Thank you, Chair and General Lawson.
First, I want to thank you for joining us today. You have had a very distinguished military career as a fighter pilot, as a military academic—I guess you could call it that—and as a leader in various functions: commandant of RMC, command positions in the forces themselves, and also, of course, most recently as a co-leader of our partnership in NORAD.
Congratulations on your appointment as Chief of the Defence Staff. It's a significant position and important to our nation. So thank you for your service to the military and for taking on this challenging role.
Let me start by talking about what the Prime Minister talked about on your installation. I was among the many who were there to hear what he had to say, but he only repeated what we'd already seen in the transformation report prepared by General Andrew Leslie about a year or so before. You're no stranger to transformation issues, having participated in 2005 and 2006.
Tooth to tail is the shorthand for it, but clearly what General Leslie suggested...and I know some things have been done—the change in command structure, for example, the one that you stood up back in 2006. If I can just paraphrase what he talked about in terms of reducing significant costs, particularly at the command level, and that NDHQ had grown 46% over this decade while the so-called teeth had only grown by 10%.... He talked about reducing numbers and headquarters staff by grouping functions or eliminating certain organizations; reallocating approximately 3,500 regular force personnel; demobilizing full-time reservists back to the baseline; converting the part-time service workers in units at armouries, etc.; and—this is an important one—reducing by 30% over several years the $2.7 billion spent on contractors, consultants, and private service providers, and investing these funds in other programs, for example, in the CFDS. And that's mostly headquarters money. Then reinvesting approximately 3,500 civil servants in the higher-priority activities.
These are significant goals, probably not short term. I know some things have been started. I realize you've only been on the job for a month, although you've known about it for some time. Can you tell us your specific plans or how you envisage the Canadian Forces under your direction in terms of looking at these objectives? Is that something you see that needs to be done to be able to withstand the budgetary challenges and yet have the capable military force we need?