Sorry ...you can blame PET for a lot including ushering in the decades of darkness...but the "distinctive" green uniform and approach to a single set of rank badges etc... to it came with Lester Pearson and the architect/designer of the green was the CDS at the time...JV Allard...
The green uniform was actually introduced to the public circa 1966, which was before JV Allard becoming CDS. The actual architect is lost in the mists of time, but it probably originated in one of Paul Hellyer's circle of
toadies advisers. It was a logical extension of the amendment to the NDA which came into effect at the end of February 1968 and grouped us all into a single service. Thus, it was planned before the act was passed and promulgated. Edit to add: Allard became CDS in mid-1966, but I still maintain the single service uniform had been unveiled before then. Could he have changed the decision to go for a single uniform? Probably not, even if he had wanted to. I still maintain it was a political decision.
Allard, who was a large officer, embraced it and appeared in a CF green dress uniform at one of the last ceremonial parades herld by 4 CMBG in North Germany before the move to Lahr and Baden. Suffice to say, he looked like a pale version of Idi Amin, or maybe a Franco Herman Goering. If that does not give you an indication of what I thought about the whole bloody thing, you have not been paying attention.
