National Defence committee  I will turn it over to our commander of Canadian health services here shortly. We will certainly convey your gratitude to Canadian Armed Forces members who served in those facilities. Before I hand over to Admiral Patterson and our surgeon general, I would just reinforce that, i

National Defence committee  I'll turn it over to the surgeon general to talk about how the Canadian Armed Forces is organized for COVID testing. In terms of your question about engagement with local communities, our chief of the defence staff expects his base commanders to maintain that robust communication

National Defence committee  I don't have a specific comment on that other than to maintain our commitment to continue that active engagement between uniformed leaders and community leaders they're serving with across the country.

National Defence committee  Of course, as you indicate, globally we are all learning as we go through this pandemic together how it's going to evolve and what the potential implications for our allies and partnerships might be. What I will say is that with strength, once again, after initially contracting

National Defence committee  The reserves in the Canadian Armed Forces, Madam Chair, have featured prominently in our response as part of Operation Laser. In the first wave, when it was unclear how much of the Canadian Armed Forces would be required to be mobilized to support Canadians, reservists were offer

National Defence committee  I will have to get back to you with a written response on the specific number of Canadian Armed Forces troops that were readied in support of Operation Laser at Borden. What I would say is that base, as well as many others throughout the country, has played a pivotal role in all

National Defence committee  The role, the mission, of the Canadian Armed Forces, of course, is to defend Canada and Canadians against all threats. So as our Canadian Armed Forces members progress through their training, they need to be prepared for up to and including general purpose combat operations, whic

National Defence committee  We are absolutely plugged in to the situation across the nation. We are working very closely with Public Safety, the government operations centre, and other government departments—the Public Health Agency, Health, and Indigenous Services Canada. In fact, the Canadian Armed Forc

National Defence committee  I'm going to start answering this from a chain of command perspective, and then hand if over to the surgeon general to talk about specific medical supports that are being mobilized for our members. Certainly we all recognize that Canadian Armed Forces members are often deployed

National Defence committee  Madam Chair, I would like to thank the member for his question. In the Canadian Armed Forces, as we go through this pandemic, of course we continue to learn about the requirements that we have domestically and internationally. What we are seeing, of course, is a very significant

National Defence committee  At the Canadian Armed Forces, we always strive to be a learning organization, to be able to dynamically capture, reflect on and share our lessons learned and observations from these types of operations. Operation Laser is no exception to that. We have certainly learned a number

National Defence committee  We're also grateful for the support communicated to our Canadian Armed Forces members, and I will be very happy to pass that on. As I indicated in my opening remarks, initially early in the pandemic, as we tried to learn about the disease that was confronting us and Canadians an

National Defence committee  The Canadian Armed Forces members who were deployed to Iraq, I would classify their contribution essentially into two main categories. First it would be in support of combined joint task force Operation Inherent Resolve, which is mission to defeat ISIS that the Canadian Armed For

National Defence committee  Madam Chair, I would like to thank the member for his question. The Canadian Armed Forces responded with strength and pride to the request to provide humanitarian assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean. In fact, we were one of the only military forces, one of the only co

National Defence committee  Of course, as the chief of the defence staff considers the rollout of the vaccine internally within the CAF, he will be thinking equally about regular force, reserve force and Canadian Ranger members. In terms of the actual sequencing event rollout, as indicated, that is still t