You see, honourable member, that's another area that's extremely important. I've been going around, since coming back after the summer, to speak to some of the private sector organizations in Canada. My focus in the past has mainly been on the mining industry, in which Canada has tremendous potential, or on some of the other investment opportunities.
One area in which we do have a lot of capacity here in Canada is defence. Particularly with reference to counter-IEDs, I know this has been an important consideration for NATO as well. Most of the Canadian troops that have lost their lives have actually lost them to IEDs. So these have been a concern for them.
NATO has the resources and the technical capacity to at least do something as far as their own protection is concerned. But what about the future of the Afghan institutions? Our police lose their lives by a factor of one to four: more than the national army. Our police are at the forefront of this war against terrorism. They do not have the necessary protection. In fact they have minimal protection for their lives. It would be such a valuable contribution by Canada to engage the private sector capacity that exists here, technological and otherwise, to help the Afghan security institutions, particularly the police, in this particular area.
At the risk of being politically inappropriate by raising a particular name, I am aware of at least one particular organization that is a world leader in this, and that is Allen-Vanguard, which specializes in this particular area that I've seen.