A TRUE VETERANS CHAMPION: Steinar Engeset

by Peter Stoffer, MP

BORN AND RAISED in Norway, he emigrated to Canada in 1966 with his Mechanical Engineering degree to start his career in Marine Sales/Service. Within 11 years, he would create Newfound Trading Limited where, as President since 1977, they trade ships, equipment and fish products. NTL played an especially important and significant role in developing the Northern Shrimp Fishery. Steinar would partner as majority shareholder, with a diverse group of businessmen, creating what is now known as Harbour Grace Shrimp Company. Also created Enterprise Offshore/ Clipper Offshore Crewing Services Limited serving fisherman and crewman for the fleet of large offshore fishing vessels. He was also part of developing the Artic Surf Clam fishery, bring- ing one of the first factory trawlers to fish offshore clams in Eastern Canada. Steinar also collaborated and joint ventured with the Nunatsiavut Government creating Pikalujak Fisheries Limited Partnership along with Ocean Prawns Canada Limited.

Norwegian-Canadian Steinar Engeset made his fortune in the seafood industry on Canada’s East Coast.

Engeset spent 24 years as the Honorary Royal Norwegian Consul of Nova Scotia and during that time he tirelessly promoted both Canadian and Norwegian veterans’ issues.

He has helped numerous companies with fishing vessel designs and fishing strategies. His corporations were partners in a number of fishing vessels and currently still partners in two cold storage facilities and has collaborated with the fishing industry to improve and develop technology of fishing methods in Canada. His true passion is developing sustainable high value products for varies seafood species along the Canadian coastline.

Steinar Engeset has truly been a pioneer in the Offshore fishing industry in Atlantic Canada. In1989 he was the Honorary Royal Norwegian Consul of Nova Scotia until retiring from that position in 2013.

In 1992 Owner/President of Labrador Sea Inc. (2004) which has controlling interest and ownership in Harbour Grace Shrimp Co. Ltd. and is a minority shareholder in PiKalujak Fisheries Limited.

Chairman of the Camp Norway Reunion. Committee formed in 1992 to coordinate a commemorative memorial for war veterans who served at Camp Norway in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, during World War II. Also, Chairman of the Camp Norway Financing Committee, which established the Camp Norway Foundation, intended to provide scholarship and support in the field of history surrounding the Camp Norway theme to further promote Can- adian Norwegian heritage across Canada. His Excellency Romeo Leblanc, Governor General of Canada presented a Certificate of Appreciation to the Camp Norway Second World War Memorial & Reunion in 1994 in recognition of a special contribution to the Canada “Remembers Program”. In Aug 17/2011 CNF was transfer to the Canadian Maritime Heritage Foundation at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, NS.

Engeset is the organizer of the annual Convoy Cup Sailing Race from Halifax to Lunenburg.

An avid fisherman, Engeset has no intentions of retiring anytime soon.

From 2002 until present, Steinar is the Chairman of the Convoy Cup Foundation. The foundation’s helps to continue the memory of the courageous men and women who served in the convoys, which consisted of Merchant Navy vessels, Navy vessels, and Air Force coverage. Most of the convoys traversed the North Atlantic to supply England and her Allies with supplies needed from 1939-1945 to carry out the war efforts. We honour the convoy veterans who risked their lives for the peace we enjoy today in the form of Ocean/Basin races and other events, which are held in Canada, Norway and International locations. The first Bamse medallion was awarded to a PSD dog/his handler at the RNSIT in Halifax, Canada on July 7, 2015 and for the first time in Oslo, Norway on May 28, 2016 at the Oslo Military Tattoo and will continue to do so when nominations are put forth.

ARE CANADIAN YOUTH PATRIOTIC?

by Michel Drapeau and Joshua Juneau

RECRUITING IS THE FOUNDATION of the Canadian Armed Forces’ (CAF) ability to sustain its all-volunteer force levels and, for decades, recruiting has become increasingly challenging. To meet the current and emergent recruiting challenges, the military has decided, once again, to re-organize its recruiting organization – as if rolling the dice one more time might produce the desired outcomes. We think not.

The Canadian Armed Forces is a closed labour market, meaning that they rely exclusively upon personnel entering at the lower levels who, only through promotion, progress towards the higher levels of the organization. That, is in of itself, is a major limiting factor ignoring a large potential for recruitment of mid-level talent in various trades and professions.

Under normal conditions, to maintain its organizational capability the CAF are required to recruit approximately 5,000 people per year, across a broad range of skilled trades and disciplines. It has become apparent that the CAF have a recruitment and retention problem. While the exact numbers have not been published, one source has informed us that the current regular force may be up to 20% below permissible manning level, and this should be concerning for everyone.

