean? You want to raise your, your, your son, daughter, whatever,
00:39:36.420in these sort of cottage country areas, but be prepared for like eight months of winter.
00:39:41.560And when it's not frigid outside, it's mosquitoes galore. You know what I mean? So trying to convince
00:39:47.180someone that this is their path for years, I'm surprised they lasted that long, depending on their
00:39:52.760postings, maybe cold Lake came up. Uh, it's not called warm Lake. You know what I mean? This is
00:39:57.520like, these are places that are, they're austere and they're, they're kind of hard to live. And
00:40:02.420it's, I think that's part of the problem. Um, there used to be a combat arms regiment in no,
00:40:12.620a combat arms battalion in BC. I think it was in Nanaimo if I'm remembering correctly. So you could
00:40:19.340have joined the military, uh, as an infantry guy or gal, and then moved out West and lived in the
00:40:25.360mountains on the ocean. I don't think it would be that hard to convince young people to do that.
00:40:30.580But when you try to convince them to move to centrally located, like almost in the Arctic
00:40:35.840circle type place where, you know what I mean? They're not really able to have a social life
00:40:41.480outside of swatting mosquitoes. A lot of the time it's like, there's not a huge incentive to go there.
00:40:47.660And I, again, this is not the entire problem at all. I'm not pretending like I know what's exactly
00:40:52.120going on, but I think this is part of it. And I don't even know where to begin to address building
00:40:58.200new bases in places that are more appetizing for people to come and live there. Like that
00:41:03.980undertaking would be unbelievable to find that much space and produce that much housing. But
00:41:07.920that's definitely, in my opinion, part of the problem that these young people are experiencing
00:41:12.720and they don't want to live in these places. And I know personally, multiple people that got posted
00:41:18.420somewhere that made no sense for them or their family. And they just ended up leaving the entire
00:41:23.520military because they did not want to live in that place.
00:41:27.100Yeah. Well, it's interesting. This report, it's almost like you're writing it, tell you the truth.
00:41:32.620You know, the number one request for housing is from single people.
00:41:36.040So the majority, it's almost like 80% of the basically missing housing for these young people
00:41:42.900going there are basically for single people. It's for one person. So, you know, and it does
00:41:48.920appear that's why, but I really, you know, the disconnect, the disconnect that I find, and I found
00:41:54.580so crazy was you need all these things to happen. And, you know, military has always been, you know,
00:42:00.280and you know, more than that is, you know, your primary job when you sit down anywhere,
00:42:06.060whether it's an operation or whether it's just daily administration, is to actually, you know,
00:42:11.420make your circumstances, your place where you're living the best that it can be and make yourself
00:42:15.660ready. Readiness is super important. So by training those skills and getting people to learn them,
00:42:21.980quite frankly, when you set up in somewhere or you set up for an operation in another country or
00:42:26.720something else, you're going to have a bunch of people who know how to build things. So quite
00:42:31.800frankly, they're, they're already builders. So what would hurt your own military from becoming
00:42:37.200its own building faction? And that's the one that kind of confused me a little bit. Like you really
00:42:43.080should be able to, and I'm not saying that's your primary role, but that should be something that
00:42:47.020everyone in the military should be good at. And, um, I recently, are you mean, are you talking
00:42:52.000specific sort of carpentry skills, hands, working with your hands and physically building things
00:42:56.440literally? Well, even if it's just, even if it's just general labor, you know, a lot of
00:43:00.920building, a lot of building, anything is just general labor, right? It's coordination, it's
00:43:04.820program, uh, you know, and, and again, the logistics of actually building anything are very
00:43:09.900similar to, to military logistics, right? You know, you have to get, you have to get those
00:43:15.320walls up. You got to get those doors and those windows in, you got to get it heated. You got
00:43:19.320to get it ready. You got to get it, you know, furnished. Those are all the things you do to
00:43:23.500get a building ready for, uh, after permitting. But, you know, in this case, quite frankly,
00:43:29.480you know, we're looking at a, uh, just a, uh, diminishing or, or, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,
00:43:37.500infrastructure for housing in the military that's falling down around itself. And quite frankly,
00:43:43.060to me, it's like, why would we, we have the money, we have the, we have the people because,
00:43:49.740you know, the billions of dollars we're putting into it. Why wouldn't we invest some money in
00:43:53.380our own infrastructure to make people happier to live there? So give them nicer places to
00:43:58.200live, have them take the pride and ownership of being involved in that and also get the
00:44:03.380skillset to do it. So they also are involved so they can say, you know, I helped build that
00:44:08.240barracks. I helped build that apartment building. I did whatever the house, you know, um, I was
00:44:13.700part of that. And quite frankly, then, you know, they'll take that skill. And if, when
00:44:19.160they do leave the military, they'll have just another skill that they can put on their resume
00:44:24.720that they can move towards if they want to, it just gives you, and I grew up in a, I guess
00:44:29.260it's a generational thing a little bit, Brian, you know, I grew up in a generation of people
00:44:33.680that, that, that quite frankly, we all learned to build, you know, my background being Italian,
00:44:39.580quite frankly, we were taught from like kids, like we were just taught to build, like they
00:44:43.260were just like, okay, you have to, you have to learn to build a house. There wasn't an
00:44:46.920option, right? Because everyone was doing it and you were around it. And to me, it's, it's
00:44:52.280very, uh, I just find it disjointed. I find like, when I listened, when I read this report,
00:44:57.780I gave up at the end and I'm like, this is just for lack of trying. Like, I think at the,
00:45:02.180at some point this, the housing issue that came to light in the, the AG report was just
00:45:07.400the people who weren't trying anymore. You know, they weren't interested in bettering
00:45:11.740their circumstances and the living. And that, that was actually, I felt bad. It actually,
00:45:16.800it, at the end of it, when I put it down, I was like, oh, this is terrible, right? Like
00:45:20.000how can, how can they not see this as beneficial to growing the armed forces? And it is too bad.
