Certainly. One of the great Canadian defence economists is Bill Tredennick and he theorized—and this, I would argue, should almost be the central work of this committee. In 1994, this committee had incredible influence on defence policy because it got into the finances, and was credible with its recommendations because they were based on strong financial work. But here's where we're at.
Tredennick says that when your percentage of defence budget reaches 12%, you are in “crisis”. You must get to 20% to maintain what you have. You must get to 25% of capital to buy new things, like humanitarian and disaster relief vessels. How do you get there?
I think two years ago, ex-chief of the defence staff Hillier proposed that we must go from 66,000 to 50,000 people. Guess what? By dropping your personnel by, let's say, 10%, you almost double the ability with which you equip your people with quality kit. It's that's simple. I just cringe when I hear defence policy setting the personnel level before it does the calculations of what effect this has on capital.
I'll return to Dave Perry. The number one policy problem in Canadian defence is under-availability of capital. I think I've said enough.