Such a dramatic reduction in strength suggests that the CAF are becoming less relevant to individuals and communities in Canadian society. It may also suggest that current recruiting strategies, which rely on outdated messaging, are not palatable to today’s youth.

To address the current recruitment failures, the CAF have stood up a Recruiting Modernization Implementation Team, which is staffed by senior military leadership and headed by the Chief of Military Personnel, Major General Lise Bourgon. After a few months of existence, the Team is still at the “exploratory stage.”

Surprisingly, their first effort was to solicit comments from serving members.

Major General Lise Bourgon is the current Commander of Military Personnel Command

In order to shape (or re-shape) the CAF culture there is a need to concentrate efforts at the entry point for future entrants into the military profession through the recruiting process and during the initial and in-career training and education programmes. Creating the foundations for such a culture, and instilling it throughout the CAF workforce, will require significant strategic agility on the part of the DND/CAF senior management team.

In our view, having an ‘all military’ team to address these complex issues is not the right way to go. Instead, to address their recruitment issues requires that the CAF stand up a civilian force generation group, comprised of non-military personnel. The only role for military leadership to play at the entry-level point for new CAF enrollees should be to ensure that each new cohort of recruits are imbued from the start with the desired set of shared values for the coming generations of CAF personnel.

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Currently, the Chief of Military Personnel and her immediate subordinates at the 2-Star Level (Major General) and 1-Star Level (Brigadier-General) are experienced combat arms leaders. As such, they have no formal training, expertise, or experience in human resources management unique to the military. It is only on appointment that the CMP begins to acquire a working knowledge with the following unique CAF HR processes and concepts: recruiting procedures, terms of service, selection for advancement procedure, succession planning, range of pay and benefits, medical and dental services, rewards and honours, retirement and annuity benefits systems.

On appointment, senior commanders know even less about matters such as the provision of healthcare (medical and dental) and chaplaincy services. Yet, they are responsible for the oversight of these professional services.

Effective human resources management requires the presence of skilled, trained and experienced professionals with comprehensive professional knowledge as to how to manage human capital. The CMP would be well advised to hire and appoint a number of such talented Human resources civilian executives to provide in-house service and advice to the Commander, Military Personnel Command.

Even better, the CMP should stand aside and allow a civilian Chief Force Generation to lead the CAF recruitment and marketing efforts. The individual selected as the Chief Force Generation would have an advanced scientific degree, experience in pedagogical activity, and vast prior management expertise in recruiting, training and development fields. To facilitate their integration into the military high command team, on appointment as this civilian Chief Force Generation Group could be granted an honorary general rank whilst so employed or on an acting rank if he/she becomes or is a member of the Reserve Force.

DELAY

Given the dramatic shortage of personnel, the existing delay in the recruitment process is surprising.

For example, we represent a person wishing to join the CAF reserves as a musician. This person is a former serving member of an allied-force, and an accomplished bagpipe player. He had worked as a civilian contractor with a Reserve Force regiment since 2019, and his enrollment procedure started in earnest in September 2021. This person passed his enrollment medical in November 2021, and FORCE test in December 2021. The final step to approving his enrollment was a musical audition, which was recorded in May 2022. At the time of writing this article (October 2021), the audition tape has yet to be evaluated. Meanwhile, the clock keeps running.

As a second example, last year we were contacted by six naval officer recruits who, after three (3) years, had yet to be sent for basic occupational training. Instead, they were left to occupy menial office jobs until training courses became available to them.

Authors Drapeau and Juneau question the patriotism of Canada’s youth.

This is not acceptable and resulted in some of them releasing from the CAF out of frustration with their career stagnation. Such delays are strong indicators of a training system in disarray.

ROLE OF GOVERNMENT

The CAF, along with Government, need to consider their respective roles instilling patriotism within our population. It is the dual role of government and the CAF to instill within the youth a sense of duty and love of country, which seems to be lacking nationally.

If the CAF are serious about transforming their image, there are some difficult and uncomfortable, but obvious, questions that need to be addressed honestly and directly. Some of the feedback we have heard includes:

How has this government’s vision of a “post-nationalist” Canada affected what it means to be patriotic and how has this indirectly harmed CAF recruitment efforts? To what degree has the failed Afghan mission impacted the youth’s interest in serving?

Can lessons be learned to improve public messaging concerning CAF efforts abroad?

