Thank you, Mr. Chair, for that.
Let me talk about the leadership development programs. You may have heard about the force's efforts to revamp our whole approach to developing and training leaders and providing support for our leaders. We have three levels: the supervisory development program, the managerial development program, and the executive development program. Just this morning in fact I got the final briefing on the third leg of that, which is the officer development program. I'm very reassured by what I'm seeing there. I've received tremendous feedback from some of our corporals and front-line supervisors who have gone on the supervisory program. Our middle managers have similarly given me positive feedback. It's all real-life-based leadership examples. It's not theoretical. I think we've come a long way there. We'll not see the fruit of that for perhaps another year or two.
On the executive development plan, this morning I talked about a desire to professionalize the officer corps of the RCMP. Earlier I talked about the need to have NCOs step up and run the place effectively under the supervision of our warrant groups and so on. But we also need effective managers who are professional officers. That's why we have all the pips, crowns, and bling on the shoulders. But we need to preserve that in the traditions of this organization. We are taking steps to start to give officers...and to start to expect from officers that they understand the context in which they are being asked to lead. I'm very excited by that. I think it's in good stead.
On the recruitment issue, I take your point. We don't have any problem getting applicants. We have a lot of applicants. One of our challenges is to get to a steady state of recruiting so that we're not up and down in terms of intake of people at Regina. Of course, that turns a lot on how the provinces and territories and the economies of the various regions of our country develop. The point is to elevate our intake in terms of the class of people we're taking. We have a very rigorous screening process. Often, as I root through some of these more unattractive discipline situations, we always end up back at our recruiting opportunities. We're polygraphing our recruits. We're looking for life experiences. We're looking for education. I think there's an opportunity there to try to improve that as well.