Thank you very much.
In response to the parliamentary motion, the government really set about transforming the mission. It meant a real change in terms of our focus, so that we were focused very specifically on the development and rebuilding of Afghanistan, and that we also took seriously the time limitations, the fact that we have work in southern Afghanistan that will take us through to 2011. In everything we do, we're entirely organized around that. You'll notice that our public benchmarks reflect specific goals to address the things the motion asked us to do. The fact that we are benchmarking and reporting is also part of the motion. We've staffed up; we've put people in place to ensure that we're doing this as carefully and rigorously as possible. I meet once a quarter with key people from headquarters in Ottawa and the field, civilian and military, and we talk about how are we going to go month by month, quarter by quarter, to navigate to 2011. So that is our entire focus.
I should say we have military police who are also training Afghan National Police. We have about 40 now. We've got 30-plus civilian police. That will go to 50 by the middle of this year. They're working on a couple of levels. First is basic survival skills so that the police know how to do their job safely. Secondly--and this is what the minister saw last week--they're teaching them how to manage a crime scene, how to do their job professionally. It's quite impressive to see them do their work. The announcement that ministers made last week of our new contribution to the law and order trust fund will effectively ensure that salaries are paid for Afghan National Police in southern Afghanistan for the next couple of years. We're also working very hard to ensure that they get that salary money. We've worked on an electronic payment system so that officers can actually collect the money themselves on a monthly basis.
We're working hard to ensure not just that we're doing the training but that we've got some of the other conditions of service right.