Mr. Chair, I appreciate the remarks by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I will keep my question quite short out of respect for other members. I am sure they would like to address questions to him as well.
The minister briefly touched on a concern of mine at the end of his remarks: the need for a longer term commitment. My understanding, vague as it is, is that according to what the government has stated, the deployment of the troops phase of our assistance to the Haitians is to be 90 days, a three month deployment.
Given his remarks, I wonder what the minister envisions beyond those 90 days from a military perspective, and I also wonder if he could add any specifics in the way of requests of Canada that have come from the Haitians or the Americans or French who are involved there. The Secretary-General of the United Nations was just here for a visit and he may have suggested to our government or the minister or the Prime Minister what he is looking for in the way of specifics beyond the 90 days.
If the minister does have some of that information, I think it would certainly be incumbent upon him to enlighten Canadians, particularly the men and women of our military, as to what the likely commitment would be beyond three months.