Sir, I'll start with communications with the United States. I've made the point that this is undeniably a whole-of-government effort to establish that communication, so there are far more linkages established than simply a military-to-military connection with the United States. I am aware that this is being done with police services, it is being done with Health Canada, and it is being done by all of the agencies I am aware of that are engaged in this planning process.
There is no doubt we have a deep relationship on a military-to-military basis with the United States. The geography of where the games will occur--Vancouver--make them very close to the international border; therefore, there are very substantial plans under way within the United States both to ensure their preparedness and also to liaise with us in a military sense. That coordination has been extensive. It will continue. We will ensure that we each know what the other is doing with respect to the plans they're making for the games.
The military-to-military relationship is essentially led by the relationship between my command and U.S. Northern Command. We have been close in our discussions with them to ensure we each know what's happening so that if there were to be a need for support, measures would be in place so it could happen effortlessly, provided the government asked for that level of support. So very extensive communications have been going on, to my knowledge, by all agencies with their American counterparts.
Your second question had to do with availability of helicopters. Sir, there is no doubt that 2010 will be an extremely busy year for the Canadian Forces. We have had to ensure that we coordinate the assignment of resources to make sure we can accomplish all the missions that are on our plate for that period. One of the real benefits we have is the fact that we will have had about three years of planning this event before the Olympics occur. So there has been a long planning process to make sure we're being as efficient as we possibly can, and it's a short-duration engagement--the deployment and employment piece will be of short duration.
Yes, those resources are being called upon for many requirements, and some very extensive discussions have been going on to ensure that we are able to meet that requirement. That's one of the real benefits of having the opportunity to plan in advance.
Sir, in terms of explaining what a whole-of-government process for the response is, we have been very pleased with the means by which the RCMP has adopted an integrated fashion to be able to do this. So it's not only within the Canadian Forces that we have been ensuring the most efficient assignment of resources, but we've been doing that also with our security partners across the whole of the federal government. So the planning time that we have, the efficiencies we're able to achieve by doing that, and the new way of looking at how we would deliver in an integrated fashion have certainly helped to ensure that we do not over stretch.
The third question you asked, sir, was on the extent of the types of deployments and contributions we're making, and that obviously is dependent upon the level of security response that would be required. We are planning, in conjunction with the RCMP's request, to have a level of contribution that will be scalable. By scalable I mean that we are ensuring we have both deployed and placed at readiness forces that could respond to a fairly broad range of threat scenarios that could materialize. The RCMP will lead in determining what they believe the threat envelope is. We are putting in place a program in conjunction with them that would be scalable to that need.
I would not be able to comment upon the monetary costs of that; I don't have any information to do that. I am aware that the personnel resource costs are already part of the planning cycle that we're involved in.