On the regular force side, I need to hire another 2,000 to achieve the government's direction policy as part of the Canada First defence strategy. Remember, I could do that tomorrow morning. As probably many members of the committee are not aware, we have 30,000 folks who actually apply. We only take 7,000. It's not 7,000 for 7,000; there are 30,000 who actually apply.
There is a standard. They have to do a number of tests. It's an issue of ensuring that we have Canada's best. That is our aim. We could achieve the aim, but we want to ensure we have the best. Right now we're 2,000 shy of the target because we've had such great success. It's strong advertising and a streamlined recruiting process that gets people in.
I've said here before that I had a challenge at the end-of-training process in Saint-Jean. My challenge is that I have people showing up saying, “I didn't sign up to come in the military in 20 days. I saw somewhere that I'd get a call in six months.” We have sped this up so efficiently that we get people in very quickly.