National Defence committee  You're not looking at a huge investment, because much of this, as our colleagues have already said, is run by volunteers. The challenge is that you need the right surge capacity at the right time. Currently, we don't have a good model to get the right people to the right place at the right time.

National Defence committee  There's certainly value in building that organization. I think that needs to be a medium-term goal. Most democratic countries have an organization like that—and Canada is a very large country with very few people and lots of challenges as a result of climate change, and other challenges—but I don't think it can be built in the short term.

National Defence committee  If you look at the data of why the Canadian Armed Forces is called on the most, it's for general labour, lift capacity and specialized expertise. Being able to ensure appropriate lift capacity from the Canadian Armed Forces and that that capacity is available when required.... By and large, lift capacity is probably not something that's going to be provided by NGOs, and the private sector is going to have limited capacity to provide it.

National Defence committee  One place we can start is the federal emergency response plan, and I think this picks up on the previous remarks. We consistently have trouble when we roll out the federal emergency response plan because people don't understand the plan, and there are agencies and people around the table who aren't familiar with it.

National Defence committee  The CAF takes for granted that the experience and training gained during Operation Kinetic, which took place internationally and on the continent, are sufficient to respond to requests on Canadian soil. As I said the last time I appeared before the committee, the biggest training-related challenge is that the CAF has reached only 85% of its operational capacity from a human resources standpoint.

National Defence committee  If I understand correctly, you're asking whether the expertise required is specialized as opposed to general. Certainly, the operations are increasingly complex, in terms of both number and type. After all, they are human security operations. The CAF has to meet a greater number of human security demands internationally.

National Defence committee  Mr. Motz, if you look at my report, there are basically four models. The FEMA model is probably the most expensive and the least effective model that you can think of. No other democratic country has followed the FEMA model. I think it works for the United States simply because of the institutional structures and the significant challenges that the United States has in many places.

National Defence committee  I think that's a fantastic point, for a couple of reasons. One of the things that people forget is that doing any of this type of work in the north costs about 10 times what it costs to do the same type of development work, for instance, in the south. I think it's also lost on people that much of the infrastructure that exists in the south, of course, doesn't exist in the north.

National Defence committee  Over the medium term, there must certainly be more capabilities in the private sector and civil society to meet those requirements. They currently don't exist in the Canadian Armed Forces. At this time, there are two problems. First, it would take time for civil society and the private sector to build that capability.

National Defence committee  I'll just make sure that you can hear me, Chair. Is that all right?

National Defence committee  Perfect. Thank you for the invitation. As usual, I will make my presentation in English, but it will be my pleasure to answer your questions in either official language. I provided a written submission with more detail, but I will just get some of the basics out of the way.

Public Safety committee  You might want to look at the current engagement by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada as well as the B.C. information and privacy commissioner with regard to Facebook, which demonstrates the extreme weakness of our privacy legislation and the inability of the Privacy Commissioner to levy real and meaningful fines against companies found to be wilfully violating Canadian law and legislation, even though that law might be decades out of date.

Public Safety committee  I think what we need to understand here is that often we focus—as Mr. Lloyd just did—very specifically on the direct interference in our democratic process. However, what these actors are really up to is simply trying to undermine our values and our institutions, and their legitimacy along a broad range, from politics to the economy, to our diplomacy and the cyberspace.

Public Safety committee  The trend we've certainly seen is an uptake in people who sympathize with views on both extremes of the political spectrum—the extreme left and also the extreme right. The challenge with the growing sympathies on the extreme right is that, unlike the sympathies on the extreme left, they tend to be actively associated with incitement to violence, seditious activities and other active engagements to undermine our institutions and our government.

Public Safety committee  I think parliamentarians need to be very careful not to sympathize with activity that is criminal or that is clearly illegal. When we start to blur those boundaries, we get ourselves into trouble. At the same time, I think we're starting to get ourselves into trouble where we get these wink-wink, nudge-nudge sort of hints from governments to police that suggest not to go too hard on these protesters because we're sympathetic to them, but go hard on those protesters because we're not sympathetic to them.