The Men and Women of the Canadian Armed Forces

Heather Ferguson, President, The Hearing Foundation of Canada, and Director, The Empire Club of Canada; Samantha Azzarello, Grade 12 Student, Riverdale Collegiate Institute; Col. Robert G. Douglas, KStJ, CD, FCSI, Honorary LCol., Toronto Scottish Regiment, Vice-President, Investment Advisor, CIBC Wood Gundy, and Former Director, The Empire Club of Canada; Col. Garry R. Stafford, CD, Commander, 32 Canadian Brigade, Land Force Central Area; Col. R. W. Deslauriers, CD, Deputy Commander, Joint Task Force Central, Land Force Central Area; Capt. Monique Roumy, Padre, 25 Service Battalion, 32 Canadian Brigade, Land Force Central Area; MGen.(Ret'd) Reginald W. Lewis, CM, CMM, CD, Former Chief of Reserves, Former Hon. Col., The Royal Regiment of Canada, and Past President, The Empire Club of Canada; The Most Rev. Andrew S. Hutchison, Archbishop and Primate, Anglican Church of Canada; Heather C. Devine, Associate in Litigation, Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP, and Director, The Empire Club of Canada; Col. Peter W. Hunter, CD, Colonel Commandant, Royal Canadian Armoured Corps, Former Co-Chair, Reserves 2000, and Former Director, The Empire Club of Canada; Capt. (Ret'd) Rod Seyffert, CD, Toronto Managing Partner, Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP; Col. J. H. Vance, CD, Chief of Staff, Joint Task Force Central, Land Force Central Area; and Blake C. Goldring, Honorary Col., The Royal Regiment of Canada, President and CEO, AGF Management Limited.

Introduction by William Whittaker

While we have had a number of defence ministers speak at the Empire Club in recent years, it has been 30 years since a Chief of the Defence Staff addressed us, so General Hillier's speech today on the activities of our Canadian Forces, both nationally and internationally, is timely.

Canadians have a proud military history and we contributed well out of proportion to our population to the allied victories in World Wars I and II. During the Cold War, the standoff between the West and the Soviets resulted in a stalemate; every country knew which side they were on and acted accordingly. Canada, as a member of NATO and NORAD, was solidly in the Western camp.

This relative stability evaporated with the demise of the Soviet Union in the late '80s. With Cold War constraints removed, accumulated old grievances from the Balkans to Africa, from Kurdistan to the Caucasus and Indonesia exploded with internal conflicts and the United Nations Security Council couldn't adjust to the new challenges.

What followed was 10 years of unmitigated disasters for the Security Council and the world. First was the Security Council's tentative response to the all-out war in the Balkans. Second was an initial UN force in Somalia so weak that the UN troops couldn't leave their camp in Mogadishu until an intervention force rescued them, followed a year later by the UN abandoning the entire mission. This was followed by the genocide in Rwanda and the unrest in East Timor and so on.

With the Security Council's multilateral security arrangements falling short, other multinational organizations such as NATO, the OAS and the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe)--Canada is a member of all of them--have become active in providing regional security. In addition, the Canadian Forces have the important task of securing our nation at home, particularly the challenges to our sovereignty in the North and, lest we forget, the defence of North America with the United States.

This is a full plate for our military who have to deliver the goods respecting our international, continental and national commitments.

While some people have argued that a disconnect developed between the Canadian Forces and the Canadian public in the mid-'90s after our experience in Somalia, that is no longer the case with our agile, adaptable and credible military of today. Public opinion polls indicate Canadians are proud of and support our military and want additional resources made available to them to fulfill their multitask mandate.

General Hillier has played a large part in reestablishing this reconnect between Canada's troops and its citizens with his communication skills, energy and enthusiasm, which will be demonstrated today. I attended General Hillier's breakfast speech this morning and if 30 years younger would have signed up!

A native of Campbellton, which overlooks Notre Dame Bay in Newfoundland, General Hillier's interest in military life began at age seven when he corresponded with the Canadian Forces and received a reply inviting him to join. He didn't actually join until his graduation from Memorial University in 1975, his first regiment being the 8th Canadian Hussars (Princess Louise's own), an armoured regiment based in Petawawa, Ontario.

