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Lieutenant-General Wayne Eyre, Commander Canadian Army, talks about the Canadian Army's posture during the COVID-19 emergency and the launch of the Canadian Army Podcast.
This podcast is for and about soldiers of the Canadian Army.
Its primary goal is to provide them with useful information through thoughtful and open discussions that reflect their mutual interests and concerns.
Though soldiers are our primary audience, the topics covered on this podcast should be relevant to anyone who supports our soldiers or who has an interest in Canadian military matters.
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Lieutenant-General Wayne Eyre: Well I’m not sure that we are ever going to get back to a normal level of operations. In fact, I’ve heard it called the new abnormal.
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Lieutenant Adam Orton: Welcome to the Canadian Army Podcast, I’m Lieutenant Adam Orton and today we are going to be talking about the Army’s response to COVID-19. I’m here with Lieutenant-General Wayne Eyre, Commander of the Canadian Army. Good day sir.
LGen Eyre: How are you doing Adam?
Lt Orton: I’m great, how are you?
LGen Eyre: Excellent, excellent. Thanks for the opportunity, and thanks for your willingness to lead this effort and launching a Canadian Army Podcast.
Lt Orton: Thanks sir, it’s going to be a great first episode. And, we are hoping for many more. So, COVID-19 has kind of given us an excuse to kick off this podcast. Why are we doing a podcast? And, why are we doing it now?
LGen Eyre: Well the environment that we find ourselves in with COVID-19 has provided us an opportunity to experiment with different forms of communication. As we’ve realized as we’ve gone through this emergency communication and the need to over communicate is so important.
I’m a big fan of podcasts myself, I subscribe to many. It’s a great way of absorbing information, while you’re concurrently doing something else. Whether it’s PT, whether it’s driving, it’s a great way to further your own development and knowledge. And so here in Army headquarters we’ve been using a number of different methods to get the word out and to pass on key messages, and the podcast is just another tool in a tool box that we want to experiment with.
So, I’ve instructed the Army public affairs team here to make sure this podcast appeals to the broadest range of members of our Army. Whether its regula,r reserve officers, NCO’s, NCM’s, Anglophone, Francophone, family members, spouses, kids, retired members, all a part of our extended Army family. So this is a big audience to reach and not every episode will be specific to that audience. However, we hope to get a good enough spectrum of different episodes that there will be something of interest to everybody. And some of these episodes will be tailored to specific groups.
And so I just want to highlight that, especially now, during this time of crisis with COVID-19, it is so important to over communicate. And this is just another venue for us to pass on messages, and allow those out there who are physically distancing to remain connected to our Army.
Lt Orton: I find it really interesting that you mention kind of the new mechanisms of communication, and kind of the over communication that’s been taking place. And, we kind of see that in how the interactions have changed between the chain and command. And, now, you know, members on the ground level are receiving communication directly from the top, either from the CAF or the Army level. How do you feel about that change in the way we communicate? Do you think that has an impact on the chain of commands' capacity of doing what they need to do? Is it better to be able to have those direct coms?
LGen Eyre: So I can see both sides of the argument here, but this is really nothing new as those at the top level have always put out, whether it’s speeches, or other forms of communication. And a podcast is just another form of that communication and is not a substitute for the chain of command, which absolutely has to take primacy. So, as I mentioned, in times of crises we need to over communicate. And I’m a believer that the more times you hear a message through different forms, the more likely you are to internalize that message.
So our podcast, our videos, our other online messaging are just meant to supplement and help explain our overall intent, and there is nothing wrong with that. And leaders at all levels should not be threatened by that. And what we pass out at this level is more intent. There can be some specifics that are part of that message but, generally, its overall intent, that commanders at every level, as orders are filtered down the chain of command, they scale those orders and they make them applicable to their local set of circumstances. So, there should be no incongruence between what the CDS says, what I say, what gets passed down to division commanders, and then applied by the chain of command down the chain. And so the chain of command always has primacy here. So once again, social media, podcasts, the like, they are all meant to complement, and not compete with, the chain of command.
Lt Orton: And that makes a lot of sense, because, you know, there is definitely a difference between issuing orders, and having, you know, a regular kind of conversation like we are having where we can talk about ideas. And it’s good for, from my perspective anyways, it seems good that, you know, troops also get to be involved and witness the conversation that takes place before a 17 page Op order gets dropped or something along those lines.
So the current state as it is for COVID-19 for the Army and kind of our emergency response to it, we’ve kind of adapted our communication methods, but we’ve done a couple of other things also, you know, non-critical staff, are not coming into work, bases have been partially shut down, people are working from home now, which is something that is a relatively new evolution and even things that have been kind of a constant within Army life such as active postings, or APS, for people that have never heard that term before, is being extended even into October now. Are you happy with the way that the Army has been responding to this?
