National Defence committee  That's a good question. I can't think of any off the top of my head. However, I'll look to my command team to see if we have an opportunity here.

National Defence committee  My chief just mentioned that by the very nature of what we do, we go to sea in ships, and the ships are located on the coast. As part of our budget, we have to have sufficient funds, always, to ensure we can travel to the coast, which we do. It's not a problem at all; it's just a factor that perhaps makes us a little different from our army, militia, or air force colleagues.

National Defence committee  One of the four roles of the naval reserve within the navy is to connect with Canadians in our communities. It's that strategic outreach, the strategic communication with the communities. One of the original intents of the naval reserve in having units across the country, as I mentioned in my opening comments, was to remind Canadians that we are a maritime nation and that there is a navy.

National Defence committee  The attrition over the last 10 years was touched on briefly. There were, I think, a number of different triggers along the way, but one significant trigger at one point was the introduction of the reserve force pension, which allowed a whole lot of people to make the decision that now was a good time to component transfer to the regular force.

National Defence committee  Certainly we feel that the shift from the Kingston-class mission, which we had been doing for the last 20 years, to being able to participate in the full range of naval activities is quite a motivator. All of us came up through the Kingston-class era and have benefited immensely, and we very much enjoyed our experiences going to sea on those constabulary missions in the coastal defence role, but in addition to that, which will certainly continue, reservists have more options in front of them now in support of the naval output as well.

National Defence committee  In the past it was sometimes concern about the capacity in the training system. That has been rectified at this point. Other times it was purely budget questions. There were different reasons throughout the years, but as I said, it has been fairly stable over the last couple of years.

National Defence committee  We're starting from the 3,100 that we're at right now, if that's what you're—

National Defence committee  Success will certainly be to meet the chief's target, which is to be up to 3,300 in strength by 2019.

National Defence committee  That's correct.

National Defence committee  Certainly the preponderance of our folks on operational deployment are at sea. However, it is a good question. It probably varies all the time, because reservists volunteer for opportunities as they come up from the Canadian Joint Operations Command. They put their hands up and volunteer for all sorts of things.

National Defence committee  To your question, I will open by broadly describing what the recruitment process is right now. Then I'll ask my deputy to address it, because he's actually been shepherding a change in the process just over the last few months. We have been working at two different levels of changing our recruiting.

National Defence committee  I'm not sure that we keep that data. I would like to think the attraction of going to sea really underpins a lot of people's vision of where they might like to be employed. I don't actually have that sort of data, to be honest.

National Defence committee  Well, we have occupations that are essentially the same occupations as one sees in the regular force. The naval training system, writ large, is a vehicle by which occupational training is delivered. We will send our students to the naval training schools, the fleet schools.

National Defence committee  It's an interesting question, because the answers can be at completely opposite ends of the spectrum. Some people join because they have an interest—for example, a Red Seal cook might want to be a naval cook. On the other hand, we have people who join the navy and do not want to do what they do in their civilian careers.

National Defence committee  Going back to my previous comments, attrition in the reserve is a bit different. It typically will be higher than in the regular force, since in the regular force the typical member has signed an engagement. However, attrition is not necessarily a negative thing, since they are often transferring to a different component of the reserve or into the regular force.