Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I too want to start by expressing the condolences of the New Democrats to the family of Corporal James Choi, the B.C. reservist, who was lost in the tragic training accident at Wainwright.
I also want to take a moment to thank the more than 1,700 members of the Canadian Armed Forces who pitched in at the long-term care homes during the COVID crisis, something I know none of us ever expected to see happen.
Thank you, Minister, for being here today. I also want to thank you for keeping the lines of communication open during these very strange times we're in.
Given that we're going to have to vote in the House, there are some things I am not going to be able to talk about today, things like the measures to combat racism and extremism in the Canadian Armed Forces, and the measures to improve mental health services and, I guess, the general question of how we keep expecting the Canadian Forces to do more and more every year when their operations budget doesn't increase.
That said, I'm going to take my one set of questions and focus on the role of women in the Canadian military.
Mr. Minister, you probably know that last week we heard that the Canadian Forces is struggling to meet its targets for women in the Canadian military. Four years into the program when the percentage should have increased, according to your goals, from 15% to 19%, we have had an increase of less than 1% more women in the military.
To reach the goal of 25% by 2026, we would have to double our intake of women every year, and we would have to have about half of new recruits every year be women.
What special measures are being taken to increase the number of women being recruited into the Canadian military, because if we don't have some special measures, we're not going to reach those goals?