National Defence committee  I have two quick comments, if I could. First, on retention, we mentioned the issue of housing. I would look to the Australians and their policies on housing. That's one place I'd look at. Second, on the sexual harassment issue, certainly, the Five Eyes are all looking at the sam

National Defence committee  Just briefly, it's recognized and acknowledged, and there are efforts, but that's why I made my comment about it really requiring niche communications into specific communities. There are different reasons why members of some communities are reluctant to join the military. Agai

National Defence committee  My quick comment would be that those who watch committee hearings on a regular basis are quite capable of watching political theatre and would recognize all of the different parties and how they contributed to it.

National Defence committee  I'd like to make a quick observation. I would suggest the committee may benefit from a technical brief on the research that is done on the surveys that are currently being administered and the data collected. Some of this is available. Senior leaders are collecting this informati

National Defence committee  My quick comment would be yes. As you've identified, the issue again is back to resource decisions that had to be taken at certain stages. There are significant challenges with the distribution of the force structure. How many people do you want to have that are actually deployin

National Defence committee  My quick comment would be that those kinds of options have a lot more consequence in terms of the internal structural decisions that are made by the military, such as where resources are invested, what training goes on, etc. I would suggest it would not have a huge consequence o

National Defence committee  Specifically on retention, the main one I have focused on is family support, because quite honestly that is one of the primary reasons people leave earlier than they would like to leave. Different countries have different strategies and approaches to addressing issues. Some coun

National Defence committee  Paxton, do you want to start?

National Defence committee  If I could quickly follow up on that, the CAF has recognized these issues and has been moving particularly into social media. It is active on TikTok, so it has been recognizing where the appropriate channels are to reach younger people in particular. The challenge moving into soc

National Defence committee  Certainly. In the majority of cases, child care, and particularly after-hours child care and on weekends, are the kinds of child care services that need to be provided. Again, when people get deployed, it's not like signing your kids up for the typical workday child care system.

National Defence committee  I'm sorry. I don't have current numbers on that. I think that would have to be a technical brief from those responsible for the recruiting system.

National Defence committee  The quick comment I would make with that one is that the recruiting process is a layered process. Paxton has referred to some of what is available when you initially go online and look at things. There's a reason for that, because the CAF needs to be able to get to a certain sta

National Defence committee  Paxton, would you like to go first?

National Defence committee  My brief comment, if I may, is that Canadians, parliamentarians and CAF members need to recognize that there are going to be legacy issues that are going to work their way through. We've seen that with allegations raised against individuals that go back decades. That is something

National Defence committee  It depends on the country, but there is more that is offered in terms of things like assisting family members with some of the examples that I gave, such as securing a family doctor. For example, in the American system, families can draw on their military medical system for some