Thanks, Mr. Chair.
It's great to have you with us, General. Our colleague Madame Perreault mentioned your distinguished record. I can't help noting for all of my fellow members of the committee that you are the third witness we've had in uniform from the Canadian Forces who commanded our forces in Afghanistan in one way or another, at one stage or another. The others were General Vance and General Devlin. It's great to be with you again for that reason as well.
With forest fires, floods, avalanches, and--God forbid--earthquakes, obviously it was a very busy year for Canada Command in most of those areas. Three or four provinces were looked at or supported in one way or another.
Predicting the weather is an imperfect art at best, and probably impossible over the long term. But was there any way for you, in conjunction with 36 other agencies and departments that look at this, to predict that 2011 would be a particularly tough year? Was that a surprise to some extent? How does the need to surge into Manitoba, the Assiniboine and Souris areas, and the Richelieu affect readiness for other tasks? Looking ahead, is there any way to predict whether this kind of demand will be greater, lesser, or the same in the years to come?