Subsequently, he served with and later commanded the Royal Canadian Dragoons in Canada and Germany and was the commander of the force that aided the civil authorities in the Quebec and Eastern Ontario ice storm of 1998.

General Hillier's multilateral tours of duty are impressive. After serving in the former Yugoslavia in 1995 and Bosnia in 2000, General Hillier was appointed Commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Kabul, Afghanistan, in October 2003. In Kabul, he kept up morale by regularly invoking "Rule 9" at the end of meetings which meant someone had to tell a joke before the meeting could disband. Perhaps, General Hillier will invoke Rule 9 during his speech today!

Since becoming Chief of the Defence Staff in February 2005, General Hillier has become Canada's point person on Afghanistan and is of much interest to our media and demonstrators. General Hillier even arranged to have a Taliban bomb go off in his vicinity on his last visit to Afghanistan to spur further media interest.

General Hillier's sense of humour is well known and is evident in his official biography, which ends with the sentence: "General Hillier enjoys most recreational pursuits, but, in particular, runs slowly, plays hockey poorly, and golfs not well at all." General Hillier is a Toronto Maple Leaf's fan.

Please join me in welcoming General Rick Hillier, Chief of the Defence Staff, to our podium today.

Rick Hillier

Bill has given me an introduction here today which no one could live up to and I thank him for it. It was most gracious, most kind. As you go around and try to do your job and deal with people and communicate the great work that our men and women in uniform do for our country you get introduced many times and it is always interesting to watch.

I was introduced once as an admiral in the United States Navy. I think it was the wide stripe of the general officer on the army uniform that looked vaguely navy that might have confused him.

I was introduced once at Fort Henry in Kingston as being a life-long artilleryman. Now those who know me know that I am a Cavalry officer. I was brought up in the Cavalry and that was a body blow that I took.

When I took over the division in Bosnia in 2000, I was introduced as a Dutch major general and I can only chalk that up to the fact that I am a Newfoundlander, as Bill has said, and maybe I was a little difficult to understand because of the thick accent.

A little while ago in January after we had announced some changes in our physical fitness regimes and how the Canadian Forces were going to be fitter and healthier and more deployable, I was introduced in an article in the Halifax Chronicle as General Jenny Craig.

The most memorable introduction was when I was invited out by a group of our tremendous veterans from World War II. I was absolutely privileged to be there and these were men who were supported by their wives, men of pragmatic and common sense. We had a head table and one of those relatively mature veterans was going to introduce me. He had a little bit more than his allocation of triple Scotches before dinner started and being absolutely practical said, "General Hillier, would you introduce yourself?" So I did and it was the most complimentary introduction that I've ever had.

I am a Toronto Maple Leafs fan and I come to Toronto fairly frequently on a variety of activities with the Canadian Forces and I've got to know a lot of folks around here. We had a visit in January from General Peter Pace who is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the United States of America. He came up on a Friday and went back on a Sunday morning and we did a lot of work talking about how we can work together in a practical appropriate manner to the benefit of the citizens in both of our countries. I said to Peter and his wife Lyn, "While we're here, while we're doing this discussion," and we spent a lot of time meeting and going through some pretty tough issues, "I want to show you a little bit of Canadiana." He had not been to Canada before. As we were in Toronto I said, "Firstly I want to host you to dinner at the CN Tower, an architectural marvel, very famous," but what I didn't count on was that Lyn Pace has a deathly fear of heights. So as we went up the outside elevator, we actually had to surgically remove her nose from that inside corner of the elevator. She certainly did not leap out on that see-through floor at 1,100 feet. It was a great evening.

I then said, "The second thing I want to do is to take you to see the world's best hockey team play," but unfortunately that night it was Phoenix that was in town and they beat the Toronto Maple Leafs five to three. We had the opportunity during the game to go down to the Leafs CEO lounge and after the game to actually go and meet Pat Quinn and some of the players. I talked to Pat Quinn who knew what we were doing and said, "I represent these great men and women and Pat, I would like you and some of your players and the Stanley Cup after the season's over to come to Afghanistan and just show your appreciation by your presence to those men and women who do such tremendous work for us." I immediately qualified the statement and Pat with the heart of a soldier understood. I said, "Pat, you and some of your players with or without that Stanley Cup, because the challenge of getting it over these next days is perhaps going to be great."