LGen Eyre: I’m very happy with the way the Army has responded to this unprecedented situation. Back in January and February we had no idea as to the magnitude of this. And there are still significant uncertainties out there. So by putting a large portion of the Army on stand-by to support Op LASER, and forming virtual, or assemble task forces, has been, in my view, a success. Now, we haven’t been called upon to provide the large number of forces that were a potential back at that time, but we’re not out of this yet. Likewise, the climate has cooperated, so we haven’t seen the flooding that we’ve seen in previous years. And so we have been very lucky, from that perspective. But, that being said, we have stood ready. Ready to respond, and we remain in that posture.
I am also very happy that the force protection measures that we put in place have been well adhered to. If you take a look at the infection rate of COVID across the Army, we are significantly lower than the rest of the population. And that shows to me that what we’ve put in place for health force protection is working and we’ve got to keep it up. Now I know with Op LASER we’ve been surprised with some of the tasks that we’ve received so far. Very non-traditional ones for an organization that is optimized to close with and destroy the enemy. But that being said, we are putting on this uniform, subjects us to ultimate liability. Part and parcel of which is conducting all operations that the government deems appropriate for us. And so, whether it’s going overseas and doing our nation's bidding, or back home protecting Canadians, that is our role. Our soldiers have embraced the spirit of service above self, the spirit of community service. And I'm extremely proud of the work that our members are doing.
But this pandemic has had a huge impact on our country and our army. And we’ve taken extraordinary measures to deal with it. We ceased training, we significantly cut down on the number of headquarter staff that were coming into work. To the degree possible, we’ve been teleworking; working from home using technology. But this is having an impact on our readiness, and we do need to get back to ensuring that we are ready to respond to all contingencies. Our posting plot has very much slowed down, and so posting messages are flowing now. Very shortly we are going to get some direction out on conduct of house hunting trips and how the posting season will unfold. And it will be a long posting season. It’ll go right up until December to make sure we can move in a safe and well-disciplined manner. So this is an unprecedented situation, at least during the time that we’ve served, and there are lots of unknowns. And so going through this is going to take a degree of patience to deal with the inevitable frustrations that are out there.
Lt Orton: Sir, you made a comment, and maybe you would be willing to expand on that. I know most troops are familiar with the concept of unlimited liability and kind of it’s always in the back of our minds as we do our tasks and duties that we can be exposed to greater risks than the average person. Can you just elaborate a little bit on that for perhaps civilians who may not be familiar with that concept, what that means?
LGen Eyre: Yes. We put this uniform on. We are expected to serve our country. And, in many cases, that means undertaking tasks or missions that put ourselves at risk for the greater good. That’s all about service, that’s all about service to this country. To make sure that our national interests and values are protected. And, most of all, our people, our citizens, are protected here at home.
Lt Orton: Great, thanks. So, we are kind of in this emergency mode right now. Again, we’re kind of preserving the force as you mentioned. Eventually, we are going to have to resume our normal level of operations. What is that process going to look like for us?
LGen Eyre: Well I’m not sure that we are ever going to get back to a normal level of operations. In fact, I’ve heard it called the new abnormal. But we are putting significant planning into getting the machine going again. And, I expect to get orders on this over the course of the next week or so. But this is going to change the way we do business significantly. But as we get back to ensuring our routine functions are able to get done, we are going to take a very disciplined and incremental approach to ensure that our readiness is protected and is built, maintained, and our forces are able to go off and do what we are needed for, whether that is overseas or here at home. So that is readiness to fight an adversary on short notice, that's readiness to conduct domestic operations, that is readiness to go do the variety of missions that we expect overseas.
So where does that readiness come from? Well, it’s rooted in our doctrine, but it's built through training, through ensuring our equipment is ready, and through making sure we've got people in the right place to do the work. We are an essential service for the protection and the defense of Canada, and we have to view ourselves as such. So as we turn the machine back on, I like to use the analogy of an NHL team; you know, very appropriate for us as Canadians. And you think of an NHL team that is about to compete in the playoffs, but all of a sudden, gets shut down. Gets sent home. Some of them get employed on other tasks, filling sandbags for example, but they're not skating, they're not, for the most part, interacting face-to-face with their teammates. So after several months, they are rusty. Their timing is off, they may have forgotten the plays from their playbooks. So you wouldn’t expect them to get right back on the ice and play a playoff game. There is going to be work to do to get them up to that level. They need to train individually, and they need to get their skating and stick handling, and puck handling skills, back to standard. They need time to do this as individuals, as a group, and as a team. But also, the rest of the machine has been not at work. So, the coaching staff, all of the support staff, their medical staff. And then the pipeline, the farm teams that provide them the additional players, they have not been playing or generating players either. So that system has to be turned back on. So you can see there is a huge analogy, very appropriate analogy for what we do in the Canadian Army, to be able to answer the call in this dangerous, volatile, and unpredictable world.
