We found the situation in Libya to be quite a surprise, in that six months before or eight months before it was not a part of the world we were really concerned about, and it fairly rapidly turned into a part of the world we were quite concerned about.
The first area of concern in Libya in particular was the safety of Canadians, in fact, the safety of the international community. An initial tranche of planning was aimed at making sure Canadians could be safely evacuated from the country if the situation warranted it, and in fact it did. So the whole of government considered options for doing this and put forward a number of options to government. A decision was made on how to proceed, and then it was revised as the situation developed. Canadian Forces got involved. We had identified a number of aircraft that could be turned to that role, and once it became clear that the Canadian Forces were required, the government directed us to get involved. The aircraft were there within a day to participate in that mission.
We evacuated not just a number of Canadians, but, in cooperation with a number of international partners, in a coordinated operation that was led by the U.K, thousands of people from the areas of conflict to safety.
At the same time—