Again, there are various phases. We have to be ready to run an election at any time, and there are some costs described in the main estimates regarding that.
What's happening is that as the temperature gets a bit higher and there is more discussion about a possible election, we have to go beyond simply being ready and start deploying resources. That can be pretty expensive. I'll give you a very simple example.
If after analysis we believe there's a good chance of an election being called, we need to identify offices for returning officers. We will not rent them until the writ is dropped, but what we do is in the area of telephony, because we need about 25 lines for each of those offices and we need the offices to be operational within 48 hours. In order to do that, we have arrangements with telecom operators to put lines to the point of demarcation of possible offices. It's really to get ready to further deploy if the writ is dropped.
There are, therefore, incremental steps in the readiness process that involve at some point moving toward deployment of resources, mostly in the technology area, that need to be deployed from a central location to the 308 ridings. These costs can be quite substantive. That's why I referred to the 25 motions of confidence. I haven't done the exercise, but you can assume that during the last Parliament each of these involved some deployment costs.
These may vary from time to time. For example, for inquiry support we need about 200 staff. Again, these staff are basically hired for a period of eight weeks or so. We need to get them on board to be trained a little bit before the writ is dropped, two to three weeks before the writ is dropped. So again, depending on the environment, depending on the likelihood of a possible election--which is a judgment call--we may start recruiting those staff to train them. But again, if the writ is not dropped, the costs are incurred, but the people will not be used. Unfortunately, we are not sure the same 200 people will be available when the next call is made.
These are some of the factors that are at play when we talk about readiness. There is a significant impact on costs.