Business of Supply  Madam Chair, currently there are over 400 full-time mental health workers available to Canadian Armed Forces members and more are being hired. In addition, we are making sure that as members go on operations, they come back and get post-deployment mental health training, which is called decompression.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, the threats to our members and our bases are constantly assessed. The Chief of the Defence Staff and I have had discussions on this. If something does change, he notifies me. However, I can assure all committee members here that we take this extremely seriously. However, the actual measures always remain confidential for obvious reasons.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, I would like to report to the hon. member that those ships are currently being built. We are on track for building those five ships and potentially having a sixth one as well. It is budgeted for $3.5 billion, which also includes infrastructure of the northern port, the dock repairs, and jetty replacement.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, the first ship is expected for 2018. I do not have the exact date when they will be considered fully capable. There is a lot of training that is going to be done. However, the first ship is expected in 2018.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, the budget for the overall program is $3.5 billion, and the budget is $424 million for this year.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, I would like to thank the hon. member for her moving words. It definitely puts into perspective everything we do here. This is probably one of the most important aspects of what we do, the challenges that our men and women face. They face certain challenges. We train them physically, but the mental side is more challenging.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, the money allocated to the confidential sexual misconduct response centre is $2.2 million. Much more work is also being done through the chain of command beyond the centre because this type of behaviour needs to be completely eradicated from the Canadian Armed Forces.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, as it is in my mandate letter to work with the associate minister as part of the transition from service member to veteran, we are working on a plan. We have identified in this budget $10.2 million for the transition from military life to civilian life. We do need to make it easier for a member to get into civilian life because it does pose considerable challenges.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, I have not given any direction with respect to any cuts. We are committed to these programs. When it comes to some of the programs, in cases where there has been greater efficiency, certain equipment has been purchased early. This is the complicated nature of some of the defence procurement.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, absolutely. The functions of our special forces and with the work they do, they are needed. We have our JTF2, our special operations regiment and the many other aspects of what they do. I have the privilege of finally knowing exactly what they do now. It is a critical capability and I am working aggressively to ensure they have all the capability to do their dangerous work.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, I have not looked at that, but right now I have no intention of closing anything down. We are conducting the defence review. We have a considerable amount of buildings that may not be utilized. In terms of our main bases, Bagotville is where a lot of our CF-18s are based.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, I do take a lot of requests from different members of Parliament with respect to our reserve units. When it comes to reserve units, one thing we have to be mindful of is ensuring the reserve units themselves remain strong. We will be looking at this. Reserves play a critical role.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, that is a question I would rather have in private because of the classified nature of the answer. I think the member would understand that.

Business of Supply  No, Madam Chair, the reserves will get all of the funding that is needed. However, as I stated, to elevate the conversation, it is more than just making sure that they have the right money. It is allocated because there is also class A pay that they get, and then there is O and M as well.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, on cutting the class B, we were on a very high tempo in Afghanistan in previous years, so a lot of the regular force positions members were being deployed and had to be backfilled by reservists. Now that some of those operations have obviously ceased, those positions have been refilled by the regular force, hence the reason why certain class B positions were not needed.