IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM FORMATION
Cadet and Junior Canadian Ranges (CJCR) Headquarters and Regional staff have been diligently focused on planning in-person summer training for the first time in two years. The impact of the on-going pandemic has generated significant challenges across the world and our planners have been adaptive and innovative in adjusting summer training to this new reality. In-person summer training is scheduled to take place thanks to these on-going efforts.
To deliver our summer training, we rely on support staff in areas such as feeding, administration, health services, transport, and security to ensure cadet safety and the effective delivery of training goals. As we work to recover from the pandemic, Canada is faced with a nation-wide labour shortage and the CCO are not immune to its effects. We anticipated some staffing challenges, but the full extent has only recently become known.
We still intend to run 12 (National) in-person Cadet Training Centres (CTC) during summer 2022, but to ensure safety, our ability to meet training objectives, and the quality of experience for cadets, we have had to modify the number of available cadet positions to reflect current and anticipated support staff availability. This means some planned courses have been relocated and a limited number of courses have been cancelled.
The full extent of the impact of these changes is not yet known as plans are continuing to evolve. In some cases, cadets will be offered positions on courses at a location different than originally expected. In others, an in-person CTC experience for specific courses will unfortunately no longer be available. We continue to explore options to limit the impact to as few cadets as possible.
To determine how to modify our 2022 summer course offerings, several factors were considered including staff support requirements, cadet interest and demand, and the course’s role in overall Cadet development. Based on this analysis, six of the courses originally announced will not be delivered in-person at CTCs this summer. These courses are:
Music (Pipes and Drums) – This specialized course is supported by training at the corps and squadron level throughout the year. In addition, a low number of applications were received for 2022 and current demand requires more staff than cadet students. We are continuing to explore options to offer this course without CTC attendance.
Ship’s Boat Operator – A low number of applications were received in 2022 for this supplemental course which relies on the Whaler platform. After two years of limited on-water training, Sea Cadet summer training in 2022 requires focus on foundational Seamanship courses to qualify cadets for future advanced seamanship courses.
Leadership and Challenge – This supplemental course requires contracted advance training and specialized medical staff to deliver due to the intense, high-impact activities it includes. Due to staffing and contracting challenges, we are unable to offer this course in 2022.
Advanced Aerospace – This highly specialized course was delivered nationally at a single CTC. Due to limited staff support, the course is cancelled to ensure the successful delivery of core glider flying courses.
Aviation Technology and Aerospace – This introductory Air Cadet course does not lead into any follow-on courses currently in the Air Cadet curriculum. The decision was made not to run this course in 2022 to allow for a focus on fundamental aviation theory and flying training.
Cadet Administration and Supply Assistant – The decision was made not to run this trial course in 2022 to allow for better curriculum development and an enhanced training experience for cadets. As this is a trial course, it also does not directly support corps and squadron annual training.
We remain committed to delivering Cadet Activity Programs (CAPs) in communities across the country as detailed under the Cadet Program Rescope, and planning for summer 2022 CAPs is still on-going. Our initial planning focus has been on the more complex CTC details, but we anticipate having a fuller update on Summer 2022 CAPs soon.
Although we are not able to offer as many summer experiences as we originally announced, we all should be proud that for the first time in two years in-person CTCs and CAPs will take place. This year we may be limited to crawling, but we aim to walk and eventually run in the future.
More detailed information may be found at
www.Canada.ca/cadet-summer-2022.