Public Accounts committee  If I may, I'll just talk about the responsibility for the tasks we have. They're very clear in the existing defence strategy about what it is that we are expected to do. Those numbers are given to us, and those are the number of people that we have to recruit, train, prepare, and

Public Accounts committee  It is very clear. Let me give you an example of a situation in the fairly recent past. During the war in Afghanistan, each tactical group that we sent there had about 1,000 members, 20% to 35% of whom were reservists. They were part of the tactical groups and helped increase str

Public Accounts committee  It's about the idea to also say where we're putting in incentives to bring in those hard-to-reach trades, including doctors, where we're looking to provide significant cash incentives when they're coming to join the Canadian Armed Forces.

Public Accounts committee  Okay. I will talk about two aspects: recruitment and retention. On recruiting initiatives that are significant, I'll start with the reserve force, first and foremost. We used to have a fairly long process. That discouraged young Canadians who were trying to be part of the rese

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, sir. I can give you an example of concrete numbers. The 12 recruiting centres that were cut, which the deputy minister referred to, resulted in a loss of 180 positions. Of course, those 180 positions are for the types of people who would be involved in processing a sp

Public Accounts committee  Susan, do we know if we have the specific statistics?

Public Accounts committee  We have tried to make sure we only order moves when they are required. We found out a long time ago that if you have geographic stability it helps the family overall. That includes making sure that salaries aren't interrupted and those types of things. There is an effort afoot to

Public Accounts committee  Could I have just one second to consult on the exact numbers we have? I believe it's around 20,000, but I'll have to undertake to come back to give you an accurate picture of the exact numbers today.

Public Accounts committee  Are you talking about staff morale in one specific organization, or in the Canadian Armed Forces as a whole?

Public Accounts committee  Okay. I would say to you that the morale in the Canadian Armed Forces is actually quite good. I'm not sure if you're referring to a specific incident or....

Public Accounts committee  On programs to maintain, you're looking at how we're looking at quality of life, perhaps, and to assist those pieces...?

Public Accounts committee  Let me address that in two parts. First of all, I'll talk about the morale of the uniformed members of the Canadian Armed Forces, and then I'll talk about the morale of the families. First, what really drives morale in the Canadian Armed Forces and keeps it high is having good m

Public Accounts committee  We're fortunate that we have the commander of the recruiting group with us, Colonel Demers, and I'll turn the floor over to him in a second as well. One thing I can give by means of an introduction in response to that question is the fact that a number of initiatives have alread

Public Accounts committee  This started a while ago. I'll ask the commander of recruitment to walk us through the documentation requirements and tell us how recently the process was put in place.