The reserves have never had such an important role as they do today. Again, under the Canada First defence strategy, the reserves will grow to 30,000. The fact is that thousands of Canadians are signing up each and every year in order to have a part-time career with adventure in the reserves. We are putting about 20% of each rotation into Afghanistan with reservists. Those individuals volunteer twice. They volunteer once to join the military; they volunteer a second time to go to Afghanistan. There's no reason compelling them to go. We have many reservists who want to go on repeat tours, and they're bringing home a wealth of experience.
I just visited Trois-Rivière a short while ago, the 12e Régiment blindé de milice, and their level of experience and expertise has grown over the past few years. Those young soldiers and officers are coming home with a wealth of experience in both reconnaissance and tank operations, and they are bringing that back and training the other soldiers. We have a new normal in the reserves, which is affecting the Canadian Forces from coast to coast.
Closer to home, we've now identified reserve units for the Arctic. They're getting experience going into the north on exercise. It's not a surprise that many units want to be identified as being Arctic units, because again they want to do something different.
In this current environment, we have a very high operational tempo, whether it be in support of the RCMP and the Olympics, Arctic sovereignty, or in terms of operations, not only in Afghanistan but in places like Sierra Leone and the Congo, the Middle East, and Haiti. When people put on this uniform, it means they want to go somewhere, and they bring home that experience and raise the level of expertise of the units even higher.