Director RCEME
Colonel Daniel Fontaine joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1999 under the Regular Officer Training Plan. He pursued a degree in Mechanical Engineering at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston and graduated in 2004. He then completed his officer training in the Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Corps in the Fall of the same year.
His first posting was as an exchange officer with the British Army’s 32 (pronounced “three-two”) Armoured Engineer Regiment in Bergen-Hohne, Germany. During those 2 years, he was the maintenance Light Aid Detachment second in command. He deployed to the region of Basra in Iraq in October 2005 for a six-month operational tour where he was employed first as a reconstruction officer and then as the maintenance officer for the regiment deployed.
On return to Canada in 2007 and upon promotion to the rank of Captain, Col Fontaine was posted as Maintenance Officer of 1st Battalion Royal 22e Régiment in Valcartier and then as G4 maintenance for 5 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group. In 2009, he deployed with Task Force Kandahar as J4 Operations and Planning in the Tactical Operation Center. Upon his return, he was appointed as the Operations Officer for 5 Service Battalion in Valcartier. In the spring of 2011, he took part to operation LOTUS in response to the flooding of the Richelieu River in St-Jean as the Forward support group commander.
Promoted to major in 2012, he was employed as the Production Program Leader of 202 Workshop Depot in Montreal. In 2014, he was nominated as the Officer commanding Regimental Coy at the RCEME School in Borden. He then completed the Joint Command and Staff Programme at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto and acquired a Master in Defence Studies. Upon promotion to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in 2017, he was employed as the Leopard 2 program manager within the Director General Land Equipment Program Management, and then as the Canadian Army G4 Plans in 2019. In May 2021, he became the 29th Commanding Officer of 5 Service Battalion, and deployed as the Commanding Officer of the National Support Element for Op REASSURANCE in Latvia. Back in DGLEPM, he was employed as DLEPS 3 and COS of the RCEME Corps. Promoted to its current rank in January 2025, Col Fontaine briefly became the Project Manager for the Armoured Combat Support Vehicle project, and then selected as the Director Armoured Vehicle Program Management and Director of the Corps of RCEME.
Col Fontaine was born in Sherbrooke, Québec, he is the happy father of three children, Louis-Félix, Marianne and Aurélie. He lives in Cantley with his girlfriend Élyse Lalonde. He enjoys running, cycling, snowboarding and he practiced Taekwondo for numerous years.