Mr. Speaker, it is true that these crises give us the opportunity to see what a true country is about and what the notion of solidarity means within a country.
I remember that, when the crisis began, during the first week, it did not look like such a significant event, given the damages that could be seen. It is only when Thursday came around that we realized that, with the precipitation being forecast for Friday in particular, we were facing a major catastrophe the likes of which we had not seen in a long while.
On that Thursday, the cabinet was in retreat. Mr. Chrétien called Mr. Bouchard to offer him the co-operation of the federal government, and even at that point, the premier of Quebec was unsure of the scale of the disaster. However, the Prime Minister and the premier both came to an agreement so that the armed forces could send out some troops by six o'clock that night. It is only after Friday that we came to realize that 200 or 300 soldiers, or even 2,000 or 3,000 would not be enough, given the extent of damages in Ontario, Quebec and the maritimes, and that we had to deploy up to 15,000 troops. This was for the army the largest ever deployment in peace time for reasons of disaster.
Besides the solidarity issue, I believe it should be noted that disasters are increasing in number. We must now draw a few lessons from this latest one. Among these is the fact that we now know we can and must rely more on co-operation, mutual support and solidarity.
During the disaster, we thought for a while we would have to evacuate large areas of Montreal.
I think what we have realized is that in fact in peacetime it may be much more important to count on the support of a lot of people. Perhaps a majority of people will not want to leave their houses even when there is no power and it is extremely cold. We have to have systems which will permit people either to spend time in their houses and then go to a shelter or which will permit people to have alternative sources of energy so they can stay in their houses.
In a catastrophe people must count on their neighbours and their relatives, on the citizens around them in their municipality, their locality or their city, or they must count on citizens from other provinces. That is one of the important lessons of this crisis. We have seen that in a number of small instances.
For instance, there was a train which travelled from Halifax with firewood. The train stopped at a number of places all the way from Halifax to the blackout triangle in Quebec. It carried wood to give to people at every stop, so that the citizens of the country could give it to their friends, relatives and fellow Canadians who needed it. That is when we realized the fact that we all feel we are citizens of the same country.
This was one of the main lessons we learned from the crisis.
Besides the issue of solidarity and the importance of support from neighbours, I believe we also learned that, as parliamentarians, in times such as these, we must be present in such a way that we show we are there not only to learn about people's problems and to help them deal with them, but also to bring them the comfort of knowing they are not alone in difficult times.
On the first Saturday, I flew in a helicopter with the prime minister to survey the situation, especially in Ontario, in your area, Mr. Speaker—