NDVA Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL DEFENCE AND VETERANS AFFAIRS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA DÉFENSE NATIONALE ET DES ANCIENS COMBATTANTS

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, May 18, 2000

• 0909

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. David Pratt (Nepean—Carleton, Lib.)): I'll call the meeting to order.

We have with us representatives of the Canadian Forces, Lieutenant-Colonel Roch Lacroix leading the delegation. He's the only one with a name tag. Lieutenant-Colonel, would you like to introduce your delegation to the committee so we can get underway?

Lieutenant-Colonel Roch Lacroix (Desk Officer, Balkans and NATO Operations, Department of National Defence): Certainly, sir.

First, I am Lieutenant-Colonel Roch Lacroix, as the chairman of the committee has indicated. I occupy the post of J3 International 1, and I can appreciate that that means absolutely nothing to a lot of people. Essentially, I am responsible for the CF contribution to NATO operations. Specifically, in this case I am the desk officer for all the Balkans region, so I have Aviano, I have Kosovo, and I have Bosnia.

• 0910

In terms of operations, we conduct mission analysis; we determine the options that are available in terms of force contributions to the various operations that take place; then we ensure that the troops are trained, equipped, and then we launch.

Once we launch, I have eight staff officers who are responsible for the monitoring of the operations, and we address any shortfalls, any requests for any changes in theatre that are required. We address issues from personnel issues, in terms of early repatriation of people back to Canada, to changes in command and control relationship with their superior headquarters. As well, we continue this until such time as we do the close-out of the mission—i.e., the troops come back to Canada—or for the rotation basis when the troops rotate on a six-months basis.

Today I have with me Colonel Yvan Houle, who will be your escorting officer when you take off on your trip early next week. He will be with you until the morning of the 23rd, when you depart for Zurich and on to London. Also with me is Captain Dan Bell, one of my desk officers, who is primarily responsible for the Kosovo portfolio. If I find myself in a situation where I am unable to answer your questions, I'm hoping Dan will pull me out.

[Translation]

I am here today to report to you on the status and disposition of troops in Aviano and in Kosovo. If you wish, I can also give you an update on the situation in Bosnia.

The situation in the Balkans, as you well know, is relatively stable. Generally speaking, the situation is stable and secure, aside from the occasional isolated incident in Kosovo or Bosnia.

I will begin by giving you a brief overview of past events leading up to the present; I will then report on Operation Echo taking place in Aviano and on Operation Kinetic in Kosovo.

But first, let me briefly review the events that have transpired.

In 1998, the international community was informed of atrocities allegedly being committed in Kosovo. These allegations were subsequently confirmed and the international community mobilized.

In February 1999, the Rambouillet Accord was signed in France. However, the Yugoslav Republic refused to accept the terms of the accord. Consequently, on March 24, in an effort to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo, international authorities decided to intervene militarily in the region. Negotiations subsequently took place and on June 9, after the FYR and NATO forces reached a military technical agreement, the conflict ended.

[English]

Currently, KFOR in Aviano, and Aviano maintaining an overwatch over everything that's going on.... KFOR is disarming and demilitarizing all parties in Kosovo. Things are progressing well, as I alluded to initially. It's reasonably stable and secure. There are incidents of law and order issues that need to be addressed. The law and order issues can only be addressed once the military police or a civilian police force arrives on ground and a judiciary system is in place.

• 0915

So much for the background.

In Aviano you'll be seeing a lot of CF-18s, and they make a lot of noise. When you arrive in Aviano you'll be met most likely by Lieutenant-Colonel Whiteley, who is a detachment commander of Aviano base. He is responsible for the CF-18s, the pilots, and the troops that support the airplanes. When you get there they'll hand you ear plugs, so you can wear them on a regular basis while you're there.

Just to situate you a little bit, we are basically surrounding the Adriatic Sea, pointing out. We have the boot of Italy. Aviano is approximately two and a half hours' drive northeast of the city of Venice. The air operations are launched from Aviano into the areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina. During the air campaign, that was in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Where you are going will be in Kosovo. Once you get to Kosovo, you'll be landing in a town in Macedonia called Skopje.

At the peak of the air campaign we had approximately 274 personnel in Aviano, with 18 CF-18s. During the air campaign our air elements conducted over 678 sorties, or 2,500-plus hours of flying time.

