National Defence committee  I would just add to this that quite a few of the START officers have done what we call hostile environment training, so that when something happens, they are ready to go.

National Defence committee  If I may add to this, of course, we are already looking at what we could do in terms of programming when the situation will allow for it, but in the meantime, for example, we're providing support to the department of political affairs of the UN to support the efforts of Kofi Annan, who's the special envoy.

National Defence committee  Based on my own experience in the deployment of the Disaster Assistance Response Team, or DART, I would say that the response was very satisfactory. The team was ready to assess the needs very quickly. A survey party was very quickly sent to talk about how DART should be deployed, but it took some time for DART itself to set up on site with all its equipment.

National Defence committee  The answer is no.

National Defence committee  I will just add that Canada also chairs a group of friends in New York working on this issue of children in armed conflict, and we've been with others pressing for more accountability for persistent violators. That group is in touch as well with the sanctions committee to see what more can be done to address the problem.

National Defence committee  Those are important and broad issues. We are certainly very concerned about that situation, especially in countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the number of rapes continues to be extremely worrisome. We have already talked about what kind of training is being provided to the deployed officers.

National Defence committee  Those are matters we have addressed bilaterally with the government. In the case of the DRC, for instance, the government established a zero tolerance policy. I think that international pressures have contributed to that decision. That policy now has to be implemented. It has so far still not been completely implemented, obviously.

National Defence committee  That's very kind of you. Thank you. I wanted to maybe make a quick reference to what we do in terms of responding to natural disasters. When something happens—an earthquake, a flood, whatever—we have what we call standard operating procedures that were adopted a few years ago and are now very well appreciated by the various departments.

National Defence committee  I just want to add that, in terms of programming, we are very aware of that challenge. For instance, we support a project with Rights and Democracy that has to do with women's rights and access to justice. That is one of our many contributions. I'm very worried that this problem may persist for many years.

National Defence committee  Let me add something that relates to a comment that was made to me recently by somebody who was very close to the training of officers who participate in peace operations in Africa. He was saying that he had heard from African leaders that they were quite concerned, in fact, about these African women who participated in the training to be peacekeepers.

National Defence committee  Thank you for the question. It is especially timely and appropriate. I just want to add that we do have a Canadian national action plan, as you know. The Department of Foreign Affairs is in charge of coordinating the plan's implementation, along with the Department of National Defence, the RCMP, the Correctional Service of Canada and the departments that deploy people abroad.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Again, we try to make sure that whoever is deployed has the right training. We've been very active, and you will see that when we do our first report. Quite a number of activities have been led by the various departments in terms of training officers—whether they're police officers or public servants—to know what the national action plan is about and to know what Resolution 1325 and the other resolutions are about.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I don't think that the specific role of the police officers that we have on the ground is to directly address these issues. What I can tell you is that people who are deployed in a country like Congo, the DRC, have been trained to understand what these issues are and to be sensitive when they see a situation.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The implementation would be somewhat different in the sense that we don't have the resources or the same personnel in each country. That's obvious. The approach is uniform. The gender-based analysis is the same when we look at projects wherever they are in the world. We all work from the same script, which is the action plan and the UN resolutions.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I would first like to say something about working with fragile states, such as the Congo. There are several reasons for the fragile nature of those states, but we often see that where we choose to step is in areas such as security, police support and so on. The other area of choice is really the justice system.