Dany Heatley on the Ottawa Senators says (I'm going to take full credit for this) they are cheering for Toronto to make the playoffs and he says while they have a tough time getting up for some of the other teams they have no difficulty getting up for Toronto. I take credit for now having all of the Ottawa Senators players as fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

I am glad to be here in Toronto and I'm going to talk this afternoon about three things which are near and dear to my heart; three things which drive everything in my life, drive my schedule, drive the work that we do, and shape the Canadian Forces going forward. That's transformation, operations, and connections with Canadians.

I want to start off and say this is not about me. This is about the men and women who wear a uniform--regulars and reserves and the civilians who support them.

62,500 regular force men and women in our country.
24,000 reservists--those who are true heroes who maintain a full-time and in almost all cases a civilian career and job and still dedicate enormous chunks of time and commitment to the Canadian Forces, serving Canada at night and on weekends, during their summer vacations, during Christmas and Easter breaks in a way that is absolutely incredible. I have all I can do to maintain a focus on one profession and those folks in the reserve component, those citizen soldiers, are in fact heroes of our great country.
20,000 civilians, who support everything that we do.

I know there are quite a few here in uniform, who have a connection with the Canadian Forces or the Department of National Defence. I'd like to introduce three of them and ask you to note these heroes of our country.

The first one I would like to stand up and remain standing for a minute or so is Master Seaman Marc Miller. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a submariner who came to us from Halifax. I have asked him to come here so I can tell you what a great individual he is serving our country as a submariner on the Atlantic Coast. On April 28 he will receive from Her Excellency the Governor-General the Meritorious Service Cross in a ceremony at Government House. Here's why. During the afternoon of October 5, 2004, Master Seaman Marc Miller was onboard HMCS Chicoutimi.

A major fire broke out on the submarine and it quickly filled with black acrid smoke and was left without power. His ingenuity, initiative, presence of mind, and dedication to duty in attacking and extinguishing the fire was crucial in the initial moments of the accident. Master Seaman Miller remained calm and focused throughout, assisting several crew members who became incapacitated and taking charge in a very challenging situation. Master Seaman Miller's actions were instrumental in preventing further damage to the submarine, saving that boat and leading to the saving of the 56 out of 57 souls on that boat. Ladies and gentlemen on that terrible day, that terrible time for HMCS Chicoutimi, we had 57 heroes but even in that group of heroes one individual stood above them--Master Seaman Marc Miller. Would you show appreciation to him for the kind of service he has given to our country.

I would now ask Master Corporal Norman Penny to stand. I want to introduce this soldier to you and I use the term soldier in a very generic sense. This is a proud member of the Royal Canadian Air Force, a Search and Rescue technician and of course since I speak today as a Newfoundlander I wanted someone to come from Newfoundland to join us too. Master Corporal Penny came from Gander Newfoundland, where he is with the Search and Rescue squadron. I had the opportunity last fall, after being in Newfoundland and meeting some of the other crew members, to be at Rideau Hall with Her Excellency the Governor-General when she pinned on to Master Corporal Norman Penny the Star of Courage, our second-highest award for bravery and gallantry. Let me tell you why. On September 19, 2004, Search and Rescue technician Master Corporal Norman Penny risked his life to save four fishermen from drowning after their vessel capsized near Cape Bonavista in Newfoundland and Labrador during a storm in the aftermath of hurricane Ivan. Facing 10-metre waves, heavy rain and gale-force winds, the two rescuers made several life-threatening night descents from their helicopter to retrieve the victims from a life raft that was rapidly drifting towards the rocky shore. Despite a hoist failure, near-drownings from being forced under water by the panicked victims and suffering injuries from being tossed around by high winds and powerful swells, they volunteered to be lowered again to rescue the remaining crew members who had been washed up on shore along the cove and were trapped below the 25-metre cliffs. The tireless efforts of Master Corporal Norman Penny and his Search and Rescue buddy Sergeant Rogers ensured that four lives were saved. Sadly, two other fishermen perished during the ordeal. This is the kind of support we get from our Search and Rescue technicians in domestic operations in support of you and the other 32 million Canadians. Ladies and gentlemen, would you say thank you to this great individual right here.

