Yes. There was a decision to sail post-9/11. Eight days later, four ships left with five helicopters, shortly followed by the MPA .
It was a matter of rapidity, and Ken has outlined it, getting all their maintenance up to 100% standard, supplying the spare parts, getting everybody new gas masks, and still they were able to get out the door in eight days.
You don't have a tanker. It now becomes an incredibly painful and extended process. Lend me a tanker, you declare to your NATO allies, who all reply they don't have enough tankers themselves. We beg on our hands and knees. We get a tanker for an intermittent period. They say we're going to a war zone. What about our rules of engagement? Foreign Affairs from both countries must be brought in. They go to meetings. This is going to eat up at least another week and potentially two or three, and you still haven't got the tanker there. It has to come maybe from Spain or Chile and meet with our task force wherever it's going.
Finally, you say to a nation they must lend us an anti-air warfare destroyer. And they look at you as if you were coming from another planet, because who would assign long-range missiles to Canada that it doesn't nationally control with its own rules of engagement?
I am sure somebody would get an anti-air warfare destroyer close to you to protect you if you needed it, but you can forget any real sense of control over it from a national point of view.