If I may put this in some strategic context, until about 1990 the Canadian Forces was deployed principally in Europe, in a footing that really can be best described as just-in-case. We maintained a reasonable size of forces. It varied, but at one stage it was upwards of 90,000. Through a succession of reductions we're now down to 62,000, but even that varies on a day-to-day basis.
In the same timeframe we have seen the tempo of the Canadian Forces, through the nineties into the 21st century, steadily increase. The train lines are going in the wrong direction, and we know that. As I sat here in uniform as a witness, I continued to be concerned. At that stage I said we faced an emerging demographic crisis, because not only did we have that problem, we had the additional problem--which I believe all of the committee members will understand--of the aging of the Canadian population. The pool from which we drew the recruits was getting smaller.
We could have had this discussion ten years ago, and in many respects the problem hasn't improved. That doesn't mean the Canadian Forces has not started to solve its recruiting difficulties, etc. An increasingly larger share of those who are recruited are replacing the ones who are leaving. We have the problem of regeneration of the forces we have today, let alone expansion of the capacity. Unless we can start taking a significant bite out of that expansion piece and make the forces larger, we're going to burn out those we're using, because we're using and reusing them at a high rate.
I think the ideal is to have a six-month tour for a soldier about every three years. When they're in hard combat or hard operations in a place like Afghanistan, even without a lot of combat, that's pretty demanding. We expect our soldiers to go there once every 18 months. They're home for less than a year and they're gone again. It's not sustainable.