The Quest for Control in Canadian Defence Policy: The Evolution of Defence Management and Organization, 1963–1972

Abstract

This study examines the evolution of Canadian defence organization and administration from the integration and unification of the Canadian Forces, starting with the arrival of Paul Hellyer as Minister of National Defence in 1963, to the full integration of military and civilian staffs at National Defence Headquarters in 1972. It seeks to understand the underlying defence management philosophy by explaining the evolving decision-making process and how and why certain management techniques and organizational concepts came to be embodied in the policy process. The goal of this work is to gain insight into not only the management of defence but its relationship to, and place within, general organization and management theory. The idea of rationalizing the business of defence lies at the heart of the history of the reorganizations in the 1960s and early 1970s. Management and organization were arranged to allow defence decision-making to become a more rational process, characterized by new degrees of control, in order to aid the overall effectiveness of the policy-making process. Overall, there existed a progression of administrative and management rationalization that had been occurring not only in the post-Second World War era, but since the turn of the century, both within and without the public sphere. While there was much to be critical about unification and the general defence policy vision of Hellyer, the evolution and development of modern management techniques in defence during the 1960s can largely be situated within an ongoing history of bureaucratization and management evolution of large scale organizations in general and military organizations in particular.