Thank you very much, General, for your presentation.
When we are talking about the drones, basically the drones came out from the U.S., from the CIA. The first drone was commanded from Langley, looking in Pakistan at Tarnak farm and following Osama bin Laden in the early 2000s.
I was in Afghanistan in 2007. I understand that drones became quite an important part of the military.
We Canadians have had a UAV but it was from the Danes. You needed to launch a probe before launching the real drone. We didn't have the latest technology in drones. We used them only for surveillance to know what was going on in the night when the Taliban were coming out and doing some activities that were not very friendly for us.
In the meantime on the Kandahar base, the U.S. already had the Predators. I have had five kinds of permits to go in different areas on the base, but the Predator base was very well protected. To my surprise, I found out that the Italians had the Predators when we didn't.
From 2007 to today, of course, the technology has improved dramatically in the way the weaponry system and the Predators were developed in an exponential way. The technology has improved substantially.
What is your vision of the future for the utilization of the drones? Have you envisaged that perhaps it will be necessary to have a unit with drones in the future in the Canadian Armed Forces?