Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the work he has done as an officer in our Canadian Forces and the air force. I know he has accorded himself honourably in the commission of his duties for our country. As a Canadian, I think we all thank him for the work that he has done, as we do indeed all our Canadian Forces officers and non-commissioned officers and men and women who are in the ranks from top to bottom who work in the commission of their duties with remarkable efficiency, honour and courage. We all owe them a debt.
When I was making my comments about aid to civil power, I was not suggesting that this was something new. What I was suggesting was that the capabilities for our reserve force was going to change and that we were going to modernize them somewhat and give them broader capabilities
Dealing with the chemical, biological, radiological challenges was never considered before. Therefore, this was something we were going to task our reserve force with so they could aid civil power and first responders. We wanted to increase the capabilities on the ground in an integrated way so we could support those reserve forces and they in turn could support our first responders.
It is really a dual track approach: first, help our first responders to have the tools and the training they need; and second, help our reserves to have similar capabilities so they could support them in the event of a disaster.