The next slide shows the sorties we're talking about, air-to-ground operations, and the various types of air patrols that took place. This was at the peak of the 78-day war that took place.

On the situation today, essentially the air element supports the ground troops in Bosnia and in Kosovo—or I should say the abbreviations: task force Bosnia-Herzegovina and task force KFOR. They conduct four sorties per day, which means four planes per day will take off on a mission. Their primary role or task is definitely as deterrence, or a force projection of planes that are flying over and above, and they support the ground troops. I call it deterrence.

There are training missions. We conduct training flights for our pilots. They can go anywhere between air-to-air combat-simulated situations to air-to-ground situations, whereby communications are established with our ground-forward air controllers with the pilots, and they go through some practice runs.

From a real war footing, or a life situation, our planes are on standby to conduct close air support operations on quick notice to move, as well as air-to-air, should that occur, where the Serbians decide to fly over the safety zone and into areas that are interdicted to them.

[Translation]

I will now touch briefly on the organization and disposition of troops in Kosovo and then report on new equipment.

First, from an organization standpoint.

As a military officer, I would be remiss in my duties if I failed to show you at least one organization chart depicting troop disposition. Colonel Fenton is the commander of the task force in Kosovo. You will be meeting him in Skopje, where the national command is based. We have 1 RCR tactical group.

[English]

The 1st Royal Canadian Regiment is the main infantry battle group in theatres supported by an engineer sqaudron.

I mentioned the RCR. It is highly unlikely that you'll see elements of the RCR in situ, as the RCR are in the midst now of redeploying back to Canada, as part of the overall close-out plan of withdrawing out of Kosovo. The last flight will be coming into Canada on the 25th.

You will be seeing the RCD and you will be spending some time with the RCD troop commander. The HELAIRDET will also be in situ. We had eight birds in location. That has been reduced down to three. Hopefully these three Griffons will be serviceable and available to bring you in to overfly the Kosovo area.

• 0920

I just want to mention that the HELAIRDET is in the midst of redeploying back to Canada and they will cease operations on May 21. The RCD Recce Squadron will be the last element leaving Kosovo, and they will be ceasing operations on June 1, to have all Canadians back in Canada by the end of June.

Then there's the national support element, which basically provides the logistics support to the force in Kosovo. Canada's battle group is under operational control to the U.K., a multinational brigade centre. Essentially, the Canadian contribution is located in the town of Pristina. The MND centre is flanked by the Americans, the French, the Germans, and the Dutch.

On the Canadian contribution, in terms of disposition of troops, the 1PPCLI battle group had sub-elements in Glogovac, Donja Koretica, and Magura. The national support element, as I indicated before, is in Skopje, and the aviation unit is located in DK.

[Translation]

The missions and tasks are stated on the slide you are now viewing. Briefly, they involve ensuring a presence in situ with a view to maintaining a secure and stable environment.

[English]

Our troops conduct operations outside their AOR, but that is through a process by which we are informed, and we let them do it, or not. A lot of it involves escort of convoys into areas, in support of our allied forces there. Basically, the tasks are surveillance, verification, maintaining some type of law and order in specific areas, as well as providing humanitarian assistance within our capacities.

In terms of equipment, hopefully you'll get a chance to see the Coyote, which you may have heard a lot about. It is a state-of-the-art vehicle. It has an incredible surveillance suite and is extremely valued by our allied commanders, in terms of intelligence-gathering capability. It also has a capability for self-defence. It has a 25-millimetre chain gun and a couple of other fire systems on board that provide the necessary firepower for survival.

You'll be flying in Griffon helicopters. The Griffon helicopter, with all the equipment it has on board, can only carry four passengers at a time, unless they reconfigure it. But I suspect at this stage rides will be provided for all members that are there.

The next slide shows the situation you will see in Kosovo. It is not a poor picture; it shows the foggy situation that exists in Kosovo. It is predominant throughout the whole area because of the soft coal that is burned to keep their heating plants going. But the situation is no worse than what you will perhaps find in a city like Hamilton, or something to that effect.

Hygienic situations are not necessarily ideal. Dead livestock and animals are normally just left by the locals or thrown onto river banks, or into rivers, lakes, or watering holes.