And Master Corporal Doug Van Tassel came down yesterday afternoon from 2 Brigade in Petawawa Ontario, only about four hours' drive away from here. He has been at the Brigade since 1996. In fact I remember him well when I was there as a Brigade Commander. He serves in the Royal Canadian Regiment and Master Corporal Doug Van Tassel wears the Mention in Dispatches on his uniform. That is the equivalent of a medal and here's what he did. Master Corporal Doug Van Tassel was deployed with the Third Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment during Operation Athena in Afghanistan in Kabul. On January 27, 2004, he was driving the first of a two-vehicle patrol in southern Kabul when a suicide bomber attacked the second vehicle. In the face of adversity involving death and injury to his comrades Master Corporal Doug Van Tassel immediately provided site security ensuring there was no further threat. Let me tell you we are forever cognizant of the chances of a secondary attack when you respond to one primary attack. After conducting a cursory check of all soldiers ascertaining that one had been killed, he designated a casualty collection point and assisted the wounded to move to that point. He single-handedly provided first aid, protection and comfort to his wounded fellow soldiers. He remained at the scene until the body of his fallen comrade was extracted from the vehicle and then escorted Corporal Murphy's body back to camp. In the aftermath of this terrible attack Master Corporal Doug Van Tassel displayed loyalty, dedication, professionalism and bravery bringing great credit to the Canadian Forces and to Canada. Ladies and gentlemen, a true Canadian hero--Master Corporal Doug Van Tassel.

I thank you for recognizing these three superb individuals from across the Canadian Forces. We have tens of thousands more of them--men and women, regular and reserve, from all walks of life in Canada, from all walks of our population--who do this on a daily basis for you. These are three very special ones.

Whenever I speak about those soldiers and sailors and airmen and airwomen, I applaud their accomplishments because precious few others do. But I know that you cannot have those great soldiers and great sailors and great airmen and great airwomen without great leaders. And we have sometimes been a little bit embarrassed to talk about them but today I would like to highlight one great leader who is sitting here in this audience--Colonel Ian Poulter--right here in front of me. Stand up Ian. Colonel Ian Poulter is a good friend of mine. He is one of those great leaders commanding the First Area Support Group here in Toronto as part of Land Forces Central Area and has been doing a great job for you for several decades now in Canada and around the world including operations in the former Yugoslavia. He is a superb leader who helps give the context for those superb soldiers and sailors and airmen and airwomen to do their job.

This morning I sent out from Ottawa the General and Flag Officers promotions and appointments and messages for this year. I'd like Ian Poulter to come up here and I'd like to say that we are going to promote him to Brigadier General right now. Thank you for the opportunity to do it here. Ian is going to be unique in the annals of history. I've put a Brigadier General rank on his shoulder and he is still wearing the Colonel rank on his sleeve. This is the one that counts.

The Prime Minister as you know went to Afghanistan about a month ago. I had the opportunity to meet him. We had about 25 or 30 men and women in uniform waiting to greet him and welcome him to Kandahar and to Afghanistan on the tarmac. He was a little bit late so I had a chance to talk to all those folks. A dust storm made the plane 45 minutes late. I was sitting there chatting to them about a variety of things, laughing and talking to about 15 men and eight to 10 female soldiers. Out of those 15 men, nine of them had similar haircuts to Master Corporal Perry and Master Seaman Miller and I am trying to figure out whether my wife would like it if I did that. None of those folks knew who was arriving. We had a tight security blanket on and none of them knew who was arriving. They knew somebody was coming who we wanted them to greet. As the Prime Minister got off the aircraft one of our female master corporals said, "Sir, I'm really excited to welcome the Prime Minister, to meet the Prime Minister, I thought it was going to be Don Cherry."

Mr. Harper showed leadership going into Afghanistan, and his visit was immensely appreciated by the men and women on the ground. They were proud of him coming there and proud of him taking the time to focus on what they were doing and I'm very proud of the fact that he stayed there. He stayed for two nights in Taliban country so I commend our Prime Minister for showing leadership to the men and women for whom he now has responsibility.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're into a whole new dynamic in the Canadian Forces as we go forward trying to be relevant for what you need done as Canadians and what our country needs done to be able to respond when we are needed and of course to be effective. We are changing every single thing that we have been doing. We are moving from a Canadian Forces of the last 50 years that has been focused on a Cold War threat coming from the Warsaw Pact. Everything that we have done--training, equipment, education, leadership, structure, preparation and thought process--has all been designed to defeat a mechanized attack coming across Northern Europe to defeat a Warsaw Pact fleet in the North Atlantic and to engage in combat air to air with high performance aircraft from the Warsaw Pact. Now all of a sudden with a great turn of events we have found ourselves having to conduct operations to counter something at the other end of the spectrum, completely different from that Warsaw Pact threat.

