Mr. Chair, just to follow up on the question from the member for St. Paul's, the minister knows that the committee has been to Petawawa. He probably has a report from the members on the government side about what we learned on that very interesting trip to the base.
As the member for St. Paul's stated, the number of personnel to take care of our soldiers when they return from Afghanistan, Bosnia, or wherever they may have been, at this particular base seems to be very inadequate. I believe there are nine mental health people in Petawawa, whereas Valcartier has 35 and Edmonton has 29, and yet most of the returning soldiers are going into Petawawa. Why would those numbers make any sense? Also, the amount of domestic violence, divorce, and so on, the readjustment that our soldiers have to make coming out of a theatre of war and re-entering a domestic situation in this country can be quite traumatic and could take a lot of time. Yet the personnel do not seem to be there.
When we were talking with the padres and the caregivers and so on at the base, they seemed to be overworked, understaffed and really stressed out themselves because of the huge workload that they have in dealing with our returning soldiers.
Why have the resources necessary to take care of our returning soldiers not been provided on that particular base?