Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity.
Thank you to our witnesses for appearing today.
As you know, Canada's role in the world follows a “peace through strength” kind of model. I think the challenges we've seen in past years have been about having adequate investments in the military. We're talking about retention. Our number one asset when it comes to the military is our people.
The Royal Military College of Canada's Sean Maloney has said that posture has to be maintained for us to be credible both to our potential enemies and to our allies.
My role, if you don't know, is to be shadow minister for northern affairs, Arctic sovereignty and northern economic development. I'm going to ask my questions based on the Arctic, the north and that perspective.
Having adequate people in the north is a concern to all Canadians, I believe, but if you live in the north and in the Arctic specifically, you're very concerned with the lack of presence of our military up there.
I have a couple of questions for you. How many military are stationed full-time in the north? I'll qualify the north as the Arctic area of Canada.