Are there concerns among recruits, valid or not, about both the necessity and frequency of relocation (postings) and its impact on community and family? The unceasing posting of up to a third of CAF personnel each year is perhaps an existential threat to the recruiting and retention of able body volunteers. Surely the advent of extensive and sophisticated modern communications and digital workplace should reduce if not eliminate the bulk of these in-Canada postings.

To what degree did the public shame caused by the (now suspended) Op Honour have on young women’s desire to enroll? Did the messaging, and its hope to change culture and increase interest for female recruits, work?

How are military leaders screened? The steady parade of disgraced generals being accused of sexual misconduct is embarrassing, and may impact the youth’s desire to be associated with the CAF brand.

To what degree has the destigmatization of mental health had on the image of the CAF in “caring for our own.”

Should recruiting strategies be integrated with retention resource decision-making? Perhaps current members could be offered incentives to delay retirement, particularly in traders with high training costs.

The faltering recruitment efforts being experienced by the CAF is for sure a complex issue. However, it is not the first time that the CAF brass have been examining this issue and re-organizing their efforts. Surely, all these previous failed attempts at making a responsive CAF recruiting system work should have taught us a lesson or two. The overarching lesson is that this time around the first step is certainly not to search for answers from within. Going forward, CAF recruitment efforts should be focused on (1) integrating civilian experts within the CAF recruitment team to give an impartial view of the successes and failings in CAF messaging; and (2) consider asking Canadian youth why they do not view the CAF as a viable career for them.

DIEPPE RAID, Canadian Soldiers’ Introduction to the Sten Gun

by David Pugliese

IT WAS 80 YEARS AGO that Canadian troops stormed ashore at the French coastal port of Dieppe, fighting their way into the history books in what would become a brave but futile raid on Hitler’s Fortress Europe.

Almost 5,000 Canadians took part in the attack, the first Canadian Army operation in Europe. Nine hundred and sixteen were killed, thousands more were wounded or captured.

Dieppe was seen as a disaster but some historians view the Aug. 19, 1942 raid as producing valuable lessons that contributed to the success of D-Day two years later.

The Dieppe raid also marked the first time the Sten gun was used by Canadian soldiers.

But the introduction of the low-cost, easily produced 9mm submachinegun was a less than auspicious occasion. Soldiers complained about the unreliability of the Sten, marking would become a love-hate relationship with a weapon produced in the millions during the war.

Canadian troops pose with a captured Nazi flag near Hautmesnil, France on Aug. 10, 1944. The soldier on the left has a Sten gun while the other soldier is equipped with a Lee Enfield rifle. (PHOTO COURTESY LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA)

John S. Edmondson who served with the South Saskatchewan Regiment during the Second World War on the Dieppe Raid and in the Normandy campaign, provided details about the Sten in an essay published in 2004. Edmondson wrote in Canadian Military History journal that he first saw the Sten when it was issued as he and his fellow soldiers waited on the transport ships that would take them to Dieppe.

Canadian soldiers in Munderloh, Germany take time to reload Sten gun magazines in April, 1945. (PHOTO COURTESY LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA)

“On board we were issued with new Sten guns and grenades right out of the shipping crates, so they were full of grease and needed to be cleaned,” he remembered.

But there was a major problem. Since the troops were already on board their ships they couldn’t test fire their weapons to make sure they were working properly, Edmondson pointed out.

That caused trouble during fighting at Dieppe. “Rounding the corner of a building, I came face to face with a German and had my first experience using a Sten gun,” Edmondson wrote. “I pulled the trigger – a dull thud – misfire. He must have been more surprised and nervous than I was because he did not shoot. I ducked back around the corner and tried my Sten gun again, thud again. So I threw it away and picked up a rifle that someone had dropped on the ground.”

“Two years later in Normandy, I always insisted on new weapons being cleaned and fired to ensure they were in working order because your life depended on it,” Edmondson wrote.

The Sten was developed by the British as a low cost alternative to more expensive and better constructed submachineguns. The Sten, with its stamped metal parts, cost $11 while the U.S.-made Thompson submachinegun had a price tag of $70. (The Sten name is a combination of the last names of the weapon’s designers and the location of the first small arms factory it was built at – Major Reginald V. Shepherd, provided the S; Harold Turpin provide the T and the small arms location in Enfield provided the EN).

Throughout the course of the Second World War more than four million Sten guns were produced in a number of variants.

Production of Sten guns in Canada was done at the Small Arms Ltd. in Long Branch, a neighbourhood in Toronto. The federal- government owned company received its first order for Stens in August, 1941. Eventually, almost 130,000 Stens were built. Many of the guns – some 72,000 - were made for Chinese Nationalist Forces. The Imperial War Museum in London, England had one of those weapons, which bears a Chinese inscription which translates as: ‘Sten hand-carry machine-gun, Canada made’.

