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

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 cha

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

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 t

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 trainin

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 numbe

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 o

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 pe

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

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 Commissione

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 legiti

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 lef

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 g