National Defence committee  I would say a couple things, sir. First of all, I'll speak from what I hear from the men and women in uniform. This, to them—and they tell me this—is a visible, tangible sign that they'll get the tools to do the job they need to do. We have had a bonding between the air, land, and sea forces as a result of this Afghanistan mission, because they are all there in Afghanistan, as perhaps you saw, although the navy is not in as primordial a role.

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen, when we started walking through specifications, what we would use in the past was detailed specifications for every conceivable part of a piece of equipment, in order to get something. For example, for an aircraft, we said we need a wing so big, wheels so big, the aircraft had to be so long and have so many doors and do certain things—and all in great detail.

National Defence committee  Sir, it was two years ago. A little while after I took over as Chief of Defence Staff—I believe Mr. Bachand was there—I spoke at the Canadian Defence Association and said we needed to do this, from our perspective, to meet our responsibilities to a minister of national defence.

National Defence committee  Yes, sir. I'd be delighted to talk about military requirements, which are our job to define. We start with a strategic assessment of the operational environment we work in now and believe we will work in for the immediate future—what kind of missions we will have in the Canadian Forces, what we expect the Government of Canada to ask us to do, where they will expect us to do it, and under what kind of environmental conditions—and therefore, what kind of capabilities we would need to be successful in it.

National Defence committee  —to be able to set up the divisions for success, that's our military—

National Defence committee  Sir, the only thing I would say, in addition to what the minister has said, is that when you need strategic airlift, if you are leasing it or are getting a piece of the NATO pool or are trying to beg or borrow it from friends and allies, everybody else in a crisis all wants it at the same time, and it's very difficult to get.

Foreign Affairs committee  Sir, let me just say there is no gulf between us. We have a unity of thought on this one that is absolutely complete. Kids are flocking to our recruiting centres across our country. There is twice the number so far this year as during the same time last year. We have connected with the Canadian population.

Foreign Affairs committee  Sir, it's a route we call Route Summit, about four kilometres that comes down to the Panjwai-Pashmul area, which is about 25 to 30 kilometres to the west of Kandahar city, right in the middle of what Afghans themselves called Taliban country back in the summer. There are about 10,000 people who live in that area.

Foreign Affairs committee  No, sir. What we would do, for example, is take a bunch of sailors and train them to run our convoys--first, to run the convoys in a benign scenario, and then so they can handle them in a more high-risk scenario, and take some of that load off some of the combat armed soldiers we've had doing that job, which is not their primary responsibility, and put those back into the combat units.

Foreign Affairs committee  We've done it in our history. We've done it numerous times, including recently for the Balkans, and it is because we have not manned our units to the full status over these past years.

Foreign Affairs committee  Sir, the basis for your question is absolutely logical and sound. The ability of President Karzai or his key ministers, extraordinary leaders all of them, to turn their visions for their country, through policy, into a plan, and to implement that plan with a civil service, is extremely low.

Foreign Affairs committee  Sir, there's been a lot of discussion around what we are trying to do, which is essentially to use 100% of the Canadian Forces to do 100% of our deployed missions, specifically focused on the one in Afghanistan because that's where most of our deployed people are. The deployed missions are the ones with the most stress, the most demand on our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and airwomen and their families.

Foreign Affairs committee  I'll leave it to the next questioner.

Foreign Affairs committee  A Newfoundlander can't even say hello in 10 seconds.

Foreign Affairs committee  Madam, what I would say is that we establish the stability and the security required in the area so humanitarian assistance can be delivered to people who so desperately need it. We can't do that without helping the Afghan National Army, the Afghan National Police--their country's legitimate security institutions--to actually start taking on the security burden themselves.