• 0925

Just to close off here, in terms of the close-out plan, the overall close-out of Kosovo

[Translation]

is the result of a rationalization plan for the Balkans. Canada has focused its efforts on Bosnia where it has deployed up to 1,800 troops of all ranks. Operations in Kosovo will cease at the end of June, with a small group of staff officers, maybe six or seven in total, remaining behind at operations headquarters in Kosovo.

[English]

I believe you can understand that politically it was very difficult for Canada to pull out of Kosovo. So Aviano became a king piece or piece that was being played. For Aviano, the extension to the contract has been submitted to the minister for approval. We expect to get the extension for one more year in Aviano. Consequently, our contribution to Kosovo will no longer be just the seven staff officers who I alluded to initially, but in fact will be the air component in Aviano, which will be supporting the Kosovo operations.

Meanwhile, the rest of the troops will be coming back to Canada and some of the equipment will be going into Bosnia. In Bosnia we will have a force of 1,800 people, up from the current 1,300. We will be taking over command, or we will be the lead nation, in Bosnia for the Multinational Division South West. That will be commanded by Major-General Rick Hillier and that will take place on October 1, 2000. He will be in post. He will be in charge for the next coming year, from October 2000 to September 2001. So that is a good thing for all of us. We're looking forward to this happening very quickly.

This naturally will enhance the overall Canadian contribution in Bosnia. But as well as our headquarters, participation will be substantially increased, from a normal roughly 22 to approximately 78 staff officers complete.

Sir, that basically is our

[Translation]

an overview of both operations.

[English]

I am available to answer any of your questions.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. David Pratt): Thank you very much, Lieutenant-Colonel Lacroix.

I have Mr. Clouthier first and then Mr. Wood.

Mr. Hec Clouthier (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Lieutenant-Colonel, I might have missed something when I was out of the room. I was a hired gun at another committee meeting. Maybe you touched on this. I have a couple of questions.

First of all, what would you consider the greatest difficulty facing our troops in Kosovo?

LCol Roch Lacroix: The greatest difficulty?

Mr. Hec Clouthier: Yes.

LCol Roch Lacroix: In what way?

Mr. Hec Clouthier: More generally speaking, what would they face? Would it be the repatriation, or would it be dealing with the Kosovars and the Serbs?

LCol Roch Lacroix: Sir, the overall situation over there is reasonably stable. The greatest concern from Kosovo right now has not been highlighted. There are no major concerns, since we're pulling out.

The quality of life issues have been addressed to the 90% satisfaction of all who are there. The overall security in the area is good. The troops are happy because they are busy. We are being deployed in various other areas of operation everywhere. We are seen as a full participant.

I suppose that if there were a regret anywhere, it's the fact that some of the troops over there started some humanitarian projects and in some cases they may not be able to see the completion of some of those projects, although I think they're doing everything they can to finish them before they leave. There is a sense that perhaps it would be nice to finish off maybe that roof or whatever in there. But we're turning over these projects to CIDA or other like organizations. As well, the local population itself will be completing those projects on their own.

Mr. Hec Clouthier: That leads me to the next question. In the local population itself, what is the current state of affairs with regard to, say, the judicial system, schooling system, humanitarian...? You talked about health care and banking—

LCol Roch Lacroix: The police system, judicial system, and school system are still in the throes of being developed. They are not ready yet. As the end state eventually, in whatever timeframe it takes, we will have a judicial system in place as well as a police force. That is key in order to maintain law and order.

I don't think we can expect the military to be the police force on the ground for an indefinite period of time. The international community has a responsibility—and I say that as a broad statement here—that the civilian police force has to be cobbled together, has to be trained and has to be deployed, and has to be seen to be effective.

• 0930

Mr. Hec Clouthier: This is my final question. Russian troops, are they still there? Remember, initially whenever we moved in the Russian troops came in and there seemed to be some consternation there between them and the NATO force. I see you smiling. Are they still there? Are they still on site?

LCol Roch Lacroix: They're still on site in specific areas, sir, but the initial rush of concern and rush to the finish line, or to the airports and whatever, that's exactly what it was: I think it was just a rush to do something to help out the community and then leave it at that. There are no concerns whatsoever with our Russian counterparts.

Mr. Hec Clouthier: Do they still control some of the main sites, like the airports?

LCol Roch Lacroix: No, sir. The airport's been turned over to the commander of task force Kosovo.

