Mr. Chairman, I thank you for that question, and then I'll turn back to the vice-admiral.
When I started in this job two years ago, I actually struggled with the notion of capability-based planning, and it came down a little bit to this, as we tried to explain to our minister and to cabinet why the notion of the Canada first defence strategy and a long-term commitment to funding was actually important.
The example that came to mind at that time was planning for a response to a SARS event, or some pandemic, for example, and it was not the kind of thing that when the pandemic actually hit you would go down the street and knock on the door of the 7-Eleven and buy the response you needed. You need a level 4 lab. You need a network of public health officers, federal on down. You need to understand people's responsibilities at airports. You need to understand the regulatory frameworks. Altogether that is a capability, a capability that allows you to respond to a pandemic, a capability that allows the military to respond to one of the six missions that are laid out in the Canada first defence strategy and that requires aviation assets to come to bear; army assets to come to bear, including the training; naval assets to come to bear. When you look, for example, at planning for the Olympics, had we not had all of those assets and known how to combine them, we would never have been able to plan the security piece or actually effect the security piece for the Olympics.
It comes back a little bit to the question earlier on planning by sector. We plan to a capability need based on our expectation of what the country will actually require in terms of defence and security going forward.
That's my short-winded explanation, Mr. Chairman, and I'll ask the vice-admiral to add some detail.