That's very kind of you. Thank you.
I wanted to maybe make a quick reference to what we do in terms of responding to natural disasters. When something happens—an earthquake, a flood, whatever—we have what we call standard operating procedures that were adopted a few years ago and are now very well appreciated by the various departments.
The way it works is this. We monitor the situation at DFAIT. If something happens, there's definitely a message sent to all the departments. If the disaster is big enough, we call immediately for a task force meeting, and National Defence would be part of it. Then if it's really a big catastrophe, let's say, like what we saw in Haiti, there's an interdepartmental team that is sent to evaluate the needs, whether the DART should be deployed, or what is needed in terms of humanitarian assistance, and so forth. That is dispatched very quickly. Then the rest of the response is also discussed by the various departments of the whole.
I think that's a concrete example of how we work together. I had the opportunity, for example, to go to Sri Lanka and Indonesia after the tsunami. I led the reconnaissance team there and I saw firsthand how well it works. Everybody knew what they had to do, what their role was. I think this is a great achievement that we've seen. It was adopted in 2003, I think. That has made a big difference in the way we do business. In terms of readiness to respond, I think it's a great achievement.