Mr. Chair, I have been thinking about Mr. Wilfert's question. The decision-making for a UN peacekeeping operation rests with the Security Council, but not in isolation. Canada has encouraged the Security Council to consult with the troop contributors. If Canada were considering a major commitment to an operation, we would meet with the major contributors before decisions were made to get a sense from them of what was possible and what was desirable.
I think consulting the troop contributors is something the Security Council has recognized and is doing better at, but I would have to say that it falls short of enabling us to write our own conditions, unless we are going to be the only country to provide troops for a mission. That's not how things work, of course. It's always a partnership. I think it is a very important point that the major troop contributors should be consulted and their input should be factored into the decision-making.
The training question is another very good one. The Canadian Forces have done a lot of that--training military forces in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa, and have helped them be more effective. We are seeing that in Haiti, for instance, with some of the Latin American deployments there. We have the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, which is very active. I think in the long term, Canada and the Canadian Forces can make a hugely important contribution, which is to help others up their skills, capacities, and understanding of what peacekeeping takes.