Mr. Chairman. I would like to point out that when Transportation transferred airports to the municipalities they did, in fact, transfer some emergency response equipment including fire trucks