Yes, Ms. Idlout, I'd love to.
The Canadian Rangers have seen increases in their overall budget across Canada over the last 20 years. The experts from the Department of National Defence could provide you with the exact figures, but the operating budget for all five patrol groups is about $35 million, if I was a good listener.
They are currently undergoing a review, a Canadian Ranger enhancement program, which is following up on one of the commitments in Canada's 2017 defence policy, “Strong, Secure, Engaged”. I will quote it here, because the language was particular. It committed to “Enhance and expand the training and effectiveness of the Canadian Rangers to improve their functional capabilities within the Canadian Armed Forces.” What this emphasizes is a requirement to support the Rangers organization as a metric of success, not simply increasing numbers. Sometimes, there's a disposition to measure that things are better if they're bigger.
What I'm hearing from Nunavummiut, for example, is that it's ensuring investments going forward are providing Rangers with the training opportunities they require to make sure the Ranger instructors, who work with them at the community level, are able to do so on a regular basis.
There are also movements right now to revisit the equipment usage rate, which is paid to Rangers for using their personal vehicles and equipment while they're out doing official tasks as Rangers. This is something that Rangers, for the most part, very much appreciate, because by being able to invest that money in their own equipment, they don't have to ask permission to take it out when they want to go berry picking or fishing. They're using their own equipment, and the military almost pays them this money like rent. They're revisiting whether or not the amount is enough, and there's an expectation that the amount will go up.
Another very recent development is ensuring that Rangers qualify and are paid for isolation allowance, depending on which individual community they're in, to make sure that like anybody else working in those communities, their Ranger pay is supplemented by an acknowledgement of the costs of living in those individual communities.
Those are some of the either past investments or areas of focus right now. There has been quite a bit of investment in the junior Canadian Rangers program. This is a program supported by the Rangers. Junior Canadian Rangers are children between the ages of 12 to 18, very representative of the north and very representative of their communities in terms of who's joining. There's roughly an equal number of young women and men in the junior Canadian Rangers, which is also interesting. There's a significant investment, as well, in ensuring that the youth program, which is supported by the military, is flourishing.
I hope, Ms. Idlout, that addresses that question a bit.