The reserve force has always been and must continue to be an important national institution that is well integrated in the community and helps to shape better Canadians.
It already has certain operational roles, such as Arctic response company groups, which effectively address current and future needs, and could assume additional roles if it had more personnel. Some of the new missions the reserve could contribute to include combatting threats such as cyber warfare, NBC defence and security operations to assist civilian authorities at a favourable cost/benefit ratio. Given the fragile and unpredictable international situation, one of the roles of the reserve force should also be to serve as a base for significantly augmenting personnel.
In order for the reserve force to be completely effective, the following improvements are needed. First, it needs a pool of reservists from which the reserve force can develop its own senior supervisory staff. In other words, it needs unit critical mass. Second, it needs a stable, adequate budget that is dedicated solely to its activities. It also needs a review and decentralization of the recruitment process because one of the biggest problems the army reserve has right now is the undue length of time it takes to recruit a soldier. It needs training that is adapted to the reality of reservists and offered to them based on their availability. It needs conditions of service that are conducive to member retention, such as guaranteed summer jobs for a minimum of six to eight weeks and operational duties. Lastly, it needs adequate equipment that is readily available for training.
Given the challenges it will have to address, the national priorities it will have to set, and its relative capacity to invest in defence, the Canadian government will have to give serious consideration to the reserve force when it reviews the national defence policy. If the suggested improvements are made, the reserve force will not only be able to offer relevant capacity, but will be able to do so at a lower cost.
That concludes our opening remarks.