Absolutely, Madam, thank you.
The threat environment that we're currently facing in Afghanistan is not necessarily the model, but it is a model, and no matter where we may go next internationally, it's logical to assume that we will be facing much the same type of threat from fundamentalists or terrorists who will use improvised explosive devices to harm either our soldiers or those we're charged with protecting.
In the absence of a technological breakthrough of sufficient sophistication, degree of accuracy, and lethality that you can mount it on relatively light vehicles to defeat a suicide bomber with five or six artillery shells in the back of his Toyota pickup truck as he rams up alongside you, or that can defeat an incoming projectile, such as a rocket-propelled grenade, we have had to default to options incorporating more mass on our vehicles, as have most other armies.
So we've put thousands of kilograms of extra armour on our M113 armoured personnel carriers. We bought the RG-31, and I know you've travelled in one. It's hideously uncomfortable, but it does the job. Think of the alternative.
Much the same is true of the Leopard, which is the single best-protected vehicle we have against an enormous blast. It's proved its worth in the sense that it has saved lives.
Like all soldiers who have been in combat, I don't necessarily like having to use the weapon systems that the Government of Canada makes available to us, but we are prepared to use them.
Very often, having these heavy pieces of equipment means that you don't have to use them, because you've presented or you've limited--