Mr. Hec Clouthier: That's fine.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. David Pratt): Mr. Wood.

Mr. Bob Wood (Nipissing, Lib.): Obviously we're leaving Kosovo and you just touched on Bosnia for a bit. Can you maybe elaborate on the role we'll be playing in Bosnia, where you said we're the lead nation? What's the situation in Bosnia now? What are you walking into? You're going to be bringing 1,800 people to Bosnia, right? What's the situation you're going to be walking into, and what are some of your support countries that are going to be there?

LCol Roch Lacroix: In terms of the situation in Bosnia, as I said before, overall in the Balkans it's pretty stable and secure, probably the most stable it's been in the last ten years. Bosnia is relatively quiet compared to Kosovo if we look at isolated incidents that occur. In terms of the bolstering of our contribution into Bosnia, basically we're going from a 1,300-plus force that's currently now deployed in Bosnia up to a maximum of 1,800. We'll probably actually stabilize at around 1,650. Our troops will be taking over a very large AOR as such. Our AOR, area of responsibility, is quite long and wide. We are maintaining a presence over the one guard unit, the Serbian forces that are withdrawing presently out of the AOR into another town, but we want them out of the area altogether and they're moving into a town voluntarily. And that is probably the most tenuous situation, or most difficult situation, we have right now in Bosnia.

We're not into a war footing. This is not a war scenario. We're really into the grey area between maintaining a military presence on the ground for deterrence purposes and then the humanitarian assistance that everybody's looking for and the stand-up of police, judicial, educational, and health care systems, and that kind of thing. We're right smack in the middle of the grey area, which makes things a little bit ambiguous, to say the least, for our troops on the ground. So we still try to maintain their focus on the operational side in terms of maintaining their focus on security issues.

Mr. Bob Wood: By being a lead nation, who are some of the other people who are going to be there? Is there going to be anybody else, or is this—

LCol Roch Lacroix: In Multinational Division South West, sir, it's 1 Division. It's a divisional area. It spans from just north of Sarajevo up to the Croatian border up north and all the way across to the Croatian border to the east. We are flanked by three other divisions that are there. You have MND North with the Americans. You have MND East with the Dutch or the French, I can't remember now—I've just been there, and I can't remember—and we have the Czechs up in the northeastern sector. A memorandum of understanding has been drafted, signed and agreed to by all parties concerned, where we discuss in the memorandum of understanding how we are going to operate as well the financial and the troop contributions in theatre for the whole area.

Mr. Bob Wood: When you change those things, does the air support change as well? You mentioned that you were hoping to get a memorandum of understanding for Aviano for another year. With the ground troops out—and maybe Colonel Houle can answer this—are we still under agreement to supply air support for Kosovo as well? Obviously we do in Bosnia, I guess.

• 0935

LCol Roch Lacroix: Yes, sir. We still maintain our commitment to NATO and to the task force. Our troops in Aviano will maintain their contribution. They are there to support NATO's efforts in Bosnia as well as in Kosovo.

Mr. Bob Wood: I have one last question. You were mentioning the police force and my colleague Mr. Clouthier mentioned it a bit. That's in the process of being set up now, right? The OPP and the RCMP have sent over people. They're there to train. In your opinion, if you can be candid with us, how is that going to work? Is there going to be a problem training a police force that will be able to handle various situations?

LCol Roch Lacroix: I don't think it will be a problem to train and to stand up a local police force. The question will be one of time. How long will it take? In my experiences in Haiti and in East Timor, when we went in there was no police agency to speak of. There was no law enforcement agency or order agency in place. It's still developing and it will take time for us to stand up those types of pillars that are required within a normal modern society.

That being said, if you take a look at the situation in Kosovo, it's probably like the other countries that I have experience with. Your legal people, your local police force, all those key individuals have fled the country. Eventually they'll come back. In Bosnia, one of the big things they're waiting for is the onslaught of the additional refugees coming back into Bosnia. Kosovo will be faced with that same situation. Mind you, in their case, the refugee situation is slightly different, but you don't have that expertise on the ground.

So we're providing the expertise to build it, but it will take time. The question I always pose is how long it will take. The longer that takes, the longer the military presence will be in any one of these theatres of operations around the world.

Mr. Bob Wood: Is there a fair amount of corruption that goes on as well?

