Thank you very much.
I don't know how much time I have to answer these questions. In fact, they cover almost everything that we do. For the questions about the curriculum and the decisions concerning the deployment of Canadian police forces, I will turn the floor over to my colleague from the RCMP.
I'll begin by telling you about coordination, given that this is the crux of the matter. Coordination for police preparation currently takes place at many levels. First, there is what is called the JCMB. I apologize for using the English acronym, which means the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board. This group brings together all countries involved in Afghanistan, and has produced a charter that is used as a framework. This organization is responsible for setting the maximum number of policemen for the country, which is 82,000.
Under this system, there is another organization, the International Police Coordination Board, which you mentioned earlier and which we joined in January. Why in January 2009 rather than 2006? For reasons linked to the effectiveness of the group. Before we joined, this group was just getting started. It would be fair to say that before last year, the international community was perhaps not as coordinated as it should have been with regard to police training.
Key players were missing, including the United States, which provides most of the police training. Without the U.S., we were somewhat reluctant to participate in this initiative. I would also add to this the reasons that you mentioned, including the fact that EUPOL took some time to get off the ground.
Between the time the decision was made—and it was an excellent one—and the time it was implemented, a certain amount of time elapsed. We had work to do in Kandahar and at the national level, so we decided to go ahead, but still using an approach involving close collaboration with the Afghans.
The final decision concerning the number of police officers, recruitment and reforms belongs to the Afghans. It is up to the Minister of the Interior, Mr. Atmar, to make these decisions. Our role is not to make them in his stead, but to assist him, and that is what we are trying to do right now.
We also talked about the relations between the various players. We already mentioned the first two, and I will briefly list the others: the Afghan Minister of the Interior, CSTC-A, an American organization that coordinates training both for the police force and for the armed forces, EUPOL, that is the European police force, and NATO. NATO adopted a policy concerning police training at its most recent summit.
All of these people work together within this police coordination group of which we are now a member. This should help us achieve better coherence, not as concerns the objectives—because we already know where we want to go—but rather as concerns how to get there.
This is a slightly more difficult question. For example, Canada is involved at the PRT level. We use an approach by district rather than by province, whereas other countries proceed differently. We are trying to make a more coherent whole out of all of this.
You mentioned cooperation between NATO and the European Union. I will now put on my hat as the former NATO spokesperson to explain to you that this question is always somewhat complicated.
However, the Europeans decided to create a group of gendarmes, police officers, and send them to Afghanistan. Some 400 of these gendarmes will be assisting the Afghan police. By deploying them, the Europeans have clearly and firmly showed their intention of providing assistance quickly, whether as part of NATO or under the EU banner. In my opinion, we've already passed this stage.