National Defence committee  Thank you. Quite simply, I think that continued supports for fire and flood mitigation are vitally important. We try to prevent things before they happen. One thing we're preparing for, unfortunately, is that we expect more fires and floods. As a result of that, we have to make sure we're protecting our communities.

National Defence committee  Yes. Now we're talking about operational deployments as well. Canada is large, as you and everyone in the room knows. We couldn't base everything in Ottawa. We would have to start looking strategically at where to place resources, figure out what the emergency management organizations were within each province, and figure out where something like that would fit in.

National Defence committee  Specifically, regarding firefighters and any procurement of firefighters, those are always dealt with through the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. It's not as simple as calling up British Columbia and saying, hey, do you have any firefighters? This is a very good organization.

National Defence committee  The simple answer is yes. One of the things that we could certainly use assistance with from the federal government has to do with mitigation when comes to building more firewalls and flood mitigation. The simple answer is yes. I think there's about $1.2 billion for mitigation that is distributed right throughout Canada.

National Defence committee  A simple answer to your question is that I think it is certainly worth exploring and seeing if it is at all going to be effective. Again, Alberta, like the rest of Canada, is quite large. We really rely a lot on our local municipalities to make sure they are prepared. Then again, Alberta Emergency Management augments and supports that.

National Defence committee  Preparation is key. That's why the Alberta Emergency Management Agency works very closely with all municipalities to make sure they are prepared in the event of an emergency, but again, what made this one unprecedented was the number of crisis points throughout the province. I will just say this.

National Defence committee  Let me just expand a little bit here. In a couple of our communities in northern Alberta, like other areas in northern Canada, we're very much isolated. I'll use Fort Chipewyan as an example. It is only accessible by a barge. It took the military to come in with the Hercules plane to really save people and bring them to safety in other areas of Alberta.

National Defence committee  We have the local authorities, which ultimately become the incident commanders. I believe that, at least in my conversations with Minister Blair and Minister Sajjan.... We've created here in Alberta the Alberta Emergency Management Agency, which has been recognized as a role model and a bit of an example.

National Defence committee  I guess maybe I will start off by answering your first part. I don't believe that CAF should be the first call. Let me just say that. Let me explain the uniqueness of what occurred in Alberta. This wasn't just one crisis point. Many of you are aware that, in the past, we had the Slave Lake fires and the Fort McMurray fires.

National Defence committee  Thank you, Chair. My name is Mike Ellis. I'm the Deputy Premier and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Services for the Province of Alberta. In another life, I was a sergeant in the Calgary Police Service. First, I want to acknowledge that I'm speaking to you from Alberta, the traditional territory of the signatories of Treaties 6, 7, and 8.