Col. Moar welcomed as Wing Commander

Col. Dave Moar, left, accepts the position of Wing Commander from Col. Paul Doyle, right, as Brigadier-General S.T. Boyle, middle, presides during the parade.

4 Wing air base in Cold Lake welcomed their Wing Commander on Wednesday.

The change of command parade presided by Brigadier-General Sean Boyle officially made Col. Dave Moar Wing Commander of 4 Wing.

Col. Paul Doyle leaves for London, England as the RCAF Air Advisor with the Canadian Defence Liaison Staff and as the Canadian Defence Attaché to Iceland.

Col. Moar arrived in Cold Lake in 2003, but had experience in Cold Lake as a cadet in the 1980’s.

He achieved the rank of colonel in 2018 while studying political science at the National Security program.

He’s seen the importance of the base in the community increase over his time at 4 Wing.

“The way that this community comes together on issues on improving itself is absolutely amazing,” said Col. Moar.

“The base, the city, the municipality or the Municipal District, and then all the industry partners in the economic drivers in this area, and our local First Nations, always seem to come together with an aligned vision and we get impressive things done.”

Colonel Dave Moar assumes command of 4 Wing Cold Lake as the 30th Wing Commander.

He has served in a variety of command and staff roles throughout his career, most recently serving as the Senior Staff Officer Fighters at 1 Canadian Air Division in Winnipeg.

He will be involved in a transition phase for the base as the Canadian fleet anticipates a new fighter jet in the next decade and extensive upgrades to facilities.

“There’s going to be significant change here at 4 Wing across the board. Whether we’re talking about the missions that we’re capable of doing, I think we’re going to stay fairly static, but the infrastructure to support those missions,  the implementation of a new fleet of aircraft is going to be a massive, massive challenge for us,” said Col. Moar.

“We’ve got great support from Ottawa and from Winnipeg, they are operational headquarters, and then our strategic headquarters in achieving those goals.”

Col. Moar mentioned the dangers of the current political climate during his speech.

“What I mean by that is combat-capable forces, people representing Canada’s interests anywhere in the world. So when you look at the world and the geopolitical situations in the world, if you look at increasing instability in certain regions, if we look at conflicts that are difficult to predict, and we look at challenges to Canada sovereignty over the next, let’s say, decade or two, the role of 4 Wing is only going to become more important.

“We know that 4 Wing is going to be a future fighter base location when that decision is made. When those jets start to arrive, we’re going to continue to use those aircraft to protect Canada sovereignty and out of North America through our NORAD agreement,” he said.

“I only see Cold Lake’s importance increasing, both from the current missions, the importance of those missions and the complexity of those missions as well.”

He said Col. Doyle gave him some outgoing advice – have fun with the job.

“He said there’s a lot of challenges here. But the nice thing about the fighter force is that even our problems are cool.”