Clarification needed-curative or palliative?

My father will have surgery next week to remove two tumors from his liver. My question-will this be curative or palliative. His docter was vague.  My father was diagnosed with colon cancer 16 months ago, had laparoscopic surgery to remove tumor and part of his colon and was diagnosed last week with metastasis to his liver. There doesn't appear to be cancer anywhere else, after his pet and mri scans but they'll know more when they operate.

I just want to know what is the goal here-to buy him as much time as possible and if so, how much are we talking about or could this even potentially be cured?  Thank you.

[Denise L. Johnson, M.D.]

It is possible and thus far the best results are with resection of liver mets in colon cancer.

The surgeons cannot give the final answer until they perform surgery and receive the pathology back.

[Cthycarlson]

My father had his surgery and it went well, they removed the larger tumor (7 cm) and did cryosurgery on the smaller. The surgeon said there were no other metastases that "he could see." They also put in a chemo pump that he will have for as "long as he can tolerate it."
This is second hand info from my sister since I am overseas, so I am trying to make sense of it.

My questions are:
1.  Could there be metastases that he could not see and the scans did not pick up?
2. What does he mean by tolerate, will this chemo be a different kind and very hard on my father, harder than the first round he did a year and a half ago?
3.  If they got everything out, how does this bode for my father? Could he theoretically be cured? The 7 cm tumor grew very quickly, within 4 months, that is considered aggressive, the doctor said. Is it possible for them to catch early tumors quickly and remove them?

Thank you so much.