Foreign Affairs committee  It's going to take a very long time. It took a long time in Germany after the war to make things work, and there you had a literate, organized state that at least had its roots in liberal democracy in European enlightenment. Maybe that's not what's in store for these places. Mayb

Foreign Affairs committee  Chair, I've followed members' opinions and ideas over many years, and I respect them, and I enjoy most of them. I have anecdotes too that I could tell, if we had lots of time, of people coming to me from those parts of the world, from Afghanistan, saying, "God bless Canada. You

Foreign Affairs committee  That's part of our difficulty—at least mine—in trying to describe these things and think about them. Mr. Chair, if I may put words in your mouth, what you're saying to me is old model. We want to look around for the government to deal with. Which government are you going to deal

Foreign Affairs committee  I think that's a fairly accurate description of what's been going on. If we have time, Mr. Chair, I'll just reminisce for a minute. My father served in World War II in combat units in Italy, Normandy, and the Netherlands. He liked to tell stories, along with his chums at the Leg

Foreign Affairs committee  We could have a debate about who liberated whom, but if you go to Spain and Bulgaria and Romania, all the eastern European countries, they're not only liberated, but they're liberal democracies.

Foreign Affairs committee  One of the points that Walter makes that's important is that there are some—it depends on whose stats you look at—70,000 or 80,000 so-called peacekeepers around the world. And that's great. More power to them. It makes a lot of money for a lot of nations. That's how they pay thei

Foreign Affairs committee  My colleague and I always have interesting discussions about peacekeeping. I think it's a great operation. I spent a lot of my life in Canada's largest, oldest, and most successful peacekeeping operation, and it was called NATO. It liberated more countries and more people than

Foreign Affairs committee  They are hardly the people to hold up to the Afghan people. It's why the Afghan government invited Canadians to make war on these criminal elements in their society. Finally, when we talk about peacekeeping as not being warfare, the Congo exercise was a very good example of the

Foreign Affairs committee  What Brooke Claxton was talking about was--to again look to Mackenzie King and that period--that Parliament would decide what would be done in matters of commitments that Canada would make. We were not under any obligation--NATO was hardly formed at that time--and we certainly ha

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair and members, for the invitation to be here. I hope I can make a positive contribution to your deliberations. I have just a few comments to make, and then I'll be at your disposal. I always liked the question period better than the presentat

National Defence committee  I have a very short comment. The principle we are talking about in this research is that you will appoint some minister responsible for the management of the system. That is separate from the decision of what to do. The manager will take it from the statement of requirement to

National Defence committee  I'll just say something quickly.

National Defence committee  I'll just say three quick things. With respect, the culture of secrecy, if it exists, seems to me to be contagious as governments change. But that aside, in writings and research and in working with the Somalia inquiry, for instance, during that period, I'm very eager to have a

National Defence committee  I'll try to keep the answer short. The strategy for our armed forces, which most of us here are used to, comes from fifty years of the Cold War. It was a period in which we had what I refer to as a strategy of commitments. In other words, Canada had certain commitments, mostly

National Defence committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak with you today. I've been following your transcripts and your conversations at a distance. In fact I've engaged a couple of graduate students to keep track of the debates that have been going on and the