What I'll do, Mr. Chair, is give a quick answer to the first question, then turn it over to Commodore MacKeigan. We'll come back to the second one.
Having been intimately involved with what happens at recruit school, I'll answer your question as if Mr. Jack Harris were a recruit. I'll go through with you what would happen.
Just quickly, remember, people join the Canadian Forces probably for seven different reasons. You are right, some of it is career, some of it is security, some of it is because my parents were in the military, some of it is for the country and many other reasons. There are a lot of reasons why people actually join. The other one I'll have Commodore MacKeigan elaborate on.
Remember, if we enrol 7,000, it doesn't mean 7,000 will walk through the front door. It probably means closer to 25,000 to 30,000 will walk through the front door, of which we pick 7,000.
There was a newspaper article that I read, I think in the Citizen or the Post, that was incorrect. I was going to phone the reporter, but I kind of let it lie. It said the Canadian Forces had not met its targets. We had 30,000 people walk through the front door. We only picked those 7,000 or whatever, knowing that we maybe missed that target by 20 or 30 people.
If I'd wanted to get the target, I would have phoned him and said, “Push the button, bring more people in”, but that's not what we do. I want to make sure we have the right people in there, so it's only a point I would add.
I'll turn it over to Dan, who will elaborate on the recruiting piece.