Madam Chair, I am very happy that the member had an opportunity to go to visit the troops and witness for himself the tremendous work. I had an opportunity to visit twice, once before to learn about the region, and the second time to visit our troops and see the tremendous work they are doing.
Our re-engagement with the United Nations, something that we had stepped back significantly from in the previous government, is not just about our going in and offering things up. Very similar to what we did in Operation Impact, it is about how we can be a responsible partner. We worked with the UN. What are the reforms they need? What is the impact we can have?
One of the things that the United Nations wanted was to support the reforms. One of the reforms the UN is asking for is this concept called “smart pledges”. Smart pledges is about high-level capability that only a few nations can provide, and if we can get into a rotation, we will make sure that these missions and the commanders on the ground will have these capabilities. That is what this is. We agreed to go in for one year, and then we worked with our partners and we are very happy to work with Romania to get another partner to come on board.
Right now, we are working very closely with our partners to look at ways to reduce the gap, just as happened when we came in. Also, let us not forget that the United Nations does have support when it comes to medical evacuation, but right now we are working still in terms of how we can best support the UN and help the Romanian armed forces to come in. A lot more work needs to be done, but one thing is for sure. We are having a tremendous impact.
This is not just about our coming in. This is about our supporting the United Nations reforms, and there is a lot more work that needs to be done, whether it is on the Elsie initiative, the Vancouver principles or some of the other smart pledges that we have proposed as well.