Thank you very much for the question.
Underlying all of this is that there must be a request from the province or the territory. Then what would happen in the current construct is that the request would go to the Department of Public Safety. Public Safety would look at it, not only from a military perspective but a whole-of-government perspective, to say what tools of the federal government could be used to assist.
In the case of some of the most recent tragedies and natural disasters, when you look in a little bit more detail, it wasn't only the military that was there. There were other elements of the Government of Canada in that location.
So it goes to the Department of Public Safety. Public Safety looks at that and at the same time they're talking to all the different federal partners. If it's a disaster it would be very much through the committee I mentioned, the emergency response management committee. We'd quickly come together to talk about how we would deal with it.
That request would go to the Minister of Public Safety. The Minister of Public Safety would then go to his ministerial colleagues to ask for their support, and then we'd move ahead to provide that support.
Again, this is all contingent upon a request from the province or the territory, as in the case in Quebec. It was the province that asked us to come in, and then we were in place within 24 hours.
To put a finer point on it, there are two types of events here we need to be clear on. One is that if it's a natural disaster, that works.
As you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, if it's an issue of support, aid to the civil power where the military may have to come in and provide some type of law enforcement support, there is a possibility--not only a possibility but an actual authority--where the Solicitor General can come to the Minister of National Defence directly to ask for that type of support.
All of the different processes and all of the different mechanisms are in place to ensure that if a province or territory asks, they will get support or an answer immediately.