Military personnel from the 31 Canadian Brigade Group were in Owen Sound over the weekend for the quarterly Commanders Conference.
Deputy Commanding Officer of the Grey and Simcoe Foresters Major Paul Chafe says the conference welcomed members from across the province to the Tommy Holmes Armoury.
The Grey and Simcoe Foresters are the local regiment of the 31 Canadian Brigade Group, which is responsible for all of the reserve units across Ontario.
“We have about 75 in attendance, so it is all the command teams from the various units across the brigade. My unit, Grey and Simcoe Foresters, all the way down to the Windsor regiment, all the way up to Northern Ontario, the artillery unit of Sault Ste. Marie, so we cover all of that,” says Chafe.
He says the aim of the conference is to meet with the brigade commander and staff to align and coordinate on various activities.
“A couple of key ones are what we call Operation LENTUS, that is our be prepared task in case there is a national emergency,” says Chafe.
He says these can include various weather events including hurricanes, flooding and fires.
Additionally, he says the conference also touched on recruitment efforts, operations, as well as administration.
“Basically how we operate as an armed forces, how we are prepared to support the effort in Latvia, how we are prepared to support the various things the Canadian Forces does around the world,” says Chafe. “We do want to focus on recruiting to get our overall capability up across Canadian Forces.”
He says they have an upcoming exercise in at the 4th Canadian Division Training Centre in Meaford.
“We actually have a tactical exercise planned for this summer in August,” says Chafe. “That exercise focuses on what you classically think the army is doing, going out performing attacks, defences and military operations,” says Chafe.
He adds the conference is important as it allows members from the 31 Canadian Brigade Group to meet in person.
“Leadership for the armed forces is a personal thing. The world has kind of gone to remote work since Covid, we can’t do remote work. We have to gather face-to-face for the leaders to talk to each other, to understand the problems and we need to do that on a regular basis because that is where you generate the alignment,” says Chafe.