Mr. Speaker, the question the member asked has absolutely nothing to do with the question he asked on May 30. For your information, Mr. Speaker, during question period he asked about the cancellation and reissuing by DND of the tender for the redeployment of vehicles and equipment from Eritrea. That is the question he asked. I do not know what that has to do with Afghanistan.
At this point in time Canada has not been asked by the United Nations and the United Nations has not made up its mind as to whether it is going to be involved in peacekeeping, and if peacekeeping is going to be involved in Afghanistan.
Perhaps the member should come back in six months and ask the same question again. He may actually get an answer. However, I will comment.
I appreciate the continuing interest of the member for Cumberland--Colchester in the military and the way it operates and the economy of scale that the military operates in. This ensures that the government has an opportunity to reply to some of the concerns raised by Canadians as to whether the military is combat capable, whether it is able to take part in the long term planning that is ahead of us and whether the enhancement of global deployablity is still of great concern.
I appreciate the member's question. His question came from the incident with the GTS Katie in which a shipping firm was not being paid by the agent that had been contracted. It protested and Canadian equipment, containerized equipment mostly, was held up in high seas and not allowed to enter port. That created a situation. The Government of Canada, through the Minister of National Defence, had decided that the use of commercial carriers to move equipment and personnel, which has been a common practice among Canada's allies for many years for non-combative services, eases the pressure on military personnel who would otherwise have to provide these services. On the subject of sealift in particular some valuable lessons were learned from the GTS Katie incident. A number of steps have been taken to strengthen the DND sealift contracting operations and options to meet the transportation requirements of the Canadian forces.
After consulting with the Department of Justice, legal counsel, the shipping industry and a number of NATO allies, DND decided to try an industry best practice approach of chartering its maritime transportation requirements directly with shipowners. This eliminates contracting intermediaries and allows for the solicitation of bids directly from shipowners through a broker.
The redeployment of Canadian forces equipment from Eritrea this past summer offered an excellent opportunity to charter by this means. It is a very successful operation and one now that we can be very proud of. It provides the economy of scale, the efficiency that all of our allies use and it has proved to be very successful.