Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, Dane, it's a great motion. There's no question that I support the intent of the motion. However, more important is the process to get where you want to go. From my former life, I have a great deal of experience with respect to emergency preparedness, both at the provincial level—which by the way is the delegated authority, not the federal level—as well as the regional and municipal levels. We have dealt on many occasions with more drastic situations, like that which happened here in Ottawa, and less.
One of the biggest frustrations I felt as part of the lead on the emergency preparedness team—along with the chiefs of police, fire and EMS—was the lack of discipline and planning within a process. That is why recent provincial governments, at least in Ontario, have made it a priority to put disciplined emergency preparedness plans in place, with the proper delegated authorities to then lead when these situations happen. I wanted to preface my comments by saying that.
For the most part, it goes to Brian's latter comments with respect to this committee's role. I forget what word he used exactly, but he's right. It is a small role. The bigger role belongs to public safety.
If anything, I would suggest that the motion state that we urge the public safety committee to do this, and that we want to be a part of it. Telecommunications, quite frankly, is a small part of the overall bigger picture when it comes to emergency preparedness. In my experience, in situations like this, telecommunications are completely wiped out; therefore, you have to find a contingency to those telecommunications.