Mr. Chairman, the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence authorize their own movements. In terms of the additional special operations forces who are deployed there, they were there as a close personal protection unit, which is one of the functions for which they are trained. It's part of their mandate.
The Prime Minister and I, for example, also visited the two Canadian air force bases out of which we are operating in Kuwait and would normally, going on a military visit of that nature to that region, have soft protection as a part of close personal protection. That would be the normal protocol, I believe. As I understand it, we were not, as you characterized it, Mr. Harris, “on the front line”. The forward line of the Kurdish peshmerga troops was ahead of us. We thought it was important, however, that we, as the Government of Canada, demonstrate our support for both our forces operating in the region and our Kurdish allies, and to demonstrate a message of resolve. I believe it was well appreciated.