LCol Roch Lacroix: There's always a fear of that.

Mr. Bob Wood: Yes.

How long did it take in Haiti and some of the other places that you've experienced? Does it take six months, a year?

LCol Roch Lacroix: They're still building.

Mr. Bob Wood: They're still doing it, aren't they?

LCol Roch Lacroix: Haiti is still building, sir. They're still not there and they won't be there for a while. You have alluded to the corruption; there are deep roots everywhere in this and to eradicate it is going to be very difficult.

East Timor is just starting. I just left East Timor after we finished our part of the mission. A group of judges, approximately 25, were in Darwin, Australia, getting some training. They were brought back into East Timor, but they have a long way to go. It is going to take an enormous amount of time before the local police force is stood up. The UN civilian police force that is there has its work cut out for it.

In East Timor, you called for a police force of approximately 1,200 and right now in East Timor you have about 300 in place. You're a little shy on resources, so when you do that, it's going to take a little bit longer.

Mr. Bob Wood: What is the complement in Kosovo? What are they looking at?

LCol Roch Lacroix: I couldn't tell you that, sir. I don't know, but I can get you that answer.

Mr. Bob Wood: I'm just curious as to how it would work. I think it would be very difficult to train these people to be police officers. Where do you make the selection? Who do you select? How do you go through it? How do you go through the whole process of making sure you get that many honest individuals?

LCol Roch Lacroix: In Haiti, we went through a screening process by which we recruited x number of Haitians. They went through a selection process of simple exams to see where they were at.

From there, individuals were selected. They were brought over to a recruit school, sort of a mini-boot camp. It was not as severe as what we have gone through in our past; however, it was a type of boot camp where we taught them the basic skills. We gave them courses on ethics, courses on law, basic information, shooting skills, how to get dressed, how to present yourself, how to comport yourself in front of people, and that kind of thing.

• 0940

Then we slowly introduced them into various communities with UNCIVPOL present to bring them along and train them as they progressed along the way, to eventually hand it over to them completely. UNCIVPOL would fall back and eventually leave. That permitted the military component to leave at that stage, but at the very beginning you had three lines of defence: the local police, UNCIVPOL, and the military. At times it was very difficult to tell who was taking the lead in some given situations.

Mr. Bob Wood: Thank you.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. David Pratt): Thank you, Mr. Wood.

We have Mr. Earle and Mr. Peric and then Mr. O'Reilly.

Mr. Gordon Earle (Halifax West, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Due to the diligent questioning on the other side, I think the topic I was going to pursue has been touched upon but I would like to elaborate a bit further on it.

You mentioned that as the Canadians pull out, obviously there will be a void concerning the tasks you're doing now. I think you indicated that some humanitarian groups would pick up some of these tasks. Do you see that all the tasks you're performing now will be filled in by others? While that's happening, if there's a period of training involved for people, do you see any chance of some slippage where perhaps some instability might creep in as a result of this changeover?

LCol Roch Lacroix: I'll answer on two approaches. One is that when the Canadians pull out, the Finnish and the Norwegians will be backfilling into those specific areas. So the vacuum should not be there.

As well, from an operational and a strategic perspective, the SACEUR has now completed a study in terms of what his force requirements were for Kosovo. He has already addressed the issue of finding additional troops to backfill the British and the Canadian troops that are withdrawing out of Kosovo. There were two infantry battalions identified. Three additional infantry battalions were identified as a requirement for a quick reaction force, should it be necessary. From a military point of view, I don't believe there will be a vacuum in theatre.

From a humanitarian assistance perspective, I don't think there's a potential for instability or for a major insurrection. I don't think it's in anyone's interest to do so. There will always be isolated cases, and that's understandable. The frustration level for some of these people is pretty high and they'll take it out on the first group of people they see, I suppose.

In terms of humanitarian assistance, the other non-governmental agencies, CIDA being one, are fully involved in assisting and doing their best to address all of those issues, from building roofs over schools to trying to help out in rewiring their country to building hydro plants and so on and so forth. It does not happen overnight. It takes time.

Mr. Gordon Earle: Thank you.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. David Pratt): Mr. Peric.

