National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, if I could just make a brief comment, there's a demographic problem here. It's nice rhetoric in a big meeting, but when people talk to me about recruiting and the armed forces, and so on, I ask the question, who fights for Canada? Young white men, that's who fights for

National Defence committee  First, I would say that I'm not convinced that the difficulties of people in other parts of the world imposes a moral obligation on Canada to do anything. I remember years ago listening to Lloyd Axworthy, when he was foreign minister, speaking about what became responsibility t

National Defence committee  Sure. I would love to spend a few months sorting out the inefficiencies at National Defence Headquarters, but they won't let me.

National Defence committee  The point is not that there aren't inefficiencies, and it's a whole other question as to what that means. I'll come back to it. The point is that in all these cuts.... When I joined the armed forces a long, long time ago, there were 125,000 people in the armed forces. We had ship

National Defence committee  Right. You can't cut back the forces people very much more. We've just talked about how you need to have something. My approach to this kind of thing is to understand the purpose of the armed forces. It is a group of people set aside by society for a special purpose, and that pu

National Defence committee  Such as governments resisting adding on to the logistic slush on the snowball year after year by having the department take on new administrative responsibilities: ombudsman for the armed forces, freedom of information acts.... All of these various reactions to the Auditor Genera

National Defence committee  Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Just as background, I spent 39 years in the Canadian Forces as a Canadian army officer, and in the last 15 years I've been developing a unique study program here at Queen's that studies the defence administration--in other words, where

Foreign Affairs committee  I don't know whether I'd want to be Rick Hillier, Prime Minister, or either. They are dreadful jobs, actually. For those who had difficulty hearing me when I made my introductory remarks because we had problems with the microphones, the answer to your first question is something

Foreign Affairs committee  I always encourage students not to become wrapped up in the myths of peacekeeping—for instance, that Canada invented peacekeeping and such things. We didn't. Walter is very right that we have some sort of special expertise. Well, lots of people in the world have special experti

Foreign Affairs committee  If I were in control of what, sir?

Foreign Affairs committee  Heaven forbid. I'm an academic. You can go first. I've got to think up an answer.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, Chair, I'll do that. I'm just reworking it now for publication, but I'll send you something.

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, I think the point is very well taken, and it has been recognized in these kinds of continuous warfare operations that you need police amongst the people. I hope you've had a chance to speak to Brigadier-General David Fraser, who commanded our forces in Afghanistan. He

Foreign Affairs committee  If 36 or 37 countries in Afghanistan are putting their efforts behind the NATO operations and not the UN operations, that has to tell you something. Those countries are not full of dumb people, dumb diplomats, and dumb politicians.

Foreign Affairs committee  Not to be a professor, but when I talk to students and other people in public meetings and they say that missions should be balanced, I always remind people that balance doesn't mean equal. You can have 2,000 soldiers and 25 diplomats in a mission and the mission would be in bala