Gordon O'Connor

[Business of Supply, November 7th, 2006]

Mr. Chair, transformation will help ensure that the Canadian Forces can act quickly in the event of a domestic or international crisis. The CF will arrive on the scene faster, will move more effectively within theatre and will have increased capability to sustain deployments.

The first step in achieving this was to establish a clear delineation between the strategic and operational levels of command by creating a dedicated strategic joint staff and four operational level command structures. I will speak to two of the operational level command headquarters as way of illustration.

The first is Canada Command. It has the sole authority for the conduct of all routine and contingency domestic operations in Canada. The second principal headquarters is the Canadian Expeditionary Forces Command, which ensures that the Canadian Forces will be able to address threats to Canadian security beyond our borders. CEFCOM is the sole operational authority for all conduct of international operations.

One of the hallmarks of transformation is establishing a clear delineation of command responsibilities, one for international operations and another headquarters for domestic operations.

[Business of Supply, November 7th, 2006]

Mr. Chair, I will respond that it is basically a foreign affairs question. The only area in which we get involved with the government, the Karzai government not the Kandahar government, is with our strategic advisory team in Kabul.

[Business of Supply, November 7th, 2006]

Mr. Chair, I think the hon. member is referring to the road where we have had six Canadians killed. It is progressing quite well. There is now a sharing of costs. Basically, we have been building the road but there is now a sharing a costs and Germany will be picking up the price to pave the road. The Americans are picking up the price of building a bridge and we are picking up the price of other parts of the road. The road is progressing quite well and the number of attacks in that area have decreased over time.

[Business of Supply, November 7th, 2006]

Mr. Chair, as I understand it, the auxiliary police were authorized by the Karzai government. These youngsters are 18 years or older. They may be teenagers in a teenage sense but they are adults and they are trained to use weapons. They reinforce the local police and the local army.

[Business of Supply, November 7th, 2006]

Mr. Chair, to my knowledge there are no U.S. military stationed in our north and there are no U.S. military sensor systems operating under water in our north or in any other place.

[Business of Supply, November 7th, 2006]

Mr. Chair, I think the waffle was a part of the NDP in the past. It is not part of our group. We are not waffling on it. As I have said, the navy is looking at a range of options and I am waiting for the recommendation from the navy.

[Business of Supply, November 7th, 2006]

Mr. Chair, our policy asks that the navy be able to operate in three oceans, that is the Atlantic, Pacific and the Arctic Oceans. The navy was tasked with looking at a number of options of how it would achieve that and , what kind of vessels it would need to achieve that. It is looking at a range of vessels and we are waiting for the recommendation.

Once we get the recommendation, which will be part of our overall defence strategy, we will need to seek the approval of the cabinet. At that stage we will know what we have.

[Business of Supply, November 7th, 2006]

Mr. Chair, with respect to the heavy lift aircraft, I believe the choice is the C-17. As I said about all the projects, all the projects are doing dollar for dollar. They will be invested in Canada so that hundreds of companies in Canada will benefit from this.

In the case of the support contract, I believe Boeing will manage the support contract but it will be employing Canadians in the support contract.

[Business of Supply, November 7th, 2006]

Mr. Chair, the base, as such, is owned by the U.S. government at this time but it will be transferred to the ownership of NATO. I do not have the immediate cost at hand right now but we pay a proportional share of running the base. There are British, American, Danes and a whole bunch of people at that base and we pay our proportional share.

[Business of Supply, November 7th, 2006]

Mr. Chair, as I said, we have had to increase the protection on the PRT to ensure they are effective. The only money that I can talk about with respect to the PRT is the DND portion. I think we are spending something like $3.4 million on projects there but I have asked the military chiefs to look at possibly increasing the DND portion of development projects under the PRT.