National Defence committee  Yes, sir, we can.

National Defence committee  The mission is not primarily SAR. They have SAR techs and they have a SAR-equipped helicopter, but they are not in the same posture as Trenton would be, or the coast.

National Defence committee  They're in support of military operations, but they're available for SAR.

National Defence committee  I would absolutely give you a report. I can't say, because I don't have the numbers here, what those numbers would be, but if you're asking whether we can provide--

National Defence committee  Absolutely.

National Defence committee  Absolutely, sir. They're the same SAR techs.

National Defence committee  That's a good question, sir. No, we expect an availability greater than seven. I'm not sure whether when that report was written it was a snapshot or a longer-term issue. There's no question that we've had some difficulty with the availability of the aircraft for a number of reas

National Defence committee  Thank you, sir. First of all, let me respond to the previous question that John answered. We, the military, are the sponsor of CASARA, and we have every confidence that the membership are very skilled and very capable. What we ask them to do is not out of line. They're not doing

National Defence committee  I am not in a position to comment on the surveillance or the sovereignty issue. Strictly from a search and rescue perspective, as I mentioned a little while ago, we continue to make sure that we have the proper basing to support the requirements, and we have not seen changes that

National Defence committee  Again, I can report that we are aware of some trends in the Arctic that indicate there is going to be more activity both on the ground and in the air. We have not seen, in any of our trend analyses, that this has driven a greater requirement for search and rescue forces. On ano

National Defence committee  We do have a unit in Goose Bay that performs search and rescue duties. The airfield, of course, is available if we need to base out of there for search and rescue operations. There are no immediate plans that I am aware of that would propose to put a SAR unit per se in Goose Bay

National Defence committee  I'm not in a position to respond directly to that question because I'm not totally familiar with the report you're referring to. I certainly did not participate in any interdepartmental discussions. I will offer, though, that currently, from what we've seen in terms of activity

National Defence committee  I can speak to the readiness issue. Our standby posture is maintained 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That does not necessarily mean they're the only aircraft on base. In fact, normally there are backups for those aircraft. The statistics may be misleading, in that the situati

National Defence committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I was asked to speak today about search and rescue in the north. I'll start with a brief presentation on CF roles, responsibilities, and posture, and show you the activity rates we have recorded in recent years. I will be ref