There are nearly 18,000 members of the Canadian land forces. We provide 4,000 soldiers per year to foreign operations. This is a planning number. When we have a mission such as the one in Afghanistan, we adjust our figures so that we can achieve the operational objectives based on our capacities in Canada. So we deploy nearly 4,000 soldiers per year for one mission, the mission in Afghanistan. There are two rotations per year. We do more than just participate in foreign operations.
As I said at the outset, we are experiencing a period of growth, a period of transformation. We still have the responsibility of supporting the basic force in order to be able to participate in this type of mission abroad or in Canada over the next five to ten years. That all takes work.
All Canadian Forces are involved in these four tasks. As for the land forces specifically, these four tasks keep us very busy: support for generating forces, operations, transformation and growth.
As I said earlier, we need to expand the basic force. We want to increase the number of our units. Given the growth which is now allowed in the Canadian Forces, I am confident that we will be able to do this. Meanwhile, we always have to maintain a balance between the operations in Canada and those abroad.
So I will not tell you that those soldiers that we deploy are not ready.