It's a great question, sir.
I'll start off by saying that the longer I've been in the forces and in this job, the more I realize that not only are our families the strength behind the uniform, but they actually in many ways form an integral part of our operational capability. One cannot conduct operations or conceive of operations without being confident that the member is supported and stable and the family is able to continue to function.
The seamless Canada initiative is a function of a wider initiative that we've called “Canadian Forces Base Canada”, where it is clear to me and clear to the senior leadership of the armed forces that we were once entirely designed as a military to be in single-income families that thrived, that lived on bases, that lived largely a subsidized life on bases where your police force, your school, your gas station and your shopping centre were all sort of inside the wire on your base. Decisions were made some time ago for a variety of very good reasons to isolate the forces less—because we were isolated from society at that time, I think—and to be more present in communities. We are and that's good. We benefit from all of what Canadian communities offer.
Nonetheless, the one thing that didn't change was the mobile lifestyle of the military, moving from base to base around the world or across Canada. Though it's delightful to live in communities around the country, it's a challenge to pick up and move, when now we largely live in an economy and lifestyle that takes two incomes to properly raise your family, when it's not as easy to assure yourself of access to a doctor or to the childhood education that your children particularly need, particularly as you transfer between different school systems. There's also the challenge of your paycheque. You move between different tax brackets or different taxation regimes and so on.
It makes for an uneven existence for military families. It adds stress to things that even the best of MFRCs can't solve. We're investing in MFRCs and we desperately need them and we want to continue to improve and strengthen what the MFRCs do.
If I may, I'll just finish. The idea of Seamless Canada and the Canadian Forces Base Canada approach is to find ways to make that experience—where we must move—both the move itself and the experience of arriving somewhere, much less stressful.