First, there were no predictions about the level of activity we had over the last year, not just here at home but around the world, when you see what is going on with natural disasters and the like. At Canada Command we track the natural disasters that happen around the world. There's a lot going on from a weather, meteorological, and natural disaster point of view. It's something we noted.
However, once we realized that perhaps this was the new normal we didn't understand why, because nobody could tell us why this was happening. In the end we maintained even greater vigilance. We maintained that vigilance throughout that period, not knowing that something was going to happen, but knowing that given there were so many things happening, the likelihood or probability was probably greater. We maintained that vigilance. We actually had discussions at my morning meetings that there were greater levels of activity. We couldn't explain why, but we needed to be more vigilant than we had been in the past, because the trend could be that more was going to happen.
We had land forces in Manitoba at the time that we could deploy very quickly. They could be in the affected area within two hours, which facilitated our support.
Looking into the future, it's difficult to say what's going to happen. However, we have learned from the past that we need to further strengthen our relationships with all of our different partners and have forces ready to go. The last year has proved that by having troops ready to go and being aware of the situation, we can provide the support to Canadians when it's needed. The question is, will this be the future? I don't know, but we are ready to deal with that issue.
It comes back to one of the questions. If we need more, the Canadian Forces will provide more troops. At one point we had almost 2,500 to 3,000 men and women in uniform in the home game supporting issues at home. We got them from where we needed them. Regular and reserve forces came out and organized into groups to do what they had to do.