CANAIRGEN 016/00 CAS 022 (151621z May 00)

DEFENCE PLANNING GUIDANCE (DPG) 2001 AND THE AIR FORCE

1. Over the last decade, all members of the Canadian Forces, including members of the air force family, have lived through continuous and intense reform and change while meeting their ever-increasing operational commitments. While there has been progress made in quality of life issues and capital equipment modernization, there are still sweeping organizational and institutional changes underway.

2. Along with the air force's capability renewal initiative (CRI), these changes are guided by two corporate-level cornerstone planning documents. The first is shaping the future of Canadian Defence: a Strategy for 2020 (Strategy 2020), the strategic framework for Defence planning and decision-making for the first decades of this century. The second is the Annual Defence Planning Guidance (DPG) document, which interprets Strategy 2020 and provides annual Departmental direction to Level 1s, including Chief of the Air Staff.

3. DPG 2000 provided significant departmental guidance to the air force, and the ramifications of that document are just now being felt by members of the air force. Formal direction from DPG 2000 saw a number of Aircraft fleets either reduced or eliminated, and the ASD process applied to the maintenance of the Cormorant fleet and the way we will train our pilots of the future via NFTC. In short, we saw the departmental theme of combining the sustainment of a combat capability with the need to moderinize our aging equipment

4. DPG 2001, like its predecessor DPG 2000, continues to demand difficult decisions from air force leadership in order to position the air force in a way that ensures its relevance, viability and sustainability, now and in the future. DPG 2001 requires a serious review of our look at infrastructure, with a goal of identifying a 10 percent reduction. It also calls for a strategic airlift and air to air refuelling capabilities study, and requires that the air force submitted by end of 2002 options for the continuation of the Snowbirds. Direction within DPG 2000 is not necessarily repeated within DPG 2001, however, all DPG 2000 activities, including the required personnel reductions must continue, even though the recent federal budget provided an increase in the Defence budget.

5. After a decade of intense institutional change, Defence has begun to turn the corner. The Department has made substantial progress in addressing a number of issues and challenges it faces, including Quality of Life improvements, a sweeping set of institutional reforms, communications, and capital equipment modernization. Though these initiatives have been important steps forward, more will have to be done in the near term to maintain our capabilities and relevancy into the future. The new funding provided by the recent federal budget provided some flexibility in this regard, but did not at all eliminate the need for many more hard choices. These choices will be guided by the vision of a proud, professional, combat capable air force, composed first and foremost of proud, professional, and combat capable people (supported by their families), who have the necessary capital equipment

6. Over the last year, the air force has been studying its fleets and capabilities in the context of the DPG 2000 direction that the air force contribute to future modernization by developing and implementing plans to reduce readiness and force structure. The results and recommendations from these studies will serve as inputs to the June 2000 CAS Force Structure Exercise (FSX). The FSX recommendations will then form the basis CAS Planning Guidance Direction expected to be released by end June 2000.