Public Accounts committee  The current HR system we have for managing the military, not just for the reserve, is very complicated. There are many different layers that, over the years, have been put onto the system. We're doing a fundamental rethink of how we manage the Canadian Armed Forces from an HR poi

Public Accounts committee  The member raised a very good point. I'll try to clarify. The Guardian project certainly involves an underlying IT system and so forth, but it's much more than that. It's to change the business processes for the way we do our HR management in the military. I think the member rai

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, to the member, thank you for the question. The short answer is no. I believe that National Defence has always provided correct information to the best of our ability. I'm not sure I can add much more than that.

Public Accounts committee  The short answer is, yes. We continually monitor and evaluate programs throughout the department, but I do want to caution you to be careful when you talk about funding for a certain level of employment, if I could put it that way. If the army reserve does not employ the full amo

Public Accounts committee  Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it's a good question. In respect to the specific item of preparing for the Syrian refugees, that was an initiative that was undertaken. We put in place preparations as part of that program, and we expended funds to get ready for the potential a

Public Accounts committee  Chair, thank you. I will make four brief points in order to leave time for my colleague Lieutenant-General Hainse to make his remarks. Point one, Chair, I certainly want to thank you and the members of the standing committee for inviting us to discuss chapter 5 of the Auditor G

Public Accounts committee  We're talking about all of the above. The minister will launch the consultation process in the very near future to outline all of those issues and others in terms of what a new defence policy for Canada should look like.

Public Accounts committee  Chair, that's an interesting question. I would answer it by saying, no, I think it will help to bring more clarity to the needs of this important program. Therefore, if anything, it could help accelerate and raise the priority of this.

Public Accounts committee  Chair, thank you, and it's a great question. I think, as we've tried to explain there—and I'll reverse the order this time—in terms of the property management issues and so forth, many of those changes are in place, such as the new information management system. I take the good

Public Accounts committee  Chair, and to the member, again thank you for the question. I would remind the committee that 85% of members of the military live off base, if I can put it like that, not in military housing. The military housing program represents approximately 15% of military personnel. Many o

Public Accounts committee  Absolutely, Chair. Again to the member, thank you. The point I was going to make is that over the last 50 years or more, we have moved.... More members were originally housed on base. That has changed over the years for a number of reasons. It has changed because of the preferen

Public Accounts committee  I'm not aware of that statistic, and so forth.

Public Accounts committee  Chair, responding to the member again, thank you. That's a great question. As I've indicated, we did not have a clear plan. We need to have that clear plan. We need to set forth what the exact requirements are, the location for military housing, and so forth. Things have changed

Public Accounts committee  Again, Chair, I think it was done previously. It wasn't done as well as it could have been done. It wasn't clear. There was not clear direction as to how many units we need at Valcartier, how many at Petawawa, and so forth, and what types of units, or as to how the military has c

Public Accounts committee  Again, it's the policy. We need to know from the military how many houses they need, what types, what location.