Mr. Chairman, I do not know if I can do it all in two minutes but I will try to get a start on it. Maybe a subsequent question will help lead me into further areas.
Critical infrastructure of the country consists of things like our communications systems, our gas lines, our electricity lines and our financial systems, many of which are interconnected within Canada and interconnected within the continent, which is another reason why we have to work closely with our friends in the United States on these matters. We want to ensure that these things are protected from either natural disasters or man made disasters, whether they are in the physical form or in the cyber form.
We are used to natural disasters in the physical form. We have certainly seen the damage that can be done by an ice storm or by flooding et cetera. At the same time, we have all of these intricate information and computer systems that are vital to the operation of all the critical infrastructure facilities we have in this country, and they do exist at different government levels and in the private sector.
We have developed a map of many of the critical infrastructure systems in the country. We are working with people in government and in the private sector to help in the development of plans for the protection of that infrastructure from natural disasters or from cyber attacks or from other kinds of attacks that may come as a result of terrorism.
These are all areas that are part of the mandate of the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness, which predated September 11. The government was recognizing the possibilities of terrorism, of asymmetric threats, and was creating this kind of entity even before September 11 came along. Of course since then it has provided for a heightened focus and I am grateful to say that additional resources were provided in the last budget to help make sure the office can do its job.