Royal Military Colleges (feat. the Cadet Wing Organization)

A hot topic to start!

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A feature of life at the Canadian Royal Military Colleges, the Cadet Wing Organization gained visibility to the general public following the release of the report of the Independent External Comprehensive Review (a.k.a “the Arbour Report”) on May 30, 2022. In one of its most controversial recommendations (recommendation 28), former Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour calls for the elimination of the “Cadet Wing responsibility and authority command structure.”

Being new to the defence world – and French at that – I had never heard of its aspect of cadet life. And, to understand why Madame Arbour would like the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) to do away with it, it might be useful to know what it is, how it works, and the limitations of this organization.

Overview – Royal Military Colleges

To start, let me outline what the Royal Military Colleges (RMC) are. In short, RMC Kingston and RMC Saint-Jean are military universities: most students enrol into the military through the Regular Officer Training Plan and become Officers Cadets or Naval Cadets (we’ll go with “Cadets” for the rest of this in order to make things shorter). Upon graduation, Cadets receive the King’s Commission and become officers. This is not the only way for people to join the CAF to become an officer or to attend the RMCs, but we’ll cover that in another substackie.

There are four pillars to a Cadet’s education:

• academic (i.e., university education that will grant them a Bachelor’s),

• military (i.e., what we could call “professional training”: learning about the profession of arms and how to steward it, the specific duties of an officer, and develop leadership skills),

• bilingualism (i.e., the ability to communicate in Canada’s both official language, English and French)

• physical fitness (self-explanatory – it is about developing the physical aptitudes the CAF deems necessary for operational effectiveness)¹

The history of the RMCs dates back to 1874 and is quite complex, as their nature, place in the CAF’s structure and culture, as well as the educational requirements have changed a lot. I would give two dates that are important to remember in the context of the current debates around the RMCs:

• 1997: Following the Somalia Affair, Minister of National Defence Doug Young made the obtention of a undergraduate university degree a criterion to become an officer

• 2021: The National Assembly of Québec passes a law restoring RMC Saint-Jean as a university degree-granting institution.

The Cadet Wing Organization

The Cadet Wing Organization is contained within the Colleges’ Training Wing, responsible for the military pillar of a Cadet’s education, which includes “officership, physical fitness and drill.”

The Director of Cadets (who holds the rank of Colonel or Captain (Navy)) is responsible to the Commandant for the “conduct, supervision, discipline, and performance” of cadets heads the Wing; they receive support from officers, non-commissioned members, and civilians working at the Training Wing.

The Cadet Wing Organization is a subpart of the Cadet Wing. It includes a Cadet Wing Headquarter, which is led by a Cadet Wing Commander. The organization is broken down as such:

• four divisions, led by a Cadet Divisional Leader

  • three squadrons, led by a Cadet Squadron Leader

    • flights (number undetermined), led by a Cadet Flight Leader

      • sections (number undetermined), led by a Cadet Section Commander

The Cadet Wing Commander, the Cadet Divisional Leaders, the Cadet Squadron Leaders, and the Cadet Flight Leaders are fourth-year students; while the Cadet Section Commander is a third-year student.

One of the squadrons is called Otter Squadron and is for students enrolled under the University Training Plan for Non-Commissioned Members – Regular Force.

What is it for?

In her report, Madame Arbour compared the Cadet Wing Organization to the English “head boys” model (earnestly: when I first heard of the Cadet Wing Organization, the image of prefects at Hogwarts is the mental image that popped in my mind).²

This structure is meant to empower third- and fourth-year Cadets to gain hands-on leadership experience. Some of the Leaders/ Commanders responsibilities include “discipline, progress, and efficiency of the Cadet Wing,” the organization of the intramural sports program, and “typical service duties, such as Cadet Duty Officer (CDO)”

(I tried to Google that last part, without much success. I will try to find out more).

The stakes are high for the Cadet Wing Organization. With four pillars (academic, military, fitness, and bilingualism) directing a cadet’s education at the Royal Military Colleges, the program seems to bring it all together by offering hands on leadership experience to a selected few.

What’s wrong with it?

