National Defence committee  Thank you for the question. You will have seen in the past in NATO operations that Canadians have been very highly placed. Some people call it punching above our weight. We spoke of Lieutenant-General Bouchard, but there have been many of our generals before him in Afghanistan

National Defence committee  You're probably aware that we have a UAV capability onboard HMCS Regina in the Arabian Sea right now, to great effect. It's a leased capability, as was our capability in Afghanistan. That has proven our ability to work that into operations. When we look ahead, the Canada First

National Defence committee  That will be part of the doctrine we'll have to develop. Of course, running these things in a relatively small theatre, represented by Afghanistan or a portion of the Arabian Sea, within miles of a ship is a much different thing from now running them across 2,000 miles of very ha

National Defence committee  You may be aware that the Department of National Defence is one of the largest landlords in the country. With our 21,000 buildings and property, it adds up to a couple of times the size of P.E.I. The point you make is that many of those buildings are of great use to us and have b

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, it's a very interesting discussion. NATO is moving towards the smart defence that Canada is very interested in—simply because of the name, if nothing else. But it is difficult in our situation to determine how we can work smart defence into our capabilities when everyb

National Defence committee  Yes, I believe that should be the case.

National Defence committee  First I'd just like to correct the impression that Canadians don't lead missions. In fact, in the figures of 10 years earlier, in Kosovo, Canadians were leading 20% to 25% of the missions, and I think it would be near the same...but I will get that for the committee. Canadians we

National Defence committee  We have the same idea of a mission, and of course the leadership went all the way up to the—

National Defence committee  Thank you very much. The question is the importance of stealth going forward, and I think it really speaks to what the Canadian armed forces assesses as potential threats that we will face. When you look at that set of scenarios, those who would stand as being the greatest prob

National Defence committee  That's a great question, and actually, we should probably simplify the idea of stealth. All stealth is, truly, is a set of technology steps that decrease the amount of energy that hits the aircraft and returns to a receiver. That's all it is, and there is a lot of technology in t

National Defence committee  The moneys that have been assigned to strategic review and to the debt reduction action plan are the cuts to the budget that add up to $2.5 billion going forward. The indications from the government to me now are to work within that plan and find efficiencies to reinvest. It is

National Defence committee  In that area, I work within the policies that have been developed for me to work within.

National Defence committee  You're speaking, of course, of ex gratia payments—

National Defence committee  I'm well aware of the home equity policy, but I'm not aware of the numbers you spoke of. However, I am aware of grievances that have come up to me. In fact, what you speak to is the ability then of the CDS to provide an ex gratia payment in response to a grievance that he agrees

National Defence committee  Stealth, in itself, speaks to a quality, so to write in that stealth is a requirement cannot stand alone. What requirement can be written in is some level of stealth, and therefore it cannot be written in that the plane must be stealthy.