We just need to take this back even 20 years, sir, to where we were at the tail end of the Cold War.
Canada had an army, navy, and air force designed to work with other armies, navies, and air forces within a NATO context. Even though we were heavily engaged in peace support operations, we didn't have a robust history of that joint environment within a national context. We went through a difficult period through the nineties. As we moved through the middle part of this decade, we moved into a phase of operations in Afghanistan in which it became apparent that we would need to further define the relationship with, for example, the air force.
The first thing your colleagues saw when they visited us on Monday was a Chinook helicopter. Although in the Canadian context we equate that with the Royal Canadian Air Force, as we should, and the fact it was an allied helicopter, it is an essential component of land combat power.
What we have done is to redevelop that synergy overseas. We've had an air wing with us in Afghanistan. As part of the task force, besides having combat troops on the ground, we've had an air wing. Tactical aviation has been supporting us—tactical and strategic airlift getting us in there—and although our CF-18s weren't deployed to southern Afghanistan, other NATO air forces were, and we had tactical air parties and forward air controllers working as part of the team.
We've developed a level of integration that has come at a great cost, and that is something we definitely want to maintain as we go forward.