National Defence committee  I could add to that if you would like.

National Defence committee  I would say that, under this new strategy, you will see a gradual increase in Canadians deployed abroad, whether....

National Defence committee  The point I'm trying to make is that the peace operation is not designed to be the solution. The solution must come from the people of the state. In the case of Mali, it's the Malians who have to bring their peace process forward together. The UN mission is there to help bring st

National Defence committee  We have been exploring this concept and Minister Freeland has personally discussed it with President Poroshenko, the Prime Minister of Ukraine, the Secretary of State of the United States, and many others to determine how a peacekeeping mission could support our overarching objec

National Defence committee  You've hit on the fundamental challenge that modern peace operations face, and I use the term “peace operations” because we're no longer peacekeeping. In these missions, there isn't a peace to keep. There is real conflict. There's instability, so we use the term “peace operations

National Defence committee  Let me address both elements of your question. One is in terms of leadership. We do not exclude a Canadian taking over the leadership of a UN operation if such an opportunity were to present itself and if it were an opportunity for Canada to make a difference. Our approach, I

National Defence committee  The UN discourages it. In fact, our policy is to discourage caveats. We are allowed to have them, and we do from time to time insist on them. I'd like to add one more thing. One of the important things we've learned has to do with child soldiers. One of the most challenging thin

National Defence committee  Well, first let me say that our commitment to a country like Mali or Iraq isn't defined by a period of time when we may have military or police deployed. Our commitment stands a much longer period of time, and in the case of Mali, we've been a major development assistance contrib

National Defence committee  Let me begin by saying that, while you were in Iraq, I was ambassador to Iraq in 2010 to 2013, and I certainly noticed the same dynamic, the political complexity that you referred to. This reminds me, and I would like to make the point to the committee that, fundamentally, all of

National Defence committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's a pleasure to be with you here today to speak about Canada's involvement in peacekeeping. Though my presentation will include some historical context, I'll try to concentrate on what has changed from conventional peacekeeping and how Canada is working

Foreign Affairs committee  As I mentioned earlier on, we've had 20 such cases, unfortunately, over the last decade. In that time we've learned to work very well together with the RCMP, the military, and our intelligence services to refine how we approach these so-called critical incidents. Not in every si

Foreign Affairs committee  What I said was that we have anecdotal evidence in the sense that we have isolated incidents where we have learned that money, from other parties, received by an organization through ransom contributed to its ability to launch further kidnap-for-ransom operations. However, in ter

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm not in a position to give you chapter and verse what happened in those years. It's not, strictly speaking, a consular case, so we didn't come equipped today to deal with that level of question. I would offer one further point, which is to say that at the time, we did request

Foreign Affairs committee  As has been noted many times this morning, every case is different in particular with regard to critical incidents. They are all unique, they're snowflakes, but they are unspeakable turmoils for the families involved and, obviously, the individuals. We try to work on the basis of

Foreign Affairs committee  No. In fact, the grounds for the Supreme Court decision were based on the fact that the visits that took place were not consular visits. They were Canadians who were there who participated in interrogations. It wasn't, strictly speaking, a consular case per se. But we did learn i