Before I move on to my next round of questions, I want to thank General Eyre.
I don't know if we'll have you back again before the end of the session and before you retire as chief of the defence staff. I want to thank you for the incredible service and leadership that you've provided during a difficult time in the Canadian Armed Forces.
We scanned through the defence policy update, and in no place do we talk about war footing. We know from the department's reports that only 58% of the Canadian Armed Forces is standing ready and can be deployed. The air force is in even worse shape, with 55% of its equipment unserviceable or unavailable. In the Royal Canadian Navy, 54% of the ships and crews are not deployable, and Vice-Admiral Topshee's video spoke to that. In the army, 46% of the equipment is unserviceable.
We talked about being 16,000 troops short, and we talked about 10,000 troops being undertrained and not deployable. Where are we at right now with the number of troops that we have in total as members of the Canadian Armed Forces? My understanding is that 15,000 people applied to be members of the Canadian Armed Forces and walked away because of the timelines for recruitment.