Thank you for the question.
If I may, let me speak a bit about the wildfires that took place in Quebec. It is primarily the responsibility of the provincial authority and local authorities to respond in the first instances to those fires, but I was in close contact with François Bonnardel, from the Quebec government, who quickly identified that they needed some help.
We did call upon the Canadian Armed Forces, but we also went looking for other resources through the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, CIFFC, in order to access additional resources from other provinces, first of all. In my conversations with Minister Bonnardel, I personally reached out to the United States and made arrangements with their FEMA people to gain access to additional firefighters, firefighting equipment and water bombers in order to provide that assistance. We were very fortunate, and the Canadian Armed Forces were able to quickly respond, as they did, by the way, for the fires in Nova Scotia, in Alberta, in the Northwest Territories and in British Columbia. There was a very significant deployment of those resources.
I had conversations at the time with the chief of defence and, of course, we've had many more robust conversations about the impact of those deployments. I think it is one of their responsibilities to be there for Canadians when we need them, but it had a very significant impact on their capabilities and their capacity to respond to other duties in Canada and around the world. It impacted on their training facilities, and I believe it also had an impact on the men and women who serve. Responding to those very difficult and dangerous situations can be a real challenge for them. They were away from their families and their communities for a period of time.
I think it's incumbent upon us, even though we call upon them and we take full advantage of that resource, to always remember the cost that the Canadian Armed Forces and their members are paying for that service. We're working very carefully with our provincial partners to make sure that we find every way to help the provinces when they need our help and to help Canadians when they need our help, but also to make sure that we're mindful of the impact it's having on the CAF.