Madam Speaker, one of the issues that was very apparent during and after the September 11 crisis was the total inability of different agencies and different forces to communicate. Whether it is within a country or between countries, certainly in the Norad sense, we need to be able to do that and do it in a very meaningful way. Whether it is the program to which the parliamentary secretary referred or whether it needs to be more or different, it needs to happen and it needs to happen in a major way.
It was illustrated to us how difficult it was for the different non-military agencies, the ones which control air traffic and control movement on the oceans and in the ports, to communicate with each other. It caused major confusion. It slowed down the ability to respond to these attacks and to potential problems that could arise.
Absolutely, communications has to be the best that we could possibly acquire. We can think back to an occasion when our air force planes could not communicate with the other allied defence airplanes and different operations without the enemy being able to listen in. So there are all kinds of areas in communications that are so important. As we know, in any business or any walk of life, communications is absolutely critical, but in a military context it is absolutely the difference between life and death.