National Defence Committee on April 17th, 2008

Evidence of meeting #23 for National Defence in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was soldiers.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Health services provided to Canadian Forces personnel with an emphasis on post-traumatic stress disorder

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Tim Grant Deputy Commander, Canadian Expeditionary Force Command, Former Commander, Joint Task Force, Afghanistan, Department of National Defence

Omer Lavoie Task Force Commander, Counter Improvised Explosives Task Force, Former Battle Group Commander, First Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment Battle Group, Department of National Defence

Simon Hetherington Executive Assistant, Chief of the Land Staff, Former Commanding Officer, Provincial Reconstruction Team, Department of National Defence

5:20 p.m.

LCol Simon Hetherington

If I could add just one more thing to that, bringing it up one more level, in June of this year we're going to have the second annual army what we call after-action review, where the commanders from all levels--rifleman, tactics--are out in Wainwright, and the lessons learned.

We now bring it back to Kingston. So we're going to bring back the command teams from the missions in Afghanistan over the last year to come together in working groups and syndicates to take the greater lessons learned from their experience and again capture them to try to move them forward.

So this is an institutional process we've now taken on.

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Rick Casson

Great. Thanks for that.

On a personal note, when we were in KAF we were briefed by a young man--I think Jim indicated he was a captain--who did the training on recognizing IEDs and a little bit of the disarming. How is that young man doing? Is he still active?

5:20 p.m.

Liberal

Joe McGuire Liberal Egmont, PE

He was from Cape Breton.

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Rick Casson

Oh, was he? Do you remember him at all?

5:20 p.m.

MGen Tim Grant

I can see the face, but the name escapes me right now. If I can get the name, I can certainly look it up for you.

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Rick Casson

He was a very intense young individual.

5:20 p.m.

Bloc

Claude Bachand Bloc Saint-Jean, QC

How about that young nurse?

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Rick Casson

There was also a gunner in my Nyala. Her name was Tobi. I have a power point presentation that I put together after we came back. I've shown it to hundreds of people, and I always say she was cute but also dangerous, because she was a gunner.

Is there anything else you'd like to add before we conclude?

April 17th, 2008 / 5:20 p.m.

MGen Tim Grant

We appreciate talking about what is clearly an important subject to you and to us. Taking soldiers overseas into a combat mission is both an honour and a privilege. It is also a huge responsibility. Bringing those young men and women home is an equally big responsibility.

Do we have a perfect system to make sure no one falls through the cracks? We don't. Do we have a better system than we had in Bosnia? Absolutely. Our hope is that we will continue to make the system better, so that at the end of the day no one will fall through the cracks.

5:20 p.m.

Some hon. members

Hear, hear!

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Rick Casson

Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.