While on paper a great opportunity for selected cadets to gain hands-on leadership experience before getting their first command position, reality reveals a more dire situation.

First, the Training Wing – which contains the Cadet Wing Organization – lacks personnel and resources. Arbour described as “under considerable strain.”³ It appears that the Cadet Wing Responsibility lacks the necessary supervision and resources to adequately function.

Madame Arbour notes that stakeholders described the program as “children leading children” and “untrained leading the untrained.” On the other hand, some cadets referred to it as “responsibility without power.”⁴

The criticism does not lie only within the Cadet Wing Organization model itself (aside from Arbour’s view that the model is “outdated”), but in the larger culture of the Colleges. Some interviewed by Arbour’s team claimed that cadets learn very early on to circumvent rules and to keep tight ranks when being accused of inappropriate conduct. The culture and effectiveness of the RMCs have the subject of many reports since their creation, most recently by the Office of the Auditor General (2016) and the Special Staff Assistance Visit (2017). Statistics Canada released worrisome numbers about the incidence of “unwanted sexualized and discriminatory behaviours and sexual assaults” happening at the Colleges, and the 2021 misconduct crisis included several reports raising questions about the culture and the state of the leadership at the RMCs.

The report also mentioned the young age of cadets put in charge: one can become a Section Commander at the age of 20 or 21. If the culture is not rife for the healthy development of leadership skills, the Cadet Wing Organization can become a fertile ground for abuse of power.

Worried about the effects of such a program operating within the context of a culture deemed harmful (going as far as writing: “immaturity in the exercise of authority and power over others, real or perceived, is unlikely to contribute to the eradication of sexual misconduct that has taken root in the culture of these colleges,” p. 225), Arbour recommended the RMCs did away with this model.

Going further in her discussion of the role of the RMCs all together, Arbour’s follow-on recommendation reads:

“A combination of Defence Team members and external experts, led by an external education specialist, should conduct a detailed review of the benefits, disadvantages and costs, both for the CAF and more broadly, of continuing to educate ROTP cadets at the military colleges. The review should focus on the quality of education, socialization and military training in that environment. It should also consider and assess the different models for delivery university-level and military leadership training to naval/ officer cadets, and determine whether the RMC Kingston and the RMC Saint-Jean should continue as undergraduate degree-granting institutions, or whether officer candidates should be required to attend civilian university undergraduate programs through the ROTP.

In the interim, the CPCC [Chief Professional Conduct and Culture] should engage with the RMC Kingston and the RMC Saint-Jean authorities to address the long-standing culture concerns unique to the military college environment, including the continuing misogynistic and discriminatory environment and the ongoing incidence of sexual misconduct. Progress should be measured by metrics other than the number of hours of training given to cadets. The Exit Survey of graduating cadets should be adapted to capture cadets' experiences with sexual misconduct or discrimination.”⁵

A recommendation not as radical as many thought, but it still asks the military to reflect seriously on how it creates officers and if the colleges are fit for purpose as they stand.

Resources

Since I am not providing you with any analysis, here are some things for you to dig deeper:

• Richard Carrier, “Collège militaire Royal de Saint-Jean: 10 Years Later,” Canadian Military Journal (Winter 2006-2007), 40-44, http://www.journal.forces.gc.ca/vo7/no4/doc/carrier-eng.pdf

• Major S.T. Gagnon, “An Examination of Royal Military College of Canada as a Relevant Degree Granting Institution,” Exercise Solo Flight (Canadian Forces College, 2015), https://www.cfc.forces.gc.ca/259/290/317/305/338.pdf

• Dany Parenteau and J.O. Michel Maisonneuve, “Time to Reset the Canadian Military Colleges as Military Academies,” Vimy Paper 52 (October 2022), https://cdainstitute.ca/vimy-paper-vol-52-time-to-reset-the-canadian-military-colleges-as-military-academies-dr-danic-parenteau-lgen-j-o-michel-maisonneuve-retd/

I will build on this section as I find more

1. Arbour Report, 221

2. Ibid., 225

3. Ibid., 227

4. Ibid., 225

5. Ibid., 234