Let me give you just a couple of examples.
We have great surveillance capacity from space in the Arctic right now. Surveillance is a component of search and rescue in terms of tracking vessels and being able to get high-quality imagery in emergency situations.
I would love to see the government fully commit to the RADARSAT Constellation series. As I understand it, the government blocked the sale of MacDonald, Dettwiler in part because it recognized the importance of RADARSAT-2 to Canada's Arctic policy. So here again is a central component: RADARSAT Constellation.
Another thing we need to recognize is that because the Arctic is changing, we need to change our assumptions as to where we should be basing search and rescue equipment.
To give you an example, a couple of years ago, I was at Inuvik, talking to a helicopter pilot from Cougar Helicopters who was on contract with one of the oil majors—I think it was BP—that was doing seismic work in the Beaufort Sea. They wouldn't rely on a Canadian Forces search and rescue helicopter based in Comox, on Vancouver Island. They actually contracted with Cougar to provide a private capacity to do search and rescue.
Now, you can say that it's an important opportunity and a responsibility for private actors, but it highlights the remoteness of our aircraft from this region. If we want to encourage development in the Arctic, and if we want to support Arctic communities, then it's important that we perhaps rethink what we're doing.
The other thing to say in terms of search and rescue is that we need to get serious—for instance, about the way we approach search and rescue across the country in terms of the response time expectations we put on the Canadian Forces and their personnel. To my mind, it is unacceptable to have a half-hour standby during business hours and a two-hour standby policy at night and on weekends. It's not just a question of equipment. It's a question of whether we have enough SAR techs and enough pilots to provide that rapid response—short-term call-up—across the country with respect to our assets.
You can put many billions of dollars into search and rescue aircraft and yet not have enough flight engineers to operate them, so it's also an issue of how well we staff this service. Also, where are the bases? Are there forward-operating bases? As well, do we have the personnel necessary to provide 24-hour short-term call-out, not just in the Arctic, but everywhere across this land?