Thank you for your question, Mr. Robillard.
In fact, I know the AWACS operations well, and I know what they mean for the Alliance. I flew on AWACS aircraft when I was chairman of the military committee. Canadians' contribution to the air force during their decades of participation was very important, specifically with regard to their capabilities.
General Bouchard has a very good knowledge of the Canadian capabilities in direct operations such as those in Libya. For continuous operations such as the AWACS, Canada's contribution with regard to operational techniques and capabilities was critical. They had a vision for the structures of both the manned airborne systems and the drones, the unmanned aerial vehicles.
In my opinion, Canada's withdrawal from the AWACS was hard for NATO to accept due to our contribution at the time. As General Bouchard mentioned, the deputy commander of the force was on-site. We were therefore not only responsible for providing the monitoring and air observation capabilities, but also the force's leadership.
I hope that Canada's announced renewed commitment to NATO, at least for the financial aspect, will become more than that in the long term. As I mentioned in my presentation, this renewed participation will result in a new-found credibility for Canada.
As for the protection of the North American continent by NORAD, I believe that our people in command are extremely experienced. Their expertise is of critical importance to NATO, whether for operations in Europe, Iraq or Libya, specifically for monitoring purposes. In my opinion, this is an important, even critical, issue for Canada.