Prior to the dot-com establishment, we had the deputy chief of staff organization. I did not work in it, so I can't comment on how it conducted its business at that time. But when we stood up the transformation, or when transformation and the dot-coms were established, the first thing we were doing was separating strategic from the operational capability. We were focusing based on the span and scope of operations. It allowed CDS to focus operations on international, domestic, support, and special, all in one context. So that was the advantage of it.
Previously, you would have had some of those, what I call joint enablers in the army, navy, and air force. At the same time, within the DCDS, you would have had a matrix solution that would have brought together those functional aspects and then tried to bring together whatever that force component structure needed to be. What you did not have was a person or organization that spent most of the time focused on operational support to operations. You ended up with, as an example, ADM (Mat). You have a military capability there. In fact, the depots came from ADM (Mat) when CANOSCOM was formed. You would have had from the ADM, Infrastructure and Environment, military engineering advice and support. Those pieces now reside within my purview. I'm able to maintain an operational support process that allows me to apply military support resources more quickly and directly on an ongoing basis. So it's focused, and it is just the concentrated effort of capability.
I still have reach-back, so the policy authority with the ADM (Mat) still exists. I still need direction, support, and advice when we're doing certain things such as disposal, or working with contract authorities. But there's very much an enforcing function with CANOSCOM. We have the requisite expertise around the table to formulate a plan and put it together.