Interestingly, the U.S. Smithsonian National Museum of American History has in its collection a Canadian-made Long Branch Mk2 Sten from 1943.

The Sept. 18, 1943 edition of Collier’s Magazine featured an article on Canada’s Sten production at the Long Branch plant. The Canadian government allowed the Collier’s journalist access to the Sten assembly line for his article titled, “Invasion Gun”

The emphasis of the article was about the Stens being built for resistance forces in Nazi-occupied Europe. It also highlighted that the gun could be broken down into three parts for easy concealment and that each Sten sent to resistance groups was accompanied by 10 magazines.

The article also noted the Sten received its first big battle test during the Dieppe raid “and proved itself an excellent street fighting weapon.”

“Its only fault was a tendency to jam when first fired and eject the entire magazine instead of a single shot,” the article claimed. “Commandos found that a brisk bang on the cocking handle corrected this, and once the gun was heated up, the fault never returned.”

The Stens at the Long Branch plant were produced “almost entirely by women and girls from every part of Canada” – in fact three quarters of the arms factory workforce were women. “Absenteeism is negligible, for the memory of Dieppe is grim,” the article added.

“For street fighting, it is probably the best gun ever developed,” Collier’s magazine concluded.

Not everyone agreed with the description of the Sten as “the best gun ever developed” for street fighting. The gun was plagued with problems because of jams caused by its magazine.

But the weapon did have its admirers. Alan Lee of the Parachute Regiment said the Sten came into its own for use in close quarters battle. “When you went into a village or went into a house, whatever it was, it was an ideal weapon,” Lee said in a video interview released in 2013 by the National Army Museum in the United Kingdom. “It wasn’t an instrument that we used for over 100 yards. It was used for close quarter when we were clearing villages or we landed on the ground and it was close fighting.”

After the Second World War, Sten guns were deactivated by the Canadian government and sold as scrap metal or to army surplus stores where they were purchased by collectors. (PHOTO BY DAVID PUGLIESE)

After the Second World War, Canada retained the Sten in its military arsenal, issuing the weapon to troops fighting in Korea.

Korean War veteran Charles Rees, who served with 1st Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment, praised both the Bren gun and the U.S.-made M-1 carbine but talked about how the Sten was avoided whenever possible by his fellow soldiers. “The enemy had much better weapons than what we had,” he explained in a video history compiled by Veterans Affairs Canada. “When it come to our small arms we had the rifle (and the) Sten gun, which nobody wanted to take. The spring in the magazines (was) no darn good and used to jam up the rounds,” Rees added. “So the boys did not want to take a chance (and) take one them going out on any patrols.”

In 1958, the Canadian Army replaced the Sten gun with the C1 Submachinegun. But the Sten still remained in use in the Royal Canadian Navy. A 1961 RCN manual for leading seamen and petty officers second class had instructions for use of the 9mm Sten Mk2 as well as its disassembly.

The manual described the gun as a short range weapon, equipped with a 32-round magazine, and for use against targets at ranges from 10 to 100 yards. The instructions in the manual also carried a safety warning – “If the gun is loaded do not jump with it or jar it in any other way; this may cause the breech block to drop to the rear and allow the weapon to fire.”

The Sten also found its way into other conflicts and guerilla wars after the Second World War. Israel produced its own ver- sions. The Royal Ulster Constabulary used Stens in their battles against the IRA. Some of Fidel Castro’s guerrillas were armed with the submachineguns. During the Vietnam War, U.S. special forces and long range reconnaissance teams used suppressed Sten guns on their covert missions.

A FUTURE ROADMAP: For VAC to Address Inequities in Veterans’ Legislation

by Brian Forbes, Chair of the National Council of Veteran Associations and Chair of
The War Amps Executive Committee

by Brian Forbes, Chair of the National Council of Veteran Associations and Chair of
The War Amps Executive Committee

HAVING JUST COMMEMORATED Remembrance Day, there continue to be significant concerns with respect to veterans’ legislation, regulation and policy, necessitating further action by the Government and Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) to rectify the ongoing inequity and injustice impacting disabled veterans and their families.

Based on recent exchanges with the Minister, Lawrence MacAulay, and senior officials of the department, VAC unfortunately tends to underline the incremental progress that has been achieved on a number of issues, including the intolerable backlog/wait time crisis and the insidious issue of military sexual trauma within the Canadian Armed Forces.

However, it must be recognized that, although the Minister and the department continue to deliver statements of good intention, it is readily apparent that the machinery of government does indeed move extremely slowly in actually implementing needed overall legislative reform.

