By Scott Taylor
Last week, former Chief of Defence Staff, General (ret’d) Rick Hillier went on a one-man charm offensive to harness the Canadian publics’ support for Ukraine.
The genesis of the mini-media storm was the official announcement that Hillier has been appointed to chair a new strategic council advising Ukraine’s territorial defence forces.
This new council has been established by the Ukrainian World Congress (UWC), a non-profit consortium of organizations affiliated with the global Ukraine diaspora.
Hillier will lead a team of other former military commanders to offer support, advice and advocacy for Ukraine’s 100,000 member homeland defence militia.
So far, so good.
Canada has been an ardent supporter of Ukraine’s defence forces since the establishment of Op Unifier in September 2015. Since that juncture, Canadian military trainers have mentored over 33,000 Ukrainian soldiers, providing them with advanced military skills.
The U.S. and other NATO allies trained an additional 60,000 Ukrainian combatants to a level of competence that shocked the Russian invaders. As this nucleus of highly proficient Ukraine defenders blunted the initial Russian offensives, Canada continued to support Ukraine with the provision of lethal aid including Carl Gustav anti-tank systems and rockets.
As the conflict devolved into a stalemate in the eastern Donbass region, Canada committed to providing M777 howitzers from our own military arsenal.
In the latest federal budget, finance minister Chrystia Freeland announced an additional $500 million in lethal aid to be shipped to Ukraine.
Again, Canadians can take heart from the fact that on a per capita basis, no country has done, or is doing more to aid Ukraine in this war.
This is also reflected in the fact that among those foreign volunteers who flocked to Ukraine to fight the Russians, Canada contributed the second highest contingent. We were only edged out by neighbouring Poland, which has a large Ukrainian minority.
Despite this overwhelming popular and logistic support for Ukraine, Hillier is telling Canadians that we should be doing more.
One of the objectives of Hillier’s new council is to raise money in order to purchase protective gear for the 100,000 strong Ukraine volunteer militia. “These are civilians called into service with a miniscule amount of training and almost no equipment,” said Hillier in an interview with National Post. “But they were called into service to defend their families, their villages, their towns and their country.”
Hillier pointed out that it costs about $2500 to properly equip a modern soldier with a helmet and body armour. Basic math puts that as a cost of $1.24 million for each 400 strong battalion, or $5 million to equip a four brigade group of 1600 soldiers. “We are not raising money for weapons. We are raising money for personal protection,” insisted Hillier.
I’m sure those dollar figures would give Canadian military procurement officials some concern given how if you do the math, they make no sense and it is a pittance compared to how much we budget to equip our own army brigades. But I digress.
It was what Hillier proposed next that was truly shocking. “Why don’t we in Canada step up and help? Take 250 of our LAV III’s, 50 Leopard tanks, recce (reconnaissance) vehicles and engineer vehicles, a spare parts package and ammunition,” said Hillier. “Move it to western Ukraine and bring in a team to train up a brigade of their defence force to be that counterattack reserve.”
For those familiar with the current fleet strength of Canada’s armoured vehicles, what Hillier is proposing would gut our Army for decades to come.
The total Light Armoured Vehicle fleet is less than 650 and we possess just 82 Leopard tanks – some of which are dedicated for training purposes.
Even if the Canadian government had the will to purchase and replace these vehicles as soon as possible it would take years for them to be built. Without the ability to train at a brigade level with an all arms capability, the professionalism of our army would diminish. Not to mention the morale among our combat units.
On the flip side of this is the crazy notion that Hillier’s volunteer militia of civilians “with miniscule training” could somehow acquire the capability to form an armoured brigade almost overnight.
As present, it takes the Canadian Army roughly 26 weeks to train a tank crew to simply operate the vehicle efficiently.
When you throw in the training at a troop, squadron and then all arms brigade levels, you are looking at months of preparation.
During the Afghanistan conflict, Canadian rotations would undergo six months of intense mission specific training. That was in addition to the fact they were already fully trained soldiers serving in professional units with a high level of readiness.
God bless Rick Hillier, as this old soldier’s heart is in the right place. However, for the sake of our own army’s future, I hope nobody takes his plan seriously.
