Public Accounts committee  —balancing the desire to clear the backlog and the desire to ensure the integrity of the plan. So on an ongoing basis, as I said, we're reviewing the value for money of adding people to clear the backlog against the costs to the administration.

Public Accounts committee  Also, I believe that we need three to six months to train new members of the team. Every new employee is a huge investment. There must be a balance there.

Public Accounts committee  What I indicated, ma'am, is that at our peak we had 15,000 reservists. That reflected the high level of operational activity. We currently have between 8,000 and 9,000 full-time, although it fluctuates during the year. We're seeking to reduce that significantly, perhaps by as much as one half in order to come to a steady state as we come out of a high operational tempo.

Public Accounts committee  I just wanted to come back to the first question and say that with each of these 12,000 files or 8,000 files, there really are quite different circumstances, with each of them needing a good deal of investigation. There are 12,000 people who want to know the status of their file, how long will it take, and when they will get an answer, etc., so the communications challenge is huge.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, if I may, I'll just kick off the answer. Mr. Shipley, at its peak we had 15,000 reservists on full-time service. That was during the Olympics, Afghanistan, and the G-8 and G-20 timeframe. Typically we have between 8,000 and 9,000 on full-time service. It spikes at different times of the year, with the summer training that I was talking about.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chairman, if I may, I'll answer that. So, sir, your question is essentially how do the reserves work.

Public Accounts committee  Very quickly, we have reserve units across the country, and when people are recruited into the reserves, they join a unit. Quite often those who initially join the reserves are in school and are attracted by the excitement and the opportunity to earn money. They're assigned to a unit.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chairman, if I may.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Reservists are indeed a vital part of our Canadian Forces, significantly contributing to Canada's success in military operations. Over the decades and during the recent years of high operational tempo, our reservists have volunteered to serve either on active operations at home or abroad, or by backfilling important support roles.

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, the full capabilities of any of our weapon systems are classified confidential or more. When you look at aircraft in particular, the full capabilities can be as high as top secret. Having said that, there are mechanisms for sharing information with our allies—and, in fact, necessarily with our allied militaries.

National Defence committee  In certain respects, I would expect, not only from a military capability standpoint but also from a commercial proprietary standpoint, that they would not share elements of this with us. In other respects, it is a common aircraft being purchased by allies, and to that extent there is sharing of the information.

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, this was a project to mark the centenary of the now Royal Canadian Navy with a monument, essentially to honour the fallen from the RCN and the Canadian navy. It is located at Richmond Landing, just below Parliament Hill. Construction started about a year and a half ago.

National Defence committee  Thank you, Mr. Alexander, for the question, through you, Mr. Chair. This is an annual agreement wherein we transfer money to Foreign Affairs in support of attachés for accommodation, communications, and these sorts of things. Specifically, this transfer deals with the embassies in Serbia, Chile, China, Korea, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; and with Canadian defence liaison staff in Washington; our work with Operation PROTEUS in Jerusalem; the multinational force observers in Egypt; our force in the Golan Heights; Operation ATTENTION, our training mission in Afghanistan, and Operation ATHENA, our close-out mission now.

National Defence committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. We're funding it to keep people alive. It is through loss of blood that wounded soldiers on the battlefield face the greatest risk of death. To protect our people, it's very much in our interest to fund research on different ways of replacing blood and different ways of stopping bleeding.This is one of the avenues of research we're encouraging so that we can keep our soldiers alive on the battlefield.

National Defence committee  If I may, Mr. Chair, in a number of areas we have cooperated with Defence Research and Development Canada in reaching out to other research areas. We've looked at sleep loss. Years ago we did a lot of research on functioning in a sleep-deprived environment--which I'm sure you are used to.