Thank you, Madam Chair.
Being a million-miler with Air Canada, I should focus on the pilots, I guess, and make sure they're doing their job properly, but I'm going to focus on our folks here from the military.
General, you did lead into a bit about what it would take for the military to change the present situation in order to test everybody for each job they have and make sure they are capable. The fact that your mandate is dictated to the military from the government and the tasks that we ask you to perform can change very rapidly, whether they involve getting ready to go to Haiti tomorrow or getting ready to go to Afghanistan for 10 years, or doing the job we ask you to do...you have to be ready to do that and the training that goes into that.
I know from experience, from going to where our troops are deployed, that whatever job they are doing, whether they are a mechanic, a clerk, or whatever, or whether they're in a combat unit, they all carry a weapon. They all have to use it, and they all better be ready to use it and be capable of doing so. That aspect of what you indicated is important.
I just want to zero in on the safety concerns there would be for the armed forces if this bill were implemented, and also on your ability to recruit and retain at a level to replace.... I don't know if there's a bubble in the military the way there is in the rest of the working world, such that in the next number of years there's going to be a large number of people leaving and you'll have to be ready to fill those vacancies or be able to still carry on the mandate, whether or not you fill the individual job or whatever.
Maybe you could just talk a bit about that and the safety concerns it would create for our men and women in uniform, and also the ability to replenish and recruit.