Reinstatement of the Royal designations in the Canadian Armed Forces is a monumental blunder of historic proportions. The way to honour the gallant veterans who served in the Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal Canadian Air Force is to build monuments in memory of their exploits. It is not to turn the military clock back more than 40 years with unpredictable and inevitably costly consequences.

The government seems blissfully unaware of both the reasons for unification and its benefits. It came on the heels of the scathing report (1962-63) of the Glassco Commission on the wasteful duplication and triplication of the three services. One service would sell surplus supplies for pennies, while another bought the same item new.

Then there was Commodore James Plomer’s sizzling report indicting the navy for its preoccupation with pomp and ceremony at the expense of battle-readiness. Morale was at its lowest ebb since World War II. Some of this flowed from class distinctions inherited from the Royal Navy.

An extended tour of navy facilities confirmed Plomer’s concerns, and an early visit to the troops in Germany showed that the army was woefully ill-equipped for battle. The whole system seemed totally dysfunctional. In effect, the three services were run as private fiefdoms where decisions were too often based on the dreams of each, with scant regard for the best solution for the forces as a whole.

One example I saw as minister of defence in the Pearson government was a memorandum prepared by the RCAF when lobbying for the Argus aircraft for maritime patrol. At the top of the “secret” document was written, “This is our chance to screw the navy.”

The final straw, for me, was the revelation that the three services were planning for different kinds of wars ranging from a three-day nuclear conflict, to full mobilization similar to that of the two world wars. Clearly Canada needed a system where the military could thrash out the most likely probabilities, recommend them to the government, and then implement the plans in unison.

It was obvious at this stage that only a single service would solve the problems observed both in wartime and later. In World War II, the RCAF actually moved its headquarters to get away from the army. On the road to Falaise in 1944, the Third Canadian Infantry Division was attacked by the RCAF. The army couldn’t communicate with the airmen because their radios were not compatible.

I concluded that only by abolishing the positions of Chief of the Naval Staff, Chief of the Air Staff, and Chief of the General Staff and appointing a Chief of Defence Staff with control of the three services would the problems be eliminated. When this was done, good things began to happen.

The number of commands was reduced and hundreds of desk jobs eliminated. The forces were reorganized on a functional basis. The deputy minister, in co-operation with the CDS and senior officers from each element, proposed a 10-year plan for acquisition and development — the first in the history of the Canadian Armed Forces.

For eight years, Canada had the best military organization in the world and other countries were eager to follow — Sweden in particular. But after visiting Ottawa, and encountering so much negativity, they changed their minds.

In 1974 the government of the day unified the civil and military headquarters in Ottawa. That was a dreadful blunder — like mixing oil and water. It gave senior officers the excuse they had been looking for to re-establish single-service headquarters. This was the beginning of the unravelling of the hard-won benefits achieved by unification. The process has been continual except when Gen. Rick Hillier was in command.

My fear is that the current move will be perceived as licence to complete the process and that it won’t be long until the wheel will have gone full circle. All of the indisputable benefits of Canada’s noble experiment will be lost, and much, if not all, of the nonsense that was so much in evidence in the ’60s will be reborn.

Paul Hellyer was minister of national defence from April 1963 to September 1967.