Foreign Affairs committee  Sir, no, there is no intention to deploy to do as you just described. We are strictly focused on the support requested by DFAIT to protect the nation in Bamako.

Foreign Affairs committee  They would not have been reports from us.

Foreign Affairs committee  It's only French assets and troops.

Foreign Affairs committee  You can understand my broad reluctance to get into too much detail in terms of operational security reasons as to where we are and what we're doing. I can assure you first of all that we're not involved in any combat operations. Second, we are not doing any force protection at

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, if I may, I should hand this to Ms. Buck.

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, if I could just add one point quickly, there is a tendency sometimes to see military kinetic action as being the silver bullet on the Islamist threat. In fact, kinetic action does not address root causes. An appropriate balance between hard military and all of the othe

Foreign Affairs committee  Our military goal is to provide effective C-17 support to France until February 15.

Foreign Affairs committee  The mission assigned to the Canadian Forces is to provide a C-17 with a good crew and capability to provide strategic logistic support with that C-17 until February 15.

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm not quite sure of your line of questioning. The fact is that the goal that has been established for us at this particular juncture is to support the French, a key ally, as they seek to respond to the crisis in Mali.

Foreign Affairs committee  The Canadian military objective is inside a whole-of-government approach that speaks to wider national goals. It's difficult to pick one from another. Canada has, as has been well described by Ms. Buck, a whole-of-government comprehensive approach. Tying the Canadian military con

Foreign Affairs committee  At this juncture it is probably important for this to be seen in the context of Canada's foreign policy objectives, so I'm going to hand it to Ms. Buck. I can tell you that Canada doesn't usually approach something like this with a one-off. In other words, it's not just a milita

Foreign Affairs committee  If I may, Mr. Chair, I will pass this to Ms. Buck to put the wider Canadian government foreign policy objectives in relief to what the military is doing.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, sir. I think generally speaking we can say that the French offensive operations were mounted extremely quickly, very professionally, and indeed have been very effective to this point in time. Over a very short period they have served to do two things: primarily to stop the

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, honourable members of the committee, I am pleased to be here today to discuss the Canadian Armed Forces contribution to operations in Mali. My statement will focus on three main areas. I will begin by describing the Canadian Armed Forces mission in support of operatio

National Defence committee  As far as I understand there are no forced structure expectations. NATO would not expect force X to be available anywhere, but I'm going to have to check on that. It does not affect my day greatly, so I'm probably going to need to take that one on notice.