Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair.
Frankly, I share the member's deep concern with the way reservists have been treated here. Parliament authorized the creation of this plan in 1999. It came into force in 2007. In 2010, they'd only processed 400 out of 9,000 applications. I think reservists have been treated extremely poorly. Even by 2012 they will still not have cleared the full backlog. If I were a reservist, I would be outraged by this.
Now, why did it happen? It was extremely poorly planned. There was not clear accountability and leadership for it. The responsibility for this program was initially shared between two assistant deputy ministers, and they didn't plan for it properly. They've known this was coming since 1999, and in 2010 they're not ready to roll it out.
In my view, it's fundamentally a question of planning and leadership.