The chaos that we encounter on international operations and the kind of threats that you see occasionally from terrorism or the organized crime challenges that grow up in countries that have failed and the insecurity and the instability that we encounter everywhere on the international scene in those failed and failing nations is vastly different from what we were prepared for. So as part of our transformation we have developed and articulated a Canadian Forces vision building a Canadian Forces that can be relevant and effective and responsive in that kind of contemporary operating environment.

We are building a Canadian Forces to get the right effect for Canada. Not one small operation being done by the Army over here or one small operation being done by the Navy over there and yet a third one done by the Air Force, none of which are big enough to appear on the radar screen anywhere in the world. And none of which gets us leadership positions and none of which gets us the opportunity to shape those developing areas in accordance with our interests and with our values. What we are after in an integrated Canadian Forces is that on any mission our country wants us to do, we are going to have a larger effect by operating as a Canadian Forces with an integrated command structure and equipment. We will actually work together to give you the benefit worldwide of the effect that we bring as part of the Canadian commitment.

Our vision is simply that. Canada first is our team. It is not a political team for us. It is everything that we do in that transformation for Canada. We have made organizational changes. Just one of those to allow us to be effective and responsive and relevant to you is to stand up and establish Canada command. To give a focus and a precision on being prepared to help Canadians in need, when they need it most at home here in Canada. We know that our responsibility to protect starts right here in this great country of ours.

We are not after the role of first responder. That's not where we want to be. We have an incredible structure across our country of police forces and fire departments and health services and volunteer fire departments, all of which provide that great structure. And let me tell you having travelled around the world, I know that here in Canada we have the most professional and capable and trustworthy police forces in the world. We are not after their role. We don't even want to be the second responders but what we want to be is when Canadians need us we are the third or fourth responders of the first order and we are ready to do our business.

We are also after more than organizational change to allow us to implement our vision. We are after some very real things, some capabilities brought into the Canadian Forces. We have gone through a period where our aircraft and our ships and the fleets of land vehicles and the major systems that we have have all deteriorated and we are putting our house in order with some very clear priorities of what we need. And we are asking the government of Canada to take action on those priorities and deliver to us that airlift, that joint support ship, and the trucks that we need and the vehicles that we need to enable our soldiers to do the job. We need an acquisition process that can deliver in time. If we want a helicopter we don't need it 15 years from now in Afghanistan. We don't need it in 10 years or five years. We need that helicopter in the very near future and actually by September would be quite good. I'd be very happy with that.

And ladies and gentlemen I'm not ashamed to say we need money. We are still not back to the 1991 funding levels of the Canadian Forces. We can do a lot of things with a vision, a lot of things with organizational changes, a lot of things on the backs and shoulders of men and women like this, but we can't do nearly enough without the money to allow the Canadian Forces to be a relevant and responsive and effective Canadian Forces.

The last thing I have to tell you is we need recruits. We need Canadians. Now there have been a lot of naysayers out there who don't believe that we can actually recruit the number of men and women that we need. This past year, the fiscal year from April 1 of last year to March 31 just past, we had set a goal of 5,627 new recruits. That allowed us to meet attrition and to grow by 500 soldiers, which is all the money that we had for increased growth. As of the end of March 31 we were at 106 per cent of target. In fact, we succeeded even with our dinosaur methods of recruiting, even with our slow and ponderous and painful process, because I believe that most young Canadians can see and feel the excitement that I and these men and women who are here with me today feel and believe and see in what we do.

If you want to fly high-performance aircraft, come and see us. If you want to sail the seven seas in the world on high-tech ships, come and see us. And if you want the physical and mental challenge and the immediate satisfaction of facing a Taliban whilst helping folks actually get on with their lives, come and see us. There's nothing in the spectrum of human endeavour that we don't have a little something to do with. We know we can challenge Canadians and we know that when our message goes out they'll be coming to us in droves. We know we will be able to recruit.

