Mr. Chair, National Defence recognizes the challenges the Canadian Forces will continue to face in recruiting that may ultimately affect their capacity to meet their overall recruiting and force expansion objectives to grow the regular force by an additional 13,000 and the reserve force by 10,000.
Our recruitment and retention strategy is a crucial part of our development, sustained and effective professional defence team initiative. The Canadian Forces are standardizing applicant procedures across Canada and are implementing e-recruiting, which is also expected to further reduce wait times by improving the accuracy of the applicant information.
We are also putting in place numerous subsidized and direct entry plans. Also, National Defence will continue to connect with Canadians through a broad range of coordinated, community based activities to attract and enrol quality recruits.
The aim is to make Canadians aware of the unique opportunities, benefits, challenges and rewards of a Canadian Forces career, and to effectively compete for the best people during a period of force expansion. The Canadian Forces have adopted a robust and cohesive recruiting strategy, a comprehensive national recruiting campaign supported by a national recruiting attraction plan, new advertisements and appropriate advertising federally--