https://declassified.library.utoronto.ca/files/original/1b6abdb8bc86505766e6ef90d60d9cb2.pdf 69d298d0a1b62b23b36b7aed27af5db4 PDF Text Text Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act Document divulgue en vertu de la Loi sur I'acces a f information • * SECRET MEMORANDU^LFORj Captain Worth 'Colonel Wrinch Group Captain Hendrick Mr. Crean Herewith is a copy of the draft report and covering letter to the Chiefs of Staff Committee on the question of whether all government telegraph traffic should be handled over Service facilities. This has been drawn up In accordance with the decisions reached at the meeting held March 7th when either you or your representative waa present. If the report, subject to drafting changes, Is generally concurred in by the members of the committee, there would appear to be no need for a further meeting* If, however, there Is disagreement we will arrange to convene at an early date. Please let me have your comments by telephone (Local 7073) as soon as possible* ^ °" . ^afcl \% w E.W.T. G i l l , Chairman. Privy Council Office, March 10th, 1947. 1 000211 �Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act Document divulgue en vertu de la Loi sur I'acces a (information «||LSECRET MEMORANDUM FOR CHIEFS OF STAFF COMMITTEE: , \,, Use of Service facilities for government telegraph traffic Submitted herewith is the report of the. ad hoc committee appointed to study the possibility of sending all government telegraph traffic over the communication facilities of the Department of National Defence, 2. The committee saw serious objections to making it mandatory that all government traffic should be hendled by the communications system of the Armed Forces. On traffic to the United Kingdom it would require special distribution arrangements, some increases in Service personnel and installations, aiM would conflict with existing arrangements entered into with the U.K. and other Commonwealth governments. On internal traffic the Services are not in a position to handle all government traffic without increases in personnel and either extending their present system or working out somewhat complicated accounting procedures with the commercial telegraph companies. 3. The committee was not able to present the financial implications of the scheme. They were of the opinion that it could not be justified on the grounds of economy since the corporation operating external services is to be government owned and one of the two commercial telegraph companies in Canada is now government owned. The diversion of traffic from these organizations would not, therefore, result in a direct saving to the government, 4. The committee noted that in present conditions^a^air volume of civilian government traffic is now/\Over the Service circuits and they see no reason why this practice should not be continued or even extended in cases where the service provided offers mutual advantages. The problems raised, however, in making this practice mandatory are out of all proportion to the benefits which would accrue either to the Services or to the civilian departments. E.W.T. Gill, Chairman. Privy Council Office, March 10th, 1947. \^Q 000212 �D R A T? T Document disclosed uh . . ____^^^^ Document divulgue en vertu de la Loi sur l^ccSfv^Unfouoatlonj, m SECRET MEMORANDUM FOR CHIEFS OF STAFF COMMITTEE: Use of Service facilities for government telegraph traffio I. INTRODUCTION 1. The Chiefs of Staff Committee at their meeting of February 4th appointed a committee to examine (into) and report on the possibility of using Service communication facilities for handling all government telegraph traffic: (a) between Canada and the U.K. (b) within Canada. Thooo are 'regarded as two distinct problems and aro dealt with ooparatoly horoundor, 2. This committee, composed of the Director of Signals of each Service, Mr, Crean of External Affairs and Mr. Gill of the Privy Council Office, has met and considered in a broad way the two distinct questions, and they report as follows. II. CANADA-UNITED KINGDOM; DESCRIPTION OF SERVICE PAGILITIEs 3. According to present plans the following facilities will be operated by the Services between Canada and the U.K.: * • (a) Oshawa to Foreign Office, U.K. - 8 channels multiplex 100 KW. Canadian end operated by Army, zc^yycy; jccy^d^-^j„*^^cc^Si^c^^-A^yt^j (b) Ottawa to Air Ministry, Stanbridge, U.K. - 6 channels single side band, 20 KV/. Canadian end operated by R.C.A.F. (c) Halifax to the Admiralty, U.K. - single channel teletype, 10 KW. Canadian end operated by R.C.N. / 4. Of these facilities the wireless station at Oshawa is to be transferred on April 1, 1947, from United Kingdom ownership (Foreign Office) to Canadian government ownership, and is to be operated by Army. The terms of this agreement are that the station should handle U.K. Foreign Office traffic, External Affairs traffic with the Ganadian High Commissioner's Office in London and with