Mr. Janko Peric (Cambridge, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Lieutenant Colonel, last year I spent one week with our police force in Sarajevo. I had an opportunity to talk to some high officials over there and I heard many complaints. Granted, there were more than 40 countries involved with the police force there and only about 15 countries had their efficient, highly trained police officers. The stories I heard are hard to believe here.

There are some countries that sent police officers who used to guard the villages and these officers are in Bosnia today. I heard stories that some officers were connected through their political levels and they paid under the table to get on the list. They were sent to Bosnia and they served for nine months and in nine months their salaries were like three lifetimes of savings. When you hear stories like that....

Last week Wolfgang Petritsch was here, and I asked him what recommendation he would send to New York. He said we should set up international standards.

• 0945

In your opinion, do you think facilities such as what we have here, the Pearson peace training facility, would help the international community to train the officers before they are sent to particular areas?

Then again, right after the Sarajevo summit was there, apparently it was controlled by the local police force and just supervised by an international police force. There were no accidents, no incidents, and no complaints whatsoever. I'm a little bit confused. How can you expect that somebody from—I can't mention the country—is going to train the local police force, when they have good supervision, and so on?

LCol Roch Lacroix: I'll be honest with you: I've heard those same rumours. In some cases I probably even witnessed a couple of incidents where you have have to wonder about the qualifications and the skill sets of some of these individuals. But I think that is found in any organization out there.

A country provides what it can provide. I think it's our obligation to do the best we can with the resources that are allocated.

Pearson Peacekeeping Centre has a specific mandate, sir, and I don't know if they are in a position to do that. That's something that perhaps you could address with Alex Morrison, who runs the peacekeeping centre. He would be in a better position to answer that.

Mr. Janko Peric: But there is a lot of frustration. When you talk one-on-one to our police officers, there's so much frustration there, because they are highly trained, they have high skills, and they have to work with somebody who doesn't know how to drive the car, doesn't have a driver's licence. Now it's pulling back—

The Vice-Chair (Mr. David Pratt): Mr. Peric, perhaps we could try to concentrate on the military aspect of our involvement in Kosovo and Bosnia. And maybe some of those questions are more appropriate for the people we'll be speaking to on the ground in Kosovo.

Mr. Janko Peric: Mr. Chair, the lieutenant-colonel mentioned that we are sending people back from Kosovo to Bosnia, and he particularly mentioned the civilian police force. So I have concerns.

LCol Roch Lacroix: International standards would be nice. Can it be done? Perhaps, if there is a will to do so. If the will is there, then I think it will work.

Mr. Janko Peric: And if the need is there, right?

LCol Roch Lacroix: Yes, from a personal point of view, I believe the need is there.

Mr. Janko Peric: Thank you very much.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. David Pratt): Mr. O'Reilly.

Mr. John O'Reilly (Haliburton—Victoria—Brock, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Lieutenant-Colonel Lacroix, thank you very much for coming. I think most of my questions have been answered.

There is one question I always ask. Since we as a committee worked on the quality-of-life report, we always want to make sure we have the opportunity to talk to the people on the ground without the brass and the leaves around. I'm hoping we'll have that opportunity in both Aviano and Kosovo. So I hope that word is out, that we're there to talk.

I know wherever we go, whether it's Colorado Springs or wherever, we try to have a townhall meeting where people actually get to talk to us one-on-one. So I hope we're not going to be isolated on this trip and not get to talk to the troops on the ground. Sometimes that happens in theatre operations where there might be a bit of danger, and we're not afraid of that. We'd like to—

LCol Roch Lacroix: I think we'll meet your requirements. In Aviano for sure you'll have an opportunity to talk to the troops. When you get to Skopje you'll have, I believe, one evening set aside where you'll be able to participate in the social activities of the NCE and the NSE personnel. And you'll have a chance to chat and sit down one-on-one with whomever you want. Colonel Fenton is aware of that, as is Colonel Boyer, when you get into Aviano.

• 0950

Mr. John O'Reilly: Good. Thank you very much.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. David Pratt): Are there any other questions from members of committee?

Okay, seeing none, Lieutenant-Colonel Lacroix, Colonel Houle, Captain, thank you very much for your presentation today. It's been very helpful. I'm sure members are going to benefit from the information that's been provided when we head over this weekend. Thank you again.

LCol Roch Lacroix: Have a good trip, and enjoy yourself. Thank you.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. David Pratt): This meeting is adjourned.