Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, this is a problem. We have put more resources on to this issue. A member should not have to wait that long. We are working on this backlog. The chief of the defence staff did brief me on the numbers, but unfortunately I have forgotten the actual percentage that it has

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, in terms of universality of service, there is obviously a set requirement that our members need to be fully operational. However, when there is an injury or any type of circumstance where a member cannot fulfill those duties, there is a process that is taken. There is

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, when it comes to disasters like this, our first responsibility is to always make sure that we respond. We have done that. We are not at the stage of talking about how much money it will cost. At that time, my deputy minister will take a look at where it needs to come f

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, we are not at that stage of discussions. Right now, I think the Chinook helicopter might still be there, so we have not come to that stage. I want to make sure that we have enough resources for Fort McMurray. If there is any potential follow-up resources that are requi

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, the metric for involvement with the United Nations is not about the number of troops. We will actually be elevating the conversation much higher than just the number of people that we send. We want to look at how we can do new capacity-building, preventing conflict fro

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, I would like to talk about what we will be doing now in terms of our involvement in the world. We have announced and have started to implement our renewed mission in Iraq and Syria. We have troops right now doing training, as part of operation reassurance in Poland and

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, in fact, we are actually trying to modernize the JPSU to make it far more responsive, looking at a stand-alone unit to support our members but also within the chain of command, because the chain of command knows the members best. It allows us to prevent some of the iss

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, we are, in fact, actually trying to hire more mental health workers. We want to make sure we have enough mental health workers in the critical areas, and we will diligently work toward that. When it comes to universality of service, we also want to make sure that as m

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, I cannot stress enough how seriously we take this issue. In terms of the actual point that the member raised, I am happy to look at it, but I am not aware of those numbers. Currently, we have 400 full-time mental health workers and we are hiring more. We want to make

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, I have travelled to many of the bases and the welfare of our soldiers is the question that I raise directly. These concerns have not been raised to me. I am happy to look into these concerns. We have a good system. The men and women, especially the chain of command, w

Business of Supply  One of the challenges, Mr. Chair, for the transition—and this is a very lengthy topic to discuss—is when someone has been injured in the military, that person becomes a veteran. The person then has to talk to another doctor in Veterans Affairs. We are looking for a manner in whic

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, I will talk about one of the fixed-wing search and rescue aircraft which is continuing in this procurement. The government has indicated the capabilities that were required and industry has responded with its proposed solutions. We are now currently reviewing those pro

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, 14 of the original 18 Auroras are being modernized and life extended until a new fleet is procured in the 2030 time frame. To date, we have modernized 10 of the aircraft, seven of which have been life extended.

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, as I stated, the Halifax frigates are being modernized. There is one that is remaining. This is also actually a really good news story that the program did extremely well, that now the New Zealand navy has looked to us, where we will be modernizing, I believe, two frig

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, as you know, this is one capability that we have received in the navy. As the joint supply ships go online to be built, we are right now working with an interim measure of what we call smart scheduling utilizing interim ships from different nations. We have also invest