I would say that each nation puts out a plan. The Americans call it a quadrennial defense review. Other nations put out a white paper. I think what we have in the Canada First defence strategy is not only an overarching plan in terms of a strategy, but also a bit more detail in the investment plan that allocates resources between those four pillars, which I've found very useful.
Also, it lays out the plan over 20 years. Everything we do in defence is long term. Our investment in any one of those four pillars is over the long term. I cannot go onto the street and hire a sergeant, hire a major, hire a colonel. If you want a sergeant with 10 years of experience, it takes 10 years. We have to make the investments over the long haul and that's where I think the Canada first Defence strategy has really been magic. Very few other countries have done that.
In terms of readiness, nations normally keep their readiness statistics and metric and measures secret. So in regard to benchmarking with other nations, I would say that you normally don't hear about something until something goes wrong. For us, while we are interested in others, we find that a lot of countries don't want to share.
I would say that one of our real strengths is our investment in people and training. Here I refer to rigour with which we put our people through training, the high standards that we hold people to, the opportunity for professional development and, indeed, the fact that we try to keep our people as long as we can. We have a low attrition rate so that we can capitalize on the long-term investment in these men and women. Because of that, I would say man for man and woman for woman, we are as good as, if not better, than many others around the world.