Thank you very much, Chair.
We were mentioning pilots. Apropos to that, and I say so up front just to get it off my chest, I find it so crazy that pilots these days are being paid so little. Sully, “The Miracle on the Hudson”, had to have a part-time job in order to pay the bills. This is crazy. Anyway, I just wanted to say that.
The other thing I wanted to mention, since we're talking about wages and stuff, when we talk about pilots, again, the number of veterans and even active members who find it necessary to go to food banks continues to be an issue that jars a lot of Canadians. But that's not our focus today and so I want to continue.
Here's where I want to pick up. I would ask colleagues to chime in if you wish, because I'm going into an area that is not clear—and you'll get it in a second.
The auditor's report, on page 11, in paragraph 5.55 says, “Since 2008, the recruiting group has been reduced by about 180 positions, and has closed 13 recruiting locations,” as has been said, “as a result of budget cuts.” Even the Auditor General is acknowledging that there were budget cuts that impacted that. Then, under the response of National Defence on page 9, where the recommendation is given about training and training capacity and recruiting, it says, “Agreed. Several years of reductions to recruiting and training capacity as well as shrinking advertising and marketing budgets contributed to the current levels of institutional capacity.” In a direct answer to a direct question, deputy, you said it was a “bad idea”.
Here's where that takes us. I even welcome your feedback on this because this is our trying to perfect what we do.
Normally we don't get into the politics of whether it was a good idea or a bad idea. We go by what decision was made by the government or the minister. That was the direction. You were given the money. The Auditor General comes in after the fact to see whether you followed the mandate you were given and spent the money you were authorized to spend. Did you do it effectively? That's the accounting process. We try to stay away from the politics. In fact, we work assiduously to stay away from that in this Parliament. In fact, there have been a few since we've felt the need to bring in a minister or a former.
My friend Mr. McColeman has said when you answered with “bad idea”, he immediately...and that gets us into the partisan stuff a bit because he was part of that government, so “Wait a minute, what are these other problems that were showing up in the 2002 and 2006 audits that Christopherson was bouncing off the walls about? How could it be just because of the cuts?”
Here's the thing. If the cuts did directly affect your ability to carry out your mandate, we need to know that and factor that in because that's not your fault. You're left with the business of being loyal to the minister and government of the day and to not throw them under the bus. If we did allow you to do that willy-nilly, every audit report would say, especially if there had been a change of government, that it was the government that cut the funding or didn't let you do this, didn't let you do that, and it was the political side. You were great. They just didn't live up to their part of the thing.
This is where we are right now. It's difficult for us to discern how much of this was your managing as best you could with limited resources or money you thought you had and then it was taken away, versus the two earlier audits and Mr. McColeman's pointing out that there were systemic problems all along.
I think when we're in camera we need to maybe talk about how we pursue this sort of thing. I don't have a question per se in this. I'm pointing out that we don't normally get to where it's just black and white, but here we are. Even the report is saying that the cuts had hurt.
I'm going to move on to another question. I'll afford you a chance, deputy, if you wish to comment on this, or you can just take a pass and I'll move on. Being wise, you'll take the time.
Yes, go ahead.