Just let me talk about operations in Afghanistan. Every day we conduct operations here in Canada whether it's Search and Rescue operations that I referred to or whether it's routine help to communities across Canada for a variety of events, or whether it's assisting a police force encountering drug operations. We conduct operations here in Canada that you don't even see. We conduct operations as part of NORAD, working with the United States of America. We conduct operations right now in 19 different countries around the world, such as Africa and the Middle East and we are obviously focused right now on Afghanistan where we have some 2,300 uniformed men and women.

Everybody watched the debate last night, all four hours of it. I confess to the fact that I didn't watch it all myself but there were some good indications that came out of that debate last night for our soldiers and for Canadians in general. Let me tell you as a soldier representing men and women in Afghanistan, those who have been there, those who are there now and those who are getting ready to go this summer, how I see it. We are in Afghanistan for some very simple straightforward pragmatic Canadian reasons. We are there first of all because we are defending Canada and Canadians. Canadians were killed, 24 of them, on September 11, and Canada remains on a list of countries targeted by Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. We are part of defending Canada and defending Canadians. We refuse to accept terrorism as a way of changing our societies and the international order.

We are in Afghanistan as part of a significant multinational effort. Thirty-seven different nations have deployed military forces into Afghanistan. We are supporting a United Nations mission and the Secretary General Kofi Annan articulated superbly why he wanted international troops deployed into the southern part of Afghanistan and around the rest of the country. We are there to help Afghanistan and to support his mission. We are there as part of a NATO mission. We are founding members of NATO and we are supporting NATO's stated aim to support the Afghanistan government by expanding its mission to the southern part of that country. In fact, all of our operations will enable that to occur by the end of July this summer.

But more importantly to put a face on it, we are there to help men and women rebuild their families after 25 years of violence with two million people killed and six to eight million people driven out of their country. In the most destitute circumstances possible, families were destroyed. We are there to help those men, women and children actually rebuild their lives so that maybe tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, things will be a tiny bit better. We're helping families come together to rebuild their communities; communities where the security is good enough so they will not be killed by a suicide bomber as they go out shopping for food for their families; and where schools are open and children are back in them and teachers can teach without fear of being killed and once they're killed decapitated because they have taught little girls. We've made progress on that one. Six million children in Afghanistan are back in school. Maybe we can help them build a standard of health care so that 25 to 30 per cent of the children do not die before the age of five. We are there to help communities come together and support Afghanistan in becoming a nation based on the constitutions that they have laid out and based on a president that they have elected, and based on a Parliament that they have chosen in democratic elections for the first time ever in their country. We are there to help that country become a part of a more stable and coherent region, one that has been inherently unstable over the past decades and a region that has been the source of most of the opium that flows into western societies over the past four to five years. If you want to talk about a weapon of mass destruction, albeit one with a slow burning fuse, that would be the 40,000 tons of opium being produced in the region.

In short, we are in Afghanistan for good Canadian reasons supporting our interests and protecting our values. We try to communicate that everywhere we go. Our soldiers don't mind debates, they don't mind discussions, they are all in favour. Do you know what they tell me when I go to visit them? "Sir, the debate is over here. We're committed. We're on the ground. We're doing the job and we're putting ourselves at risk." They need the support of Canada to do that.

One of our ways to communicate that was taking Team Canada into Afghanistan. A little while ago I took in about 15 people including some of our defence stakeholders and supporters like Lew Mackenzie. We also took in four prominent Canadians including Rick Mercer and Guy LaFleur. It was an incredible way to do something because the soldiers and sailors and airmen and airwomen got involved and engaged with them. When they went back to Canada we had constant help in communicating what the forces were doing in Afghanistan and why it is so important to our nation. We are going to continue to support the men and women in Afghanistan.

The contingent in Afghanistan is the best-equipped contingent in that country. Out of 37 different militaries ours is the best-equipped contingent. From their boots, to their combat uniforms, to their knee pads, to the flak vests that protect them, to the GPS devices that allow them to know where they are, to the ballistic eye protection that has saved the eyes of many Canadian soldiers in some of those attacks, to the personal radios that they have that allow them to communicate across from section to section, to their Kevlar helmets, to their weapons with laser and night sights and to the night sights on their helmets, they are the best equipped soldiers in the world.