So we have got to be smart about how we do this. There’s got to be a deliberate phase and prioritized approach to how we do this. We are looking at doing this in a number of steps. And of course this is going to be in a COVID active environment, so we've got to have the force health protection measures in place. So what we are doing right now is making sure that we have the conditions in place. The training, the drills, the planning, to be able to resume the machine. And that is going to be the second stage, is we have a gradual return to work, more and more people into the workplace observing these measures. Undertaking some of the prioritized functions that we need to accomplish. After which, and I expect the time between the second phase and the third phase, or the second stage and the third stage, to be relatively short. We’re going to start our individual training. We have got to get the training machine, personnel production pipeline, going again to ensure that we’ve got the personnel strength. So our BMQ’s, our DP1’s, our PLQ’s, both on the regular and reserve side, to ensure that we’ve got the people.
We’ve got to continue to grow junior leaders, and you’re going to see a focus on that carry on into the fall as well. I’m very, very keen on getting our reserve individual training going again. It’ll be a much more decentralized matter, across the country. But we’ve got many non BMQ qualified recruits out there that we can’t employ on Class C that we need to get trained so that they themselves can be employed, and we can continue to grow our reserves. You know, likewise, on the regular force. We have many who are personnel awaiting training that we need to get back on to their DP1 training so that they get qualified. As we restart the Canadian forces leadership and recruit school in St. Jean as well, you know, given the COVID environment some of that BMQ training will have to be decentralized. And we are actively looking at how we are going to do that as well. To bring some of that BMQ training into the Army.
But this approach is going to be conditions based, and is going to be a-symmetric across the country, as local situations dictate. So you can see training restart, you can see our business restart, in some parts of the country, whereas in others, it may lag a little bit. We've got to have the battle drills in place. If we have a second wave, if we have a resurgence of COVID infections, what immediate actions do we need to take in case we have infections in some of our student body, and some of the candidates going through courses? How do we immediately isolate them to preserve the force protection, preserve the health of the rest of the group, so we can continue on with that training? This is really going to be that new abnormal. So the drills that we have, the force protection measures that we take, the physical distancing, that is all going to continue. So our medical experts, the Canadian Army surgeon, they have all played an integral part in developing this plan. And, we are going to do everything we can, to keep our military, and civilian staff, safe as we build this readiness.
Lt Orton: Now you made a mention earlier on also of being ready and having that level of readiness. Pretty much, there's not a soldier in the world that hasn’t stood around in a circle at one point and discussed the philosophy of how the military works. And I think one of the challenges we face on an on-going basis is kind of the uncertainty of the future. Whereas in maybe, for example, different organizations, would have a clear objective of what’s to happen next and how to get there. I kind of see from what you’ve been saying that we don’t always know what’s next. But, we must be ready to respond to what’s next.
LGen Eyre: That is absolutely true. So this uncertainty, in the bigger scheme of things, is not new. Military and our role, the Army and our role, has always faced a degree of uncertainty, because let’s remember, the enemy gets a vote. And whether that enemy is human, or viral in nature, we have to be able to respond.
Lt Orton: That’s right, the enemy always gets a vote. So sir, do you have any final thoughts for people out there listening, whether it be civilian, or military?
LGen Eyre: Yeah, I’ve got a couple final thoughts here. We’re going to be in this for some time, and so resiliency is absolutely critical. Take care of yourself, take care of your families, stay resilient, use this time to keep your immune systems strong with daily physical activity, good nutrition, good sleep, healthy social activities, where you can connect with your peers and friends as you can. This is going to take significant discipline and vigilance, which we are known for. So keep it up, stay disciplined, observe the health force protection measures, and be ready.
Lt Orton: Alright perfect. Well, thanks very much sir, I really appreciate you taking the time.
LGen Eyre: Thank you.
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Lt Orton: This has been the Canadian Army Podcast, if you like what you heard, please subscribe. Also, don’t forget our social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram, and don’t forget to leave that feedback. We’re going to try to make shows about things that you’re interested in. So if you have an idea, do not hesitate to shoot it to us, either through those platforms, or via the email address also listed in the podcast description.
Stay frosty.
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