Well, I was on the job, Mr. McTeague. You may have been on television, but I was meeting with officials, speaking with officials, participating in the planning of an evacuation--the largest exercise ever undertaken by a Canadian government. That plan did not sit in a filing cabinet at the Lester B. Pearson Building. It took a great deal of time and effort and involved participation of many departments to put in place.
Countries closer in proximity and with aircraft carriers, helicopters, and equipment available to them to act quickly were in a much different and, I would say, more advantageous position.
With respect to your first question, about the preferred route through Syria--and I believe Mr. Patry referred to that as well in his question--an assessment was made on the ground by officials in Lebanon that this was not a safe route to travel. There was passage by some Italians, and several Canadians were included on that bus. They made their way down the road to Damascus and came under heavy fire. Fortunately, nobody was killed, but the assessment was made by our officials there that we would not send Canadians by bus down that road to Damascus.
Other countries came to us, in fact, to work collaboratively to remove people by the seaport of Beirut, and that's the decision we took.