Public Accounts committee  Oh, absolutely. We're trying to find out.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, we are. Yes, absolutely.

Public Accounts committee  If their unit got their papers in order, the time should be just five days for a component transfer.

Public Accounts committee  That used to be the case. That is no longer the case.

Public Accounts committee  That's been fixed.

Public Accounts committee  Exactly.

Public Accounts committee  That particular comfort zone changes as we get larger, because we will want to have a little more attrition, and as we continue to expand, we're going to bring in more people. Let's say, for example, that we are going to stay at 70,000, then obviously our recruiting intake has to come down a bit to a sustained level to meet our attrition expectations.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I think the confusion emanates first from having a government policy in 2005, and then we had a change of government. The policy continued, but it changed slightly, so we were going to grow even larger than first anticipated. At that point we were around 62,000, so that's where the 13,000 comes from—to grow to 75,000.

Public Accounts committee  The process begins, of course, with an interest and with stating that interest at a recruiting centre by speaking, obviously, to a recruiter. What the recruiter will then do is inform you that you require certain information that is to be brought back to or provided to the recruiting centre so they can complete the formal application process.

Public Accounts committee  We have had a problem in the past with security clearances, and it has really been a function of capacity. We haven't had sufficient resources devoted to that task to do all the screening and clearances in a timely manner. We have put in extra resources and extra people, and we have actually changed some of the methods we're using for security screening to improve that process.

Public Accounts committee  There might be some confusing information out there with respect to what our actual commitment to the government is at the moment. Our commitment is to achieve a regular force of 70,000 by the year 2010, and we are on track to do that. As I mentioned earlier, for total paid strength in the Canadian Forces, we just eclipsed 64,000.

Public Accounts committee  The recruiting measures we put in place now.... As we start to develop the recruiting system and add people to our recruiting centres and to our training system, the entire system will need to be able to adapt and withstand the number of people coming into the Canadian Forces. Otherwise, we will run into the issue of people waiting a long period of time before they're trained and employed.

Public Accounts committee  I give you my word that it is. The fact of the matter is that we do spend a lot of time focusing on minority groups within the Canadian Forces, whether they are visible minorities or within a minority group, being women. We are trying very hard to increase the proportion of the Canadian Forces beyond the 13% that we seemed to hit, and we're having trouble getting beyond that.

Public Accounts committee  We've been tracking the situation very closely, because there was an anticipation that our mission in Afghanistan may have an impact on the number of applicants. To this point in time, our applicants are up.... There doesn't appear to be any impact on what we're doing in Afghanistan.

Public Accounts committee  I was just uncertain as to what additional information—