National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, thank you for the opportunity to add to my minister's comments. We remain very closely engaged with NATO as we take a look at what is happening on the eastern flank. In fact, just eight hours ago I was talking with NATO counterparts about the possibilities as we devel

National Defence committee  Thank you very much to the member for her question. I would like to add a few comments. For us, the policy on official languages is essential. It is also important to provide training in both official languages. Bilingual instructors need to be found for each course. From time

National Defence committee  Thank you very much for your question. We are currently ensuring that we have enough pilots, technicians and personnel to be able to operate this new aircraft. It's a matter of recruitment and retention. The air force is participating actively in this process.

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, I don't have a prepared opening statement, but I will say a few words. Minister Anand talked about an inflection point, and I see the Canadian Armed Forces on the cusp of so much change right now. We are seeing so much change in the international security environme

National Defence committee  I get irked when I hear stories like that, so I have to get the details and look into it more. From the sounds of it, it's something that needs to get sorted out.

National Defence committee  I understand that we don't have a heck of a lot of time here. I will try to make this concise. I'm very concerned about what the future security environment entails because Canada is no longer as safe as it once was or once thought itself to be. I believe the Canadian Armed Forc

National Defence committee  That's a government decision, and I'll leave it at that.

National Defence committee  Over the course of our history, morale has gone up and down. It's not a constant. We're facing a particularly challenging time right now, as are all Canadians. We're not immune to the challenges out there in society. It's important to realize that our troops, our people, continu

National Defence committee  I could discuss a large list of initiatives and different activities that we're undertaking. There is no one single silver bullet for culture change. It's a number of initiatives top down and also bottom up. I will say, at its root, we need to address the exclusionary aspects of

National Defence committee  I think that once-a-year training was one of the reasons we did not make the progress we should have. It's kind of like going to the gym once a year and saying that you're fit. It doesn't work. The approach we need to take is that it has to be continuous. It has to be in all of o

National Defence committee  Thank you for the question. It is a concern that we have as well. It was one of the driving reasons why, several years ago, we established the Canadian Armed Forces transition group to assist our members as they transitioned back to civilian life so they could reintegrate into

National Defence committee  I will go back to my comments on Canadian Forces health services and our capacity. We can be viewed almost as the 14th health jurisdiction in Canada, much like the provinces and territories, so when the ask comes in for medical support, we have to take it away from our own clin

National Defence committee  The 85% target is aspirational. I'm not sure if there's any air force in the world that is able to achieve that rate of serviceability with their aircraft. That being said, my understanding is that there are multiple factors for this 55% rate, including the impact of COVID: the p

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, this is a question that consumes me, and I'm very focused on it. I'm not going to get into the exact figures here, but what is important is that we focus on both ends of this problem: recruiting and retention. In terms of recruiting initiatives, what we're doing for

National Defence committee  It's interesting. We were on a growth path immediately prior to the pandemic, and our numbers were increasing. At the same time, our ceiling has increased as well, because of the additional positions that came as part of the defence policy. Given the gap that we have right now, w