We are, of course, encouraged by the recent enactment of an immediate treatment benefit policy for veterans suffering mental health challenges which has been a major breakthrough in accord with the longstanding position of the National Council of Veteran Associations (NCVA) in this context. We will continue to pursue an extension of this treatment benefit policy so as to ensure that it applies to all disabled veterans in urgent need of treatment or health care.

Suffice to say that much more is required to fully respond to our ongoing NCVA legislative agenda, including the following major topics of concern:

1) A recognition that systemic change is essential to tackle the backlog/wait time crisis, including the adoption of fast-tracking protocols and a form of automatic entitlement. As stipulated in the recent Auditor General’s report and the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report of 2020, it is self-evident that increased temporary staffing and augmented digitization alone are not sufficient to resolve this ongoing problem. It is to be noted that the recent position paper we produced entitled “Auditor General slams VAC for totally unacceptable backlog and wait times for veterans’ disability claims” (which has been published in Esprit de Corps in its individual chapters over the last five months) contains the essential elements of our proposals to alleviate the backlog/wait time debacle sooner than later.

2) Our fundamental proposition that veterans’ legislation should equate to a “one veteran – one standard” approach. We have strongly recommended that the best parts of the Pension Act and the New Veterans Charter should be utilized to produce a comprehensive pension and wellness model for all disabled veterans, regardless of where or when they were injured.

3) The marriage after 60 dispute and our demand that the so- called “gold digger’s clause” be eliminated from the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act after many years of advocacy. It is noteworthy that the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs (ACVA) recently carried out an extensive study of this longstanding grievance and we are expecting a strong set of recommendations from the committee as Parliament reconvenes this fall.

4) With reference to the extremely concerning issue of military sexual trauma within the CAF, we will continue to press the government to fully implement without further delay the salient recommendations contained in the report of Madame Justice Arbour. We do welcome the recent appointment of an independent external monitor mandated to oversee the implementation of the Arbour recommendations. We remain concerned, however, by the lack of a timeline to adopt the balance of the 48 recommendations contained in the report.

5) Replacing the present Caregiver Recognition Benefit by revitalizing the traditional concept of Attendance Allowance as to eligibility criteria from the Pension Act, together with the Department of National Defence Attendant Care Benefit as to the minimum amount payable to informal caregivers to better recognize and more generously compensate them for their significant effort and economic loss in supporting injured veterans. We will also seek the creation of a new family benefit for all veterans in receipt of Pain and Suffering compensation to parallel the Pension Act provisions in relation to spousal and child allowances, so as to recognize the impact of the veteran’s disability on his or her family.

6) A reform of the Last Post Fund legislation necessitating a recognition of the fact that families of seriously disabled veterans should receive this funeral and burial grant as a matter of right.

7) The establishment of a Career Impact Allowance for life based on the future loss of income strategy employed for many years by the Canadian courts in lieu of the current VAC Income Replacement Benefit or the CAF SISIP income policy. The fundamental principle that should be followed by the department lies in the monetary evaluation as to what the disabled veteran would have earned in their military career if they had not been injured.

8) A full revamp of the Diminished Earnings Capacity post-65 policy so as to establish a formula which does not reduce the amount of the income replacement from 90 percent to 70 percent (of 90 percent) at age 65, with accompanying setoffs. It is quite clear that the financial requirements of a seriously disabled veteran in receipt of Diminished Earnings Capacity do not decrease at the age of 65 and the parallel to private pension plans, as often posited by VAC, is not an acceptable justification for this reduction.

We continue to work with the new Deputy Minister, Paul Ledwell, and the recently restructured hierarchy of VAC in an ongoing crusade to produce greater reform for Canadian veterans and their families.

Based on recent meetings with senior officials of VAC, we are somewhat encouraged that the department is indicating an open door to further dialogue which at least allows a further evaluation of these priority legislative concerns. Unfortunately, it is too often the case that the bureaucracy tends to default to a defensive position of upholding the status quo. Notwithstanding this fact, we remain committed to achieving further advances on our overall legislative agenda beyond the incremental progress that has been accomplished to date.

VAC, however, must recognize that time is of the essence for Canadian veterans and their families who continue to wait for this fundamental legislative reform so as to allow them to better cope with their service-related disabilities and injuries.

Our NCVA Legislative Program 2022-23, recently adopted by our 68 member-organizations, sets out the essential components of our agenda as we address Parliament, Veterans Affairs Canada and the Department of National Defence: www.ncva-cnaac.ca/ en/legislative-program/