Over the course of the last year, we've basically doubled the number of civilians we have in Afghanistan, doubled the size of the embassy, and doubled the number of people we have in Kandahar. In Kandahar we have some folks who work at the Kandahar Airfield, but we have even more who work with the provincial reconstruction team.
We've also created a new position, the representative of Canada in Kandahar, who is the senior Canadian, the boss of all the civilians on the ground, and who represents the ambassador. Their job is to make sure that everybody is focused on the same set of objectives.
So that's been a big change. But I think the Manley panel was telling us, “That's okay, but you have to step it up to the next level and you have to do even more.” So what we're working on now, in addition to the policy work and ensuring that we're all clear in terms of core priorities, is to be sure that we've got the people on the ground to operationalize that. We're working with the departments right now to look at the next level of deployments of civilians to Afghanistan. That's going to mean more people on the civilian side and more senior people.
We then have to work through some issues with the Canadian Forces: how do we enable them to do their work safely and securely in Kandahar? I know we're going to find solutions to that, but that's a challenge we're working through right now.