Senator Downe: That’s a wonderful answer. Thank you very much.

[Translation]

Hon. Percy E. Downe: Honourable senators, my question today is for the Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs.

As you know, retention and recruitment have been an ongoing problem for the Canadian Armed Forces, or CAF. To that end, I have been contacted by members of the CAF who are concerned that, given the health care accessibility crisis in Canada, medical support for their immediate family members will be next to impossible to obtain when they are posted to any new location in Canada.

As you are all well aware, members of the forces currently have access to military medical personnel, including doctors and nurses, but their family members do not. Therefore, when they are posted to a new location, their quality of medical care will continue, but their family members have to join a waiting list for a family doctor that, in many provinces, can be thousands of names long.

This growing problem means that every posting is creating stress in military families.

Could you advise the Senate what issues the Standing Senate Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs intends to study over the next year and if the concerns I have raised today on behalf of CAF members’ families could also be looked at during that time?