Breaking New Ground—Stories from Defence Construction Breaking_new_ground | Page 62

Priorities change
One of the key influences on DCL’s work in the 1970s
actually happened in 1969, when the government,
headed by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, announced
its new defence priorities. Sovereignty protection was
made the highest priority and peacekeeping was the
lowest. As a result, Canada’s NATO commitment was
cut in half, from 10,000 to 5,000 troops, and plans
were made to reduce the Canadian Forces themselves
from 110,000 personnel to as few as 80,000.
This affected equipment choices, particularly in the
naval and air force branches, and, in a domino effect,
many of the activities needed to support DND—
including maintenance and construction. The 1970
White Paper titled Defence in the Seventies laid out many
of the resulting changes—and then the oil crisis of the
early 1970s hit, followed by an inflationary economic

period. Oil prices increased, causing construction and
labour costs to rise and affecting the design of buildings
for years to come. It was a lot to deal with.

DCL on loan
DCL’s assistance to foreign aid projects was formalized
in 1970 through an agreement with the Canadian
International Development Agency (CIDA), which had
been created in 1968. At the time, CIDA was involved
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with a construction program that included university
buildings, schools and prefabricated school buildings
as part of Canada’s contribution to the Commonwealth
Caribbean Assistance Plan. DCL provided technical and
administrative assistance to CIDA for projects under this
Plan that were worth $6.5 million.
Specialist personnel from DCL were also on loan to
other organizations at this time, including the Department
of Public Works, the Department of Regional Economic
Expansion, the Post Office, the Ministry of Transport
and Telesat Canada, on projects that included what
would become Mirabel and Pearson International
Airports. As the 1970s progressed, construction
volumes again began to increase and DCL’s need to
loan out its personnel diminished.
Regrouping, reorganizing
In the early 1970s, DND reorganized the Construction
Engineering (CE) branch and also created the National
Defence Headquarters in Ottawa (joining the CF
Headquarters and civilian staffs). Under this structure,
military engineer functions at NDHQ were organized
similarly to before unification: each of the three functional
commands (land, sea and air) had a senior military
engineer. These changes meant that some of the joint
procedures and policies needed to be changed as well.
BREAKING NEW GROUND
DEFENCE CONSTRUCTION CANADA