Everything we do is based on Canada first. Everything we do is for our country. Secondly, our entire raison d'tre is to help protect the weak and the vulnerable in the worst days of their lives when they have nobody else to turn towards and when they desperately need help. I cannot tell you in the time that I've spent in Afghanistan how many thousands of Afghans have directly told me, "Sir, don't go away. You are the only thing between us and total chaos. We have nothing else going for us at this point in time." A young Canadian soldier represents a candle of bright light of hope to them.

We are Canada's pride. I think it was the Winnipeg Free Press that had a headline on April 13 last year, which said that the forces are back in fashion. We believe that and we believe that it is time that Canadians recognize it and recognize the individual men and women who serve our country in all three uniforms, who serve our country in Canada, who serve our country around this continent and who serve on those high-risk dangerous operations on the high seas, in the icy skies or on the mountains and hills of Afghanistan itself.

Those young men and women are incredible people. We look after them pretty well but we need to do an even better job. They are volunteers but their families are not. And many of those families come to the military and the Canadian Forces way of life very early when the energy and enthusiasm of youth understate the commitment and sacrifice that might be required. When you stand at Trenton and you meet a young widow and talk to her about her 14-month old son who is never going to know his Dad and when you meet the Mum and Dad of that young soldier, you understand what a debt we have to them and how much we must support that family in all that they will go through.

Ladies and gentlemen I am delighted to represent all those men and women in uniform and the civilians who support us. I'm your Chief of Defence Staff. I actually believe in my heart of hearts that those young men and women are the credentials of our nation, are Canada's treasure. I'm proud to be their Chief of Defence Staff and I am delighted to be yours. I'm going to close with one reading and then I'll get out of your hair and you can carry on with your afternoon.

One of the soldiers who was wounded pretty badly in Afghanistan in January in the attack that killed Glen Barry was Private Will Salikin. Private Salikin's Mum is an incredible lady and she wrote a letter to our soldiers.

To the men and women in the provincial reconstruction team in Kandahar:

My name is Colleen and this is written to you from Landstuhl, Germany.

I am with my son Will or, as you fondly call him, Sal. It has been in my heart these past days to sit and write you and try and express in words what I feel. Will is okay and he will be back in Edmonton soon. He is one pretty tough kid and I know with no hesitation that he will be just fine. He has given us several good signs and he continues to improve with time even if it is slow. Even though he has a biological family, Will has another family, a much larger one full of caring brothers and sisters--you his comrades--and over these past several years Will has often spoken of how strong the bond has grown between everyone, how proud he is to be serving with you and how proud he is to be a Canadian.

During the last few days I have had the honour of knowing that I am part of this awesome Canadian Armed Forces family. The incredible caring and support and protection that have been given to my family is like nothing I have ever experienced in my entire life. I am so blessed. Thank you for the unbelievable skills, kindness and support of all the Canadians and the American doctors and staff, assisting officers and escorts and others. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the gift of my son.

It is good to know that more Canadians are starting to speak up for support of their Armed Forces. It is so good to feel this country uniting under a common bond. Many churches have been holding you and your comrades and your families up in prayers since your departure from Canada and have committed to continue that until you return home.

I want to thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart and tell you how proud I am of you and that you are most dear to me. Down the road I look forward to meeting with you and promising a hug to each and every one regardless of rank. I guess that is one good thing about not being in the Canadian Forces; I can do that.

When you get back to Canada pop by and say hello to Will. It will cheer him a lot and probably yourselves as well. Bless you all and when it is time safe journey home.

Private Will Salikin was in Ottawa last week and was one of the soldiers who sat on the Senate floor as our Excellency the Governor-General read the Speech from the Throne and was recognized by our Prime Minister, Her Excellency, Members of Parliament and Senators as the true Canadian hero that he is, on his way to a complete and full recovery, proud of what he has done, proud of being a Canadian soldier and proud of being a Canadian.

Thank you.

The appreciation of the meeting was expressed by Heather C. Devine, Associate in Litigation, Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP, and Director, The Empire Club of Canada.