Mr. Speaker, I thought the hon. member for Calgary Northeast was just starting to roll.
The member talked about the famous helicopters and about our working with our allies. Unfortunately we cannot even work with our allies because we cannot talk to them. The radios in the helicopters do not work. They only work to talk to each other. It is a strange situation.
The hon. member, one of the Liberal members and I were in Washington a little over a week ago. We had some briefings from our American friends. What they had to say was very interesting.
First of all they did not even mention Canada. They were talking about Kosovo and what would probably happen going in there. They were looking at probably 2,000 to 4,000 troops. It was quite clear that those 2,000 to 4,000 troops would probably be marines and would probably be in and out very quickly. They were only talking about showing a presence on the ground.
That is probably what our Canadian troops should really be looking at too. We do not want another long term stay like there was in Bosnia. We do not have the troops to do it. The turnover is just not working out.
I would like to hear the member's comments on that particular scenario and how we could go into the area for a while to establish our presence and show that we are supporting our NATO allies. By the way, most of our NATO allies who were with us in Washington agreed that it should be European troops on the ground in Europe.