Admittedly, I don't have a lot of information on Dorian, being new to this ministry, though we have looked at what has happened in the past. Relatively speaking, one of the things that I've noticed in recovery is that although we moved quite quickly, I think.... DFO came out and surveyed basically the next day. The other ministers and I were texting back and forth immediately as the storm was hitting. We were talking with the parliamentary secretary, Mike Kelloway, as well about the response and how quickly we could get some of these things happening.
Maybe I can tie this into your question about Dorian, as it relates not only to Dorian, but Noel before that, and before that, hurricane Juan. We have a history of storms increasing in severity and approaching our coastlines, of which we have 13,000 kilometres. What struck me was that, in spite of the response that we had in this storm, there seemed to be no playbook, if you will, no off-the-shelf way that we could approach what was happening.
The work under way now seems to me to be in response, and I think the work has been quite responsive. As Minister Fox mentioned, the monies aren't as great as they need to be to cover off what has to happen.
We need the ability to have guidance around the prevention and the measures around the preparation and access to subject matter experts, and funding for the guidelines and distribution mechanisms. We just need an overall playbook in what happens next. We know that an event is coming, and the severity of those events is increasing. With the current one, Fiona, the barometric pressure was the lowest on record. With the storm surge, where people had put their gear on the shores where normally it would have been okay, it was washed away because the water came up so much. We need to take a very serious look at it and have a coordinated, planned approach before an event hits.
That might tie back into your question about Dorian. I can tell you that it's an observation of mine. I asked staff what happens next. There really wasn't an answer other than that people could look at their insurance; people can go through to the next level of funding. Then, of course, there's the ACOA and the $300 million, $100 million of which was designated for Atlantic Canada fisheries. It seemed to be happening sort of piecemeal, but it was happening quickly. So, the responsiveness, I think, was there.