National Defence committee  I can tell you right off the bat that even in the eight months I've been in command, the capabilities and resources we now have within the base—and I'm very keen to show those to everybody—have improved immensely. We have a warrior support centre. When I first arrived in that warrior support centre, it was almost empty.

National Defence committee  No, I'd just like to thank you for the opportunity. Please come and visit. We have really improved our capabilities, and the soldiers love to talk to you. They'll tell you how it is. I know we have some challenges, but please do come to Wainwright. I know you've had some opportunities to go to Afghanistan.

National Defence committee  We've learned lessons and we continue to learn lessons. Our resources are improved, as I think are our means of communicating the resources that we have. We've developed a deployment support centre that now has soldiers from all of these different units actually working out of this centre.

National Defence committee  I can tell you right off the bat that the Canadian Forces, the army, has done its utmost to evolve and improve our equipment for the soldiers. I can tell you, having been to theatre a number of times, that I think as most of you are aware, the equipment that our soldiers have is some of the best, if not the best.

National Defence committee  Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I can't speak 100% on behalf of our doctors, General Jaeger, as well as General Semianiw. We brought a number of personnel, first of all, to Petawawa to show them and make it clear exactly what resources we have. We know that we don't have enough and we know that it's an absolute focus for the Canadian Forces to give us more.

National Defence committee  I can give you a very quick response, Mr. Chair. I think the essence of this, the critical point, is awareness. We go out of our way to make sure the families are briefed from the beginning--throughout our training, during our deployments, and afterwards--so that they're aware of all of the resources and capabilities we have.

National Defence committee  First of all...and don't hesitate; I can allow my commanding officers to give a bit more detail on the numbers. If you really do want more detailed numbers, we can actually give you those. CO 3 RCR, who is going on the next rotation, knows exactly the number of soldiers going back a second time, a third time, and a fourth time.

National Defence committee  That is a large number. I don't have those numbers for our forces. You'd have to ask our medical experts.

National Defence committee  The preparations we make before we go into theatre are substantive. But when we're part of the mission, we're a team, and we make sure that the team completely understands the challenge they are going to face in a particular operation. They've conducted a number of similar operations, and we talk about the things that can happen.

National Defence committee  I apologize but I will have to answer in English. It's a team. We have our doctors. We have the chain of command. We work extremely closely together. Generally our soldiers end up with our doctors based on recommendations we've had from the chain of command. I can tell you that 99% of the time we respect the doctors and mental health personnel who work for us.

National Defence committee  I can speak French.

National Defence committee  Absolutely not. The case is that that soldier may have experienced extremely difficult situations during his deployment. It may be a very tough experience for our soldiers and our duty is to do everything in our power to enable them to face another deployment or to continue their mission within the Canadian Forces.

National Defence committee  That is a very good question but I will have to answer in English because it may be difficult for me to answer in French.

National Defence committee  It's absolutely important that we prepare the soldiers to the best of our ability, so they're prepared for the difficult situations--those traumatic events they may see in theatre. They might have a buddy who is killed next to them. There are a lot of different atrocities that our soldiers have seen in their deployments to Bosnia, Kosovo, and now, obviously, Afghanistan.

National Defence committee  We continue to debrief, and I think that's the best way to do it. We've noticed that operational stress injuries can occur at any time. There's no specific timeframe. They could happen during the rotation in theatre. They could happen immediately when they come home. They could happen after six months, nine months, twelve months.