00:45:27.640The disjointed piece speaks to the disconnect from the senior leadership, from the actual folks
00:45:34.320on the ground. And part of that comes from, in my opinion, again, there's 145 odd generals
00:45:41.420in the Canadian military, 145 generals for, and, and, and I think actually there's a bit
00:45:49.840of a psyop from the, the, the public affairs people that give the, that openly speak to
00:45:55.760the media about what's going on in the military. And I think to a certain degree, maybe some
00:45:59.040of this is necessary for national security reasons, whatever. But I think the actual
00:46:06.140military is somewhere between, between Army, Navy, Air Force, Kansovcom. I think that it's
00:46:11.600probably somewhere between 40 and 50,000 strong. That includes Reg Force and Reserve. So the amount
00:46:17.820of generals we have for the amount of people we have is utterly ridiculous. You have all these
00:46:22.980folks at the very top, you know what I mean? Getting the best postings to exotic places around
00:46:29.200the world while they do quite literally next to nothing, uh, short of being the face of a Canadian
00:46:34.700in, you know what I mean? Some exotic locale where everything's covered and their tax-free money is
00:46:40.120coming in from the colonels and above. Meanwhile, you know what I mean? Other, the, the corporals
00:46:44.620and the privates or whoever is living in squalor in a mold filled building. And it's like, well,
00:46:49.640how come we can't retain these people longer than four years? Well, gee, I wonder why maybe
00:46:54.020the $250,000 salary tax-free for, you know what I mean? The gentleman that's like living
00:46:59.140in Maui or whatever, like I'm pretty sure there are literally Hawaiian postings for people and
00:47:03.640good for you. You earned it. But like, we, we need to trim the top down and, and start,
00:47:09.460you know what I mean? Looking for the skilled people that you're talking about, how to incorporate
00:47:12.800that into actually literal builders, like maybe a campaign targeting skilled labor that,
00:47:19.640maybe this isn't the right verbiage, but results in a red seal or something. You know what I mean?
00:47:23.720Like when you leave the, you're put in your two, three, or however long it takes to do that.
00:47:28.340Like now you can go off and have a business because you did your three years of, of carpentry,
00:47:34.500electrician, plumbing, or whatever. You know what I mean? And now go off and do your own thing if
00:47:38.860that's what you want or stick around and keep building depending on the incentives or where you're
00:47:43.820at in life, but maybe they need to increase the campaign for those folks by about a hundred X,
00:47:49.280you know what I mean? To try to bring in that, to meet the need, but it's from the top down,
00:47:53.740it's broken. And it's exactly what you just said. And maybe a campaign targeting these skilled people
00:47:57.760that you talk about would make a difference. Yeah. No, I think it's alignment, right? I honestly think
00:48:03.260it's so far out of alignment and, and I, you know, and thank you for that. Cause I don't know the
00:48:08.920composition, but just reading the reports, it's like, how could it be this far? I don't like it's
00:48:15.100just unbelievable. And you take the, you take the full budget and you look at the amount of money
00:48:19.460they're going to allocate. And we haven't even talked about procurement yet. And I think probably
00:48:23.340we'll end up doing on the next show, but you know, you wonder how it got so far out of alignment.
00:48:29.080Like how did, how did you not figure out number one, you didn't have enough housing. So even if you
00:48:35.660would have hit your targets, even if you would have hit, when you did it, even if you would have
00:48:39.420hit half of your targets for those three years, you still didn't have enough housing.
00:48:43.300Can I, can I jump in with that? With yet another example of something I witnessed when I was a
00:48:48.380military police officer. So I was working in force development, which is a fancy way of saying sort
00:48:53.580of procurement and planning for future procurement and skills and the equipment that goes along with
00:48:59.000these abilities and abilities have to be maintained and augmented to continue on.
