It could be a long walk.
Evidence of meeting #19 for National Defence in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was province.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #19 for National Defence in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was province.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director General, Operations, Strategic Joint Staff, Department of National Defence
It could be a long walk. But our soldiers see a lot, so it's just the ability to have a coordination centre so that we can turn and say to a fledgling judiciary that we are trying to create from scratch, “We're having some problems here; we need your help to come and deal with that situation.” So when I say “911”, I'll put it in quotation marks.
Certainly the Afghan National Police endeavour and the auxiliary police are an attempt to create a judiciary out of nothing. What you and I take for a professional police force here in Canada is certainly the ideal that we are trying to put together within Afghanistan. It's very slow progress. The RCMP officers and the PRT are working slowly and diligently with the local police, who we do have assigned to the region, to try to professionalize them, but this will take some time. The effort with the auxiliary police has been to try to screen out any of those folks who are undesirable and don't have some forms of self-discipline that we would expect from police. It's in very early days, and I think it will take some time to develop from there.
Director General, Operations, Strategic Joint Staff, Department of National Defence
Sorry I couldn't get to your last question.
Conservative
October 30th, 2006 / 4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
There have been a greater number of casualties on this rotation than Canadians are used to hearing about in the news. What assurances can you give this committee that the soldiers over there right now are properly trained?
Director General, Operations, Strategic Joint Staff, Department of National Defence
The training for Afghanistan has been centred and focused on leadership of the Canadian Forces, from General Hillier all the way down to the lowest-ranking folks. We have tried our very best to prepare the soldiers for Afghanistan in several ways. We had a fair amount of experience operating in Kabul, so it was easy to teach the soldiers about the local conditions.
One of the new initiatives we brought into the army was the creation of the Canadian Manoeuvre Training Centre in Alberta. All troops that are destined for Afghanistan go through that centre, so we're able to practise many of the skill sets they will need in Afghanistan.
I'd like to reassure the committee that it's not just combat they're practising; they're also practising interacting with locals and conducting shuras and PRT activities. We've put a lot of effort into that, and each and every soldier is trained to the best standard we can.
As I told the soldiers from 2 Brigade who were deploying, “I can only give you about 60% of the training you need. You have to get in the theatre and see it yourself. We want you to learn and adapt when you get there.” One of the last messages I left with them was, “Please learn each and every day from everything you see and adjust as you go along.”
I'm immensely confident in the training system we have put together for our soldiers going to Afghanistan.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rick Casson
Thank you very much, sir. This was the first of what is supposed to be some regularly scheduled briefings. As indicated by members, we will be discussing your presentation--the value of it and the format--in our steering committee.
That adjourns this meeting.