I believe that's actually part of the problem. I believe that should the Canadian Forces be deployed after 2011 in a major international operation, and simultaneously a major internal crisis erupts, whether it be environmental consequence management or some other situation where a major Canadian Forces commitment was required instantaneously, and the Canadian Forces were not capable of responding to that in a manner that Canadians expected, the government would be very hard-pressed to explain why that is.
If we think of the military ultimately as an insurance policy, we have to recognize that we need a certain degree of force to be able to deal with any type of event that happens within Canada. Their number one priority should be retained in country to be able to deal with that.
I understand that this really may impede upon our international activism, our ability to deploy forces around the world and to engage in these types of operations, but if we take the policy for what it says, and if we take our commitment to the defence of Canada and Canadians and the peace of the country seriously, as our first priority, then we should retain a sufficient number of forces to be able to undertake those types of operations, regardless of where we are in the world.