Yes, that was the FLQ crisis. I was stationed in Petawawa with an operational unit. It was Thanksgiving. That morning, a lot of us had been out duck-hunting. It was nice, peaceful garrison life.
By late that afternoon, we were fully armed to the teeth, weapons loaded, on board helicopters--our brand new set of Huey helicopters that hadn't been used in operations very much--and flying down the Ottawa River.
We landed where the Rideau Centre is now. It used to be a parking lot. We brought in one helicopter after another, a dust-off into the centre of the city. I always like to tell people that it was Canada's first experience in combat aerial operations, but unfortunately it was in downtown Ottawa and not in somebody else's country.
We then went across to the Cartier Square armouries, where we met senior mounted police officers as we were still loading magazines. We were told to guard various houses here and there.
One of the NCOs said to a mounted policeman, “So what do we do if somebody comes up on the lawn?” The mounted policeman said, “Shoot him. But then tell us first.” My commanding officer quite sensibly said, “Hold it: nobody's shooting anybody.”
The point of the little war story is that it's nice and sunny going duck-hunting. You come home, the turkey's in the oven for Thanksgiving...and that evening we're downtown, walking streets, and people are frightened.
In Kandahar, in Bosnia, in Germany under NATO, which was our greatest peacekeeping operation, the siren goes off and your life changes. Everything changes.
Again, we shouldn't hope to be able to dictate from Parliament or from NDHQ to the commanders in the field how they will react to the situation when they arrive on the ground. You train these people. You commission them. The Queen commissions them, and you give them the responsibility to command operations for Canada in the field. You assume, as I do, that they're sensible people in difficult circumstances, and then you hold them to account before they go and when they come back.
I hope that's not too much preaching, Mr. Chair.