National Defence committee  On the one hand, I don't think Canadians really know or care, to be honest, for the most part, when you ask, “Did we learn the lessons, etc.?” I think people have very short memories. Except for the most recent thing that went on for over a decade in Afghanistan, they don't reall

National Defence committee  I'll say the same thing, and give a different example: Abia in South Sudan, between north and south Sudan, is an oil-rich area. If they had just taken the Abia commission and made a decision on what the border would be when you secede or not, there would be no problem, but they s

National Defence committee  Call it “international Operations”. I used to rail at my title over there. I was the director of peacekeeping policy, and I did everything but peacekeeping. I was doing all sorts of operations. Just call them “international operations”, not even “military operations” because, aga

National Defence committee  That's a bit of a tongue twister.

National Defence committee  I would hope, and I believe that's what you're going to do, but you're just starting out on these things, and it must include Global Affairs, policing, and corrections people, and you should have judges. If you're going out, you're doing not just military and police security on t

National Defence committee  Absolutely. You have criminal elements who have a vested interest in a non-secure state. The more disruption, the more violence, the better they can do their work. You have neighbouring countries that like to meddle because of the resources in the Congo and other places. There is

National Defence committee  I was just going to say that should this international peacekeeping training centre be set up and funded as a government agency or government institution, one of its tasks could be informing members of Parliament and running courses for them, or seminars, or whatever you wanted t

National Defence committee  Personally, I believe it was a lack of interest at the time, with the government of the day not wanting to put money into non-profits, NGOs, or anything else. It was going across the board. It was just another one. It was on the target list.

National Defence committee  AWACS is not an NGO. It's a capability tool.

National Defence committee  I'm trying to do this without getting political, but I'm—

National Defence committee  I understand that. All I'm saying is that if it's not valuable to you or you don't see it, then you stop supporting it. In this particular case, I don't think the value was recognized. The input of resources and the output on the international and national stage was huge.

National Defence committee  Yes.

National Defence committee  Yes, very much so.

National Defence committee  The initial one was a brigade. It was made up of contributions of troops on standby, not full-time standby. For example, if Canada said it was going to contribute a helicopter squadron, it would do its normal duties and everything else. Once or twice a year, its leadership would

National Defence committee  We live in the world. Our international trade, stability, are all in our interests. That's not going to happen without peace. I would suggest that we as Canadians have a particular interest. If you look at your riding, the number of immigrants from around the world who all have