Evidence of meeting #14 for National Defence in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was soldiers.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Peter J. Devlin  Chief of the Land Staff, Department of National Defence
Major Gino Moretti  Canadian Forces

10:40 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Bezan

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments and your contributions to our study into readiness. I hope when we're done with the report that you'll find some value in it as well as the value that we're going to provide to Parliament and to the Department of National Defence as well.

With that, I just wanted to make a couple comments based on what's happening on Thursday. Of course, we've all been asked to attend the ceremony in the Senate chamber at 9:45 a.m. to honour our air force and everyone that's been involved with General Bouchard in the Libyan operation. We will only have one hour of meeting in the morning.

We've changed it around a bit. We had a request come from the Kingdom of Norway for a meeting with us. We're going to have the State Secretary from the Norwegian Ministry of Defence, Roger Ingebrigtsen, as well as the Ambassador to Canada, Ms. Eikeland, who will be joining us for one hour to provide comments as it relates to readiness. I'm sure the comments will also roll into Arctic sovereignty and also our study into NATO and the North American alliance. So we'll be talking with them.

And just on the point that Mr. McKay raised earlier about page 65 out of our former colleague Derek Lee's book on committee procedures, that is true for most witnesses. However, as O'Brien and Bosc, as well as Marleau and Montpetit, have been quite clear in the past, as these are the real books of reference...and which Mr. Lee is referring to, if you guys want to take the time to read chapter 20, starting under “Testimony” on page 1067 and going right through to 1070, you'll see that there is special consideration given to employees of the Government of Canada when they appear before a committee. They have been excused from answering questions that are outside of their areas of responsibility or would put them into conflict with the department.

10:40 a.m.

Liberal

John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON

I also commend to you Beauchesne’s.

10:40 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Bezan

They're all there for reference, but let's make sure we stick to the main rule book.

With that, I'll call for a motion to adjourn.

We're out of here.