National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, once again, that's a good question. Those are red for a reason. I'll start with pharmacists. That's the simplest to explain. Pharmacists in the civilian world get paid a lot of money. My strategy to attract them is to meet people before they've started their training to be pharmacists.

National Defence committee  Yes. The gold standard I'd like to get to is to recruit and enrol someone and have them go directly to basic training, get a little bit of leave, and then go right on their trades training in order to minimize the gap between when they show an interest to join the Canadian Forces in a particular trade and when they actually start doing it.

National Defence committee  In a nutshell, people like to join the armed forces if they see people who look like them doing interesting things in uniform. So if I want to recruit from any group, I want to have young adults out in front of them who look like them. That doesn't necessarily mean visible minorities.

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, when an interested person comes into a recruiting centre, they see a standard customer service desk, like they'd see in any properly run establishment. We ask them why they're there, we thank them for coming in, and we invite them to sit down. Most people have an idea of what they want to do.

National Defence committee  Thank you. I am quite aware of the situation with the unions, which we were able to observe in the streets. I do not do any recruitment in high schools because those students are too young. In cegeps, we only provide information. I only run programs to give information; they're information sessions.