00:49:04.940So there was one meeting in particular that I was the secretary for of all the senior leadership
00:49:11.460from military police across the country. And I'm sitting in this meeting and I'm working from home
00:49:18.320at the time. And I'm taking notes on the meeting about what they're, what they're forecasting and
00:49:24.900planning for the military police branch for the next five to 10 years. So keep in mind what I said
00:49:30.060before about there's not enough pistols to go around and they're cannibalizing them to find
00:49:35.280parts for other pistols so that they can maintain at least the basic operational readiness. And in
00:49:41.660this, sorry, I can't, I can't not laugh at this because it's so I'm going to say delusional 50 times in
00:49:47.480this podcast, because that's exactly what this meeting was. I couldn't believe what I was hearing
00:49:51.420from the colonels, the majors, the people planning the next five to 10 years for the military police
00:49:57.180while their pistols are falling apart. They were talking about bringing in drones to put in the back
00:50:04.840of military police cruisers. So let's say you have a, you have an IARD situation. So this is like
00:50:12.480someone's immediate action response drills or something it stands for. So you, let's say you
00:50:18.020have someone barricaded in a building, maybe they're an active shooter, maybe there's a hostage
00:50:22.360or whatever, like something's going on somewhere where you need a perimeter security, a cordon.
00:50:27.640It would help to have eyes on from all angles. So they're talking about putting drones
00:50:31.780in the trunks of police cruisers so that the, so the military police officer can show up to
00:50:38.260the scene, pop open his trunk and start flying a drone above, above the scene to have a bird's eye
00:50:46.840view of perimeter. You know what I mean? Eyes on me as a capability moving into the future. Meanwhile,
00:50:55.020they can't retain people. They can't fix housing. They can't, they don't have enough pistols to go
00:51:01.420around. You know what I mean? The food is poisonous. The water in the building I was working at was
00:51:06.340condemned because they thought it had Legionnaires disease. Like the, I could bore you forever with
00:51:11.300the list that goes on and on. And I'm sitting in this meeting trying to take notes while my
00:51:15.500microphone's muted because I'm the same as I'm doing now. I'm laughing at this. It's so utterly
00:51:20.200ridiculous. And then someone with a lot more experience and staff than me will come in and say,
00:51:24.860yeah, but we need to, you know what I mean? Plan for the, and we need to allocate where we're going
00:51:29.000to be. And it's just like, okay, sure, maybe, but maybe you should also think about taking care of
00:51:34.480and solving the problems that are immediately on fire in front of you. It's that dog, it's that
00:51:39.360dog in the room cartoon meme where the room is on fire and he's drinking coffee and he's, this is
00:51:44.560fine. You know, this, this is fine. That's, that's what that place was. And I couldn't get out of
00:51:49.580there fast enough. Honestly, when I was in that role, I, it was just cringy. Yeah, no, no. And you
00:51:55.440know, when you describe it, that's what was, you know, that's how I felt reading all of this
00:52:00.480in the last few days. It's like the building blocks are missing. It really is. It's like the
00:52:05.340foundation of this, this house is not built properly. And quite frankly, you have to kind
00:52:10.780of knock it down and start again and re-dig and then start. Yeah. But instead of fixing the
00:52:15.240foundation, you're going to put in an advanced new, you know what I mean? Skylight system with
00:52:20.220radar and 5G. I mean, instead of like patching the leaks that the water is flooding into,
00:52:26.560that's, that's how they treat this. It's, it's wild. Well, and, and that's exactly,
00:52:31.780you know, what, because when you do read the budget and you do read all the sophisticated
00:52:36.260software and hardware that they're actually planning, you know, whether it be in the Arctic
00:52:40.660or wherever it is, you know, you think to yourself, oh, wow, this is cool. Right. And then you start
00:52:45.260reading the AG reports and you're like, wow, this isn't so cool anymore. So, you know, there's,
00:52:49.660there's a disjoint definitely between the two, the two stories for sure.
00:52:55.200Brian, you know, I'm going to end it there. I'm going to, uh, what I want to do is, uh, next time
00:53:00.700I really want to get into procurement because quite frankly, there's been so many stories,
00:53:04.860whether it be airplanes, submarines, all the stuff going on. Um, so next show that, you know,
00:53:10.780let's get together and dig into that. I really look forward to it. I enjoyed spending time today
00:53:15.580and, uh, thanks for the stories because that gives me perspective. Cause when I was reading this,
00:53:19.860I just, by the end of it, I just threw it down. I thought, oh my goodness. And you could walk away,
00:53:24.100but we shouldn't walk away. The, the real thing is it's not for us to walk away, right? We got to
00:53:29.720try to fix this because if we're going to spend all this money, spend this time and have a great
00:53:34.480military, we got to rebuild that foundation. So thanks very much. Exactly. You, you, from an
00:53:40.140outsider perspective, I think you have your finger on the pulse pretty well. So thanks. Thanks for
00:53:44.120having me. And I'm happy to come back and share more about the other stuff that I saw. Just prepare
00:53:49.060to cringe, just prepare to cringe a little bit more every time, every time I come back.