Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, everybody. I am pleased to appear before the committee today, along with Christine Desloges, who is the new chief executive officer of Passport Canada, Jody Thomas, and Gary McDonald. I am particularly pleased to be able to talk a little

Foreign Affairs committee  That's right. The government has a strategy in Afghanistan, and we have a task force that coordinates that strategy. Each of us plays our role and we work together. We don't have a three-D strategy; we have a one-D strategy--we're all working together.

Foreign Affairs committee  In Kandahar, my count was somewhere around six, which includes the senior adviser, who—

Foreign Affairs committee  That's correct.

Foreign Affairs committee  Are three Ds dead? We don't use the terminology all that much, I have to say, because to us that sounds like three different pillars. What we believe in is that we all have to work together.

Foreign Affairs committee  Why don't I start off, and then Robert can follow? The fact is that we coordinated our presentations today. Maybe that is the first thing to say. But it's an example of the fairly close coordination we personally have. We speak to each other pretty regularly, two or three times

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, Mr. Chairman, I can get that information. I don't have it broken down here for Foreign Affairs. What I have, in comparison terms anyway, is we now have five Foreign Affairs positions, plus six CIDA, ten RCMP, and two Correctional Services Canada positions in Kandahar in the

Foreign Affairs committee  The specific answer is there's nothing in the supplementary estimates that indicates we are getting new funds to put additional resources into the Americas, at least for this year. I can't speak for plans of the government going forward. In terms of the global commerce strategy

Foreign Affairs committee  That's correct, yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, the question that has been raised is one, of course, that challenges management of any department when priorities are set and so on. As a senior manager of the department, I have to adjust the resources to the parts of the world to which the government gives priorit

Foreign Affairs committee  The amounts provided in the global commerce strategy are quite significant.

Foreign Affairs committee  In cuts in the estimates?

Foreign Affairs committee  I don't think I've done those calculations to determine whether or not that percentage exists. All I know is that we are having to deal with, over the last several years, going back to 2003, 2005-06, a series of cross-government program reviews and so forth that have continued to

Foreign Affairs committee  We'll provide it, yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  On the same subject, Mr. Mulroney is the head of the panel on Afghanistan and its secretary. He is working with Mr. Manley and his team. We also have other people helping with logistical support and so on.