Public Accounts committee  Right now we have flights every two weeks. That's because we only have an interim capability. There are still some upgrades being done to--

Public Accounts committee  Yes. We'll go to once a week pretty soon, as we get more crew qualified and all the upgrades done on the airplane. But this is a capability of the air force. I give them the tasking.

Public Accounts committee  We contract out for strategic airlift and sealift. We have an agreement with the United States, the integrated line of communication, and we use their assets extensively. We have CANCAP, which is also a Canadian contract, working hand-in-hand with an MSOC contract in that field.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, sir.

Public Accounts committee  When our equipment gets into theatre, it is handled by Canadians. We take ownership of our equipment.

Public Accounts committee  We could really go into detail on how we operate the airfield in Kandahar. It is a NATO airfield. They have a contractor that does materiel handling and gives that materiel to our supply tech, who then takes ownership of it. You will be pleased to know that the contract under NAM

Public Accounts committee  Strategic airlift and sealift in fact is something critical to a country like ours that wants to be successful in a place like Afghanistan, which is a land-locked country. You may take Air Canada and fly to wherever in the world. These are predetermined paths. When we bring the

Public Accounts committee  You really need some autonomy. When a crisis explodes somewhere--and an earthquake is a good example that we've seen in the past--everybody goes out to get those Antonov 124s and those IL-76s. Everybody wants them, and it's first come, first served. If you're out of the loop, you

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, clearly, with regard to planning, our people are already on the ground so as to be ready to incorporate the new capacity we might receive, and which will be used not only by Canada but also by the NATO forces in the region. Therefore, there is a lot of negotiation goin

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I do not have the exact figure, but the total number has remained steady at around 3,000. We have increased the number of support staff. As for the number of military personnel that support the mission, their numbers increased from 1,034 to 1,288. That includes all sup

Public Accounts committee  There are now 265 employees working under CANCAP, and the number is still expected to increase. That is but a small part, because Canada is only one of the 24 countries present in Kandahar. Many multinational contracts are managed by NATO. The organization has close to 1,300 cont

Public Accounts committee  We know that military police is currently investigating the loss of a handgun. The paperwork of the audit into the $7 million in losses could fill up two pick-up trucks. That is what we would have to review if we wanted to spot other cases. The case we know of and which is under

Public Accounts committee  No, Mr. Chair, not the content, that is for sure.

Public Accounts committee  Explosives are kept in a completely separate and segregated warehouse, for obvious reasons.

Public Accounts committee  One of the indicators is the time it takes to deliver an item. Another is the time it would take to purchase items, after having checked that there were none on our shelves. There's also a series of detailed indicators.