Thank you.
Mr. Owen, your comments about emergency preparedness and preventing a disaster from occurring rather than having to respond we subscribe to fully. One of the things we support about the bill is that the emergency management terminology encompasses a very broad range: from mitigation, to preparedness, to response, to recovery.
On the point you asked about concerning the seismic activity, really this speaks to mitigation. The Red Cross would promote all levels of government--certainly our friends at the local level as well as the provinces and the federal government--looking at a comprehensive review of the risk hazard analysis across Canada, including the seismic threat on the west coast.
In fact, it's close to home for us. We're actually in the process of retrofitting our own building in the Vancouver area because of the seismic threat. It's obviously an expensive process, but it's one that is critical if we're going to reduce the chance of hazards.
On a related note, the Red Cross is also working with all levels of government to promote a program called Quake Safe. And again, Dr. Duplessis spoke to the importance of encouraging Canadians to take some personal responsibility, and communities taking personal responsibility for understanding the risks and also taking steps to try to mitigate those risks by doing things like retrofitting, but also understanding what to do if there is an earthquake.
Lastly, we've also been engaged over the last 15 years or so working very collaboratively with our friends in the American Red Cross when they have had catastrophic disasters, including earthquakes in California.
Over the past 15 years we've had over 5,000 Canadians who have gone to the United States to work on catastrophic disasters. In particular, there were people from the B.C. government and the local municipal governments in the lower mainland who went down to work with the Loma Prieta earthquake in L.A. and also in the San Francisco Bay area. And they brought back many lessons learned that they actually built into their preparedness plans and the national support plan, one of which is the importance of planning this type of mitigation activity to which you've subscribed.
So we fully support what you're promoting and we'd encourage the government to continue to move on that area.
Thank you.