If government tells us to go and open a theatre at this place, then obviously there would have been planning within our department to tell us where the restrictions, limitations, and risks were and how the risks would be managed. If they say to go, then we would go into very great detail to make sure that we could mitigate the different risks.
Health services is one, for example, so we could find out if France would come and help us out by providing the medical support. I was a contingent commander in Africa. I had my health services provided by the French, and they were great, so there is one way of doing it. We could also do it by contract; I know our CANCAP has some capabilities. We would be going into mitigating strategies in great detail to make sure we could do it without undue risk.
Obviously it's not for me to decide. From a Canadian Forces perspective, the Chief of Defence Staff would have to assess this risk and bring it to the minister and Prime Minister. The government will have to take the risk based on the fact that maybe we don't have all the capabilities accordingly, but there are potential mitigating strategies, and that is what we would be focusing on.