I believe it's because.... In emergency management agencies, we have an EMO in every single province in our country. They work directly with their municipalities. As I'm sure you've heard before, when we see an emergency coming, there's an operational planning process, and the problem with something like a hurricane is that many of the volunteers you're going to use may have been directly impacted. We need to ensure that we have mutual aid agreements with our neighbouring provinces and territories—and we do—where those other provinces that aren't directly impacted can send volunteer groups or specific assets from one province to another.
During COVID, unfortunately, we developed a silo approach, where everybody was on their own and didn't ask anyone else for help, but I think emergency management has been structured—and continues to be structured—on mutual aid. Rather than constantly counting on the military, we should develop mutual aid agreements, which we have, with our other jurisdictions.
As well, I do believe, as I said before, that members of the Canadian Armed Forces are immediately deployable but should be removed as quickly as possible, and we should re-establish the organizations that exist within the province or territory.