Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed my colleague's remarks, but I would like again to pick up the question of the reserve.
I agree with my colleague. He gave the example of citizen soldiers in our cities, but it seems to me that many of the peacekeeping operations that we have around the world are best served by a judicial mix of regular soldiers and citizen soldiers. Very often the troops are dealing with civilians and it is good to have combat-ready troops, but it is also good to have troops who may be combat-ready but who live in normal communities.
The other aspect of that, of course, is that the reserve provides a presence for our armed forces in all the communities across the country and it ties in with the cadets. I heard the member's remark about the increase. I had heard that we were perhaps the only one of the G-7 nations with fewer reserve troops than regular troops. I wonder if my colleague knows if that is true and I wonder if he would comment further on how we might develop a larger, more diverse, effective reserve force.