I would just say to that question, I think the military is, moving forward, going to have a role in disaster response. I'm not advocating that it has no role. I think that we have to use the specialized skill set the CAF has more. For instance, the search and rescue capacity it has, if we bolster that and improve that, it benefits Canadians who go missing in the wilderness, but it can also be used during disaster situations. I think that the Canadian Armed Forces search and rescue structure is a great thing to build and strengthen for that.
Again, I would argue that putting too much of the emphasis on the army engineers, for instance, it's a pretty small body of personnel.... I just don't think it's going to cut it moving forward. I think that, again, the CAF is very reluctant to do anything besides the response element, because it's already taking up so much of their time. Again, no mitigation, no prevention, no preparedness and no recovery, which are the most time consuming, the most expensive and the most important part of the disaster management spectrum.
I do agree with this idea that there could be dual use in a civilian agency with the military. I just don't think we can allow too much of the CAF's regular forces to be drawn into this if there is a civilian agency that is created to handle it as well.
There's one other thing. You speak a lot about structuring and how this could be structured and what this could look like. At the federal level, for instance, I again highlight Australia and some of the things they've done since their national commission in 2020. They've always had Emergency Management Australia, which is focused on response. They realized that wasn't enough, so they've also now established a National Recovery and Resilience Agency whose focus is on helping communities recover from disasters and then building them in a more resilient way moving forward. They've also established an Australian Climate Service to assist with severe weather events.
Again, we see a growth of structures to enable this response because they are so complex and because they draw upon so many different resources. That's a conversation we could also have in Canada, again, based on the similarities in our structures with Australia's.