Thank you so much.
Thank you again for appearing today.
I have a couple of things. First, it goes to show you that assumptions are a dangerous thing. Before Mr. Norlock had asked this question, I was assuming that both of you had been consulted in the lead-up to Bill C-12 and its development. I'm deeply concerned that you were not.
Mr. Duplessis, I understand you're giving a somewhat nuanced no. But by the same token, it sounds more that you were just made aware in sort of a general context that it was happening and sort of maybe in an ancillary way engaged. That concerns me, and it certainly concerns me that FCM wasn't engaged there.
If I can, I'm going to start specifically on the legislation with FCM. I'm a bit surprised by what you're asking for, in that you're not asking for more in this process. A reference to some kind of engagement with municipalities might be a start, but I'm surprised you're not asking for more, and I'll explain why.
In developing this bill or dealing with it, municipalities are first responders. Municipalities are the ones—as a municipal councillor, I know—who play an enormous role in the success of responding to an emergency, and as the ones who are on the ground and closest to the emergency and understand it best, they need to be resourced and they need to be tied into what's happening. Oftentimes they have the best understanding of what needs to occur.
You referenced the fact, or at least I thought you did, Mr. Knight, that you're looking for a seat at the table. I'm wondering what form that would take. How could we ensure that this happens, and then how can we ensure that in fact you're included in the dialogue?
I often think that if you're just having discussions between the province and the federal government, there's a lot of extremely important information and local knowledge that is being left out of the loop. If you're not at the table, important considerations are going to be missed and important needs of municipalities will be ignored, in terms of the resources and infrastructure that they require.
I don't know if you want to comment on that.