the Dominions Office, and traffic between the Office of the United Kingdom High Commissioner in Ottawa and the Dominions 0£f£ce. Its main purpose, however, is tc carry special Foreign Office traffic, i.e., Signals, Intelligence between Washington and London, and be Ottawa and London. The terms of the transfer doi 1000213 �Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act Document divulgue en vertu de la Loi sur I'acces a f information - 2include its use for other traffic. While the eight channels, which will be available when the new transmitter is Installed, might, at first sight, appear excessive, the standardizati'on of cypher facilities, which is taking place between the interested United States and United Kingdom authorities, will, it Is estimated, ensure full use of the eight channels for Signals Intelligence traffic , and traffic between the users outlined above. 1 jS^^ojAU^\^^pm(. 5, In view of the anticipated volume'of Signal Intelligence traffic, U.K. authorities-'have pressed for the use of two of- the six channels^isted in (b) and it is the present intention to reserfe 1 S ^ ^ f o r this purpose. In additionj one is needed -is a general reserve. All facilities listed in (c) are required for Naval Services and are unsuitable for general traffic. This leaves three channels available for general government traffic. These three channels have a combined capacity of approximately 40,000,000 groups per year, in each direction. Estimated volume 6, From figures available to the Committee it is estimated that the government traffic (excluding Armed Services) between Canada and the U.K. would perhaps total 7,000.000 word groups per year, made up of cypher code and plain languages messages. 7. Of this total a^prjD^imately 525,000 groups comprise the^ypher traffic /go^w^on External Affairs, on the one handj-^lid the Dominions Office and the Canadian High Commissioners Office on the other. This comprises almost the total cypher traffic to London originated by civilian departments as the only other civil department holding cyphers is the R.C.M.P. whose traffic is negligible. Effect of scheme on plan to nationalize external "' ! cdmmunications services " 8, As part of a re-organization of Commonwealth telecommunication services the Canadian government has agreed to nationalize their external services by acquiring the assets (excluding manufacturing) of Canadian Marconi Company and the facilities, in. Canada, of Cable and Wireless Limited. This plan, it is expected, will be carried out within the next two years. 9. The plan involves the pooling of surplus revenues by the Canadian corporation with a Commonwealth Telecommunication Board and after Canada*s share of the upkeep of the Board and any deficit arising from the operation of the cable system is borne, the net surplus would be returnable to the Canadian corporation. 10. The chief consideration which the Canadian government had in mind in agreeing to participate in this re-organization was to remove the causes of friction between the U.K. and the U.S. in connection with telecommunication and thus avoid a rate war which otherwise appeared likely. A secondary consideration was to bring this about without losing the great advantage of flexibility in the transmission of messages which the present system possesses. 00021 �Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act Document divulgue en vertu de la Loi sur I'acces a {'information - 311. The proposal to use Service facilities for all government traffic would divert some traffic from the national system but it is difficult to estimate the effect. There is no doubt, however, that the scheme would be regarded by the other Commonwealth governments as contrary to the spirit of the agreement reached by all Commonwealth governments with regard to the re-organization. Operational arrangements 12. Canadian government traffic destined for the U.K. would be handed into the Joint Signals Office at Defence Headquarters in Ottawa. This would be done either by domestic telegram transmitted over commercial or Service facilities or in the case of messages originating in Ottawa, \>y runner. sC*s-o-c*-^yA 13. The traffic «&34 be received in the U.K. at the Air Ministry Signals Centre, Stanbridge. From there arrangements would have to be made for its distribution to the addressee. This might possibly be done by: (a) relay to any point in the U.K. over their defence teleprinter network; (b) terminate one channel at Canada House, London, in lieu of Stanbridge; (c) terminate one channel in the proposed Services Joint Signals Office, London, 14. Arrangements such as those described in (a) above would require concurrence of the U.K. authorities and would probably be opposed as that circuit is at present restricted to military traffic only. The second alternative outlined in (b) above would require additional space l*y Canada House to accommodate the equipment as well as operating and distribution personnel. We understand that this space Is not presently available and would be difficult to secure. The third alternative outlined in (c) would require additional personnel to permit distribution of local messages and possibly some additional space which could probably be arranged in the new quarters of the Canadian Joint Liaison Officers, Either (b) or (c) involve financial accounting arrangements where messages are passed to civil telegraph company for delivery outside the London area., Conclusions 15. In the light of the above considerations, the committee concludes that: (a) the equipment capacity of the Service system would be adequate to handle all government traffic j (b) adoption of the scheme would require: (i) minor increases in Service establishments in Canada and substantial personnel increases in Joint Service Signals Centre, London; \V) 000215 �Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act Document divulgue,en vertu de la Loi sur I'acces a {'information ^ - 4(ii) concurrence of U.K. authorities who operate terminals in U.K.; and, (iii) arrangements for the distribution of messages ^at the U.K. end; Jol (c) the scheme would divert some traffic from the national corporation which it is proposed would be set up under the re-organization scheme, and it would be contrary to the spirit of the agreement made with the governments of other Commonwealth countries for the re-organization of the Commonwealth telecommunications; (d) the financial aspects of the problem cannot be reported upon without undertaking a detailed study; it is, however, appropriate to point out that if and when external communications are nationalized, any saving which might be brought about hy the present scheme would be largely nullified since the government will own the company operating the external telecommunications services; (e) the present scheme offers advantages to the Services in peacetime by increasing the volume of traffic handled and thereby improving the training value and general efficiency of their system; however, in the event of war or other emergency the Service traffic will inevitably be given priority and this might lead to the exclusion of other government traffic; and, (f) the principle of having the Department of National Defence provide services for civilian departments or to undertake activities which could be carried out under civilian auspices is one which appears contrary to government policy and which might well conflict with the interests of the, Armed Services; if the resources which are to be made available for defence purposes are to be calculated in the first instance by settling the amount of money available to defence, then the fewer commitments which the Defence Department has of a non-Service or extraneous nature the better. III. TRAFFIC WITHIN CANADA 16. The Department of National Defence is planning to operate the following telecommunication facilities within Canada* . , % {a) Army RaaSkTeletyfSS^Slem **" N V J T ^ y Q*<LU &f*£** {-b-}—Aagmy-ltlnft.,,Tp, 1 f&&$&~8y&temr« (c) Navy Landline (leased t e l e t y p e ) (d) Air Force Radio Teletype _(je4—^Aj?m^tuHajid--Spe«d-HrV'*E^^ 000216 �Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act Document divulgue en vertu de la Loi sur I'acces a (information - 5 17* The principal centres or areas served by this system are listed below: Summerside Goose Bay Sydney Halifax Dartmouth Greenwood Moncton Fredrlcton Quebec City Montreal Ottawa Kingston Toronto Oakviile, London Camp Borden Clinton Centralia Aylmer, Ont. Trenton Winnipeg Churchill Rivers Shilo Regina Edmonton Calgary Fort St, John Vancouver Victoria Fort Nelson Watson Lake Chilllwack Whitehorse Washington, D,C, plus Northwest Territories and Yukon Radio System extended through northern Alberta, Northwest Territories and Yukon, 18* The following places having a population in excess of 20,000 are not served by the. system: Charlottetown Three Rivers Sherbrooke Shawinigan Falls Oshawa Peterboro Niagara Falls St, Catharines Hamilton Guelph Kitchener Windsor Sudbury Timmins Sault Ste, Marie Fort William Port Arthur Moose Jaw Saskatoon New Westminster Traffic over service circuits ¥ 19. There were some 626,OQCrmessages transmitted over Service circuits in 1946,(oitywhich 469,000 were from the Department of National Defence and some 157,000 from other departments. A reasonable estimate of the volume, if all government traffic (to points served by the system) were put over these circuits, is that it would result in a volume of about 2,000,000 messages per year which is well within the capacity of the system. Operating arrangements 20. General government traffic is now accepted for transmission over the Service network if the point of destination is served by the network. If not it is handed on to one of the commercial landline companies at the point of origin. Government messages addressed to nongovernment organizations are permitted over the Service system but the latter may not originate a message. 000217 �Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act Document divulgue en vertu de la Loi sur I'acces a f information - 621. To provide a more complete service throughout the country it would be necessary: ^A^~~hl yi^^^'Jh^o (a) to integrate the operation to some extent with that of the landline companies/so as to permit the service system to accept/traffic to point nearest the destination and/the landline companies from there on; this would call for a fairly complicated accounting arrangement; or, (b) to extend the system when traffio oondltiona warranted to give more complete coverage; this would tend to build up a competitive system e£ landline companies, and lt is questionable whether this would be economically sound. Conclusions 22, In the light of the above considerations, the committee concludes that: (a) the equipment capacity of the Service system would be adequate to handle all government traffic to points served by the system; (b) the Service system is well suited for handling certain types of government traffic and is, in fact, doing so at the present time; '(c) adoption of the scheme to send all government traffic over the Service system would require either an expansion of the system to give complete coverage or a closer integration with commercial companies to arrange for the transfer of traffic between the Service system and the landline companies; (d) the financial aspects of the problem cannot be reported upon without undertaking a detailed study; it is, however, appropriate to point out that one of the two landline companies is government operated and the saving that would be brought about by the proposed scheme would In reality not be as great as figures would indicate; (e) adoption of the scheme would require increases in Service manpower at various centres across Canada, the extent of which could not be estimated without further detailed study; unless these increases.were permitted over and above present manpower ceilings, they would not appear to be In the general interests of the Services; and, (f) the principle of having the Department of National Defence provide services for civilian departments or to undertake activities which could be carried out under civilian auspices is one which appears contrary to government policy and which might well conflict with the 000218 �Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act Document divulgue en vertu de la Loi sur I'acces a f information 7 interests of the Armed Services; if the resources which are to be made available for defence purposes are to be calculated in the first instance by settling the amount of money available to defence, then the fewer commitments which the Defence Department has of a non-Service or extraneous nature the better. IV. RECOMMENDATIONS 23. The committee considers that Service facilities are well suited to handle certain civilian government traffic both to the U.K. and within Canada and notes that this is already in effect or is planned on a considerable scale. They see serious objections, however, in ruling that all government telegraph traffic will be handled by Service facilities. 24. They accordingly recommend that the present practice, whioh involves informal arrangements between., civilian departments and the Department of Naticnal Dofonoo, be continued on the present informal basis or be extended in individual cases where It is of mutual benefit. They recommend, however, against making it mandatory for all government traffic to be handled over the Service systems. Chairman. i 1^3 00021< � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Hydra Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context HY00025 Title A name given to the resource Memorandum for Chiefs of Staff Committee: Use of Service facilities for government telegraph traffic [draft] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 03/12/1947 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Hydra Communications - Policy, RG24, 1250-36 Vol. 1, Library and Archives Canada (LAC) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Department of National Defence Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Canadian Crown Subject The topic of the resource Canadian takeover of Hydra, DND, External Affairs, Oshawa Wireless Station, SIGINT, signals intelligence, government communications Description An account of the resource Memorandum and report from E.W.T. Gill (Privy Council Office) to Captain Worth, Col. Wrinch, Captain Hendrick, and G.G. Crean, External Affairs. Report details committee examination of feasibility of using Service telegraph facilities for all government telegraph traffic. Report finds this should not be made a mandatory requirement. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Canada Declassified Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource en