Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 25th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

A point of order?

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Yes. I know you want to close, because it's already 4:30, but can I ask our witnesses and the minister if they would be willing to stay another four minutes, just to let one of my colleagues ask a final question, please?

Thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right. Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Then we will go to our colleague Mr. McTeague.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for that, colleagues. It's good to be back in the committee.

And thank you to both of you. I say so not just because you're here, but also I know the personal touch both of you give to our wounded and our injured soldiers and their families. I had the misfortune of having one of my own family members hurt, so I thank both of you. I know how deeply committed you are to our troops.

On the subject of training, which Mr. Goldring raised a little earlier, I was a little concerned. I didn't know if either one of you was on the same page with respect to your comments, General Hillier, about the re-roling of people in the testimony you gave before the defence committee last week, and of course, Minister, in your comments made in the House of Commons on Monday. I understand there has been an attempt here to clarify them with that question.

I still have concern. This question is to both of you. How would you perceive, then, and how would you handle the issue of training? We know it takes quite some time to train personnel to bring them up to combat level, unless we're drawing from reservists or have a number who are trained right now who are maybe navy or airmen who are now going to be deployed for infantry reasons. How long do you think it will take to get these individuals up to speed to meet your commitments over there without having to fall back on redeployment?

I guess that brings up the question, what is the percentage of reservists you have there now?

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

I'll try to answer part of this, and then I'll hand it over to the chief.

It will soon be 2,500. If you look at the commitment to Afghanistan, you find that once the new organizations arrive, about half of them are the battle group or the fighting forces; the other half are either in command and control roles or support roles, etc. As the chief alluded to about 20 minutes ago, the idea is that we will try to draw upon air bases and navy bases to fill out some of the spots on the non-fighting side of the commitment.

On the fighting side of the commitment, we have to look at the numbers, but let's say we have some crewmen who are available for a certain time who could be re-roled into the infantry. They'd have to get some infantry training, etc. But there is no concept of taking sailors or airmen and turning them into combat arms.

I'll let the chief answer the rest of it, and about the reserves too.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

That I think is the concern. How do we get from the training to the ones that the general has proposed? People who are currently training may now be trained for combat purposes. I think the committee will certainly want to hear about that. There seems to be a gulf between the two. I understand what you're trying to say, but it seems to me that either it's going to be a long time to train them or there may be a chilling effect on recruitment in Canada as a result of what the general has announced.

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

Sir, let me just say there is no gulf between us. We have a unity of thought on this one that is absolutely complete.

Kids are flocking to our recruiting centres across our country. There is twice the number so far this year as during the same time last year. We have connected with the Canadian population. We'd like to do a little bit better with the minority communities across our country. We are trying to establish a relationship with them, but we know that is long term.

The overall point, sir, is that those young men and women who wear a uniform and go into Afghanistan will be trained to do the job. We're taking no shortcuts whatsoever. This is real business in every way and in every respect, and we're doing the training.

Secondly, you have to remember we're working now to 2008. The planning is done. The forestructure is working to come to full fruition for the rest of this year and for 2007. We're now actually looking at the first half of 2008 and being better able to share the load. So we're not asking somebody who has just come out this summer to go back in. We're looking a year and a half out for men and women coming out of recruiting systems from being a basic recruit. We have 252 people right now in our recruit school in that early stage. We have a year and a half to train them to be infantry soldiers.

We always use reservists on our operation. Habitually, we have about 20%. But the reality, sir, is that when they go on the mission, they have received exactly the same training as a regular force soldier, say, an airman or airwoman, has. In fact, we have them for a period of about of two years. In short, we almost have them as a soldier for that time. So we make sure they're trained.

We're going to look to those reservists much more as a way of building our regular force, as a way of doing this job, and as a way of helping some of these missions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

I want to thank Madame Bourgeois for this motion that allowed us to have the minister and the general with us today. Thank you very much.

And to our Minister and to General Hillier, thank you for coming today and for availing us of this briefing. We appreciate your openness, your frankness, and the information that you brought. Thank you.

I ask the committee to stick around. We will be dealing with some committee business in the next hour.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I call the meeting back to order. We want to deal with committee business.

We have three notices of motion that have been placed before the committee. The first notice of motion is from Alexa McDonough, but she is not present.

Actually, there is no one present to deal with any of the motions that have been placed here.

[Gerald Schmitz, Committee Researcher]

They're in the press probably.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Some of the committee members are going to have to decide whether they want to get their picture on television or deal with committee business. This is the time when we really want to deal with committee business.

Is there anyone here with the motions?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

I move we adjourn. We have better things to do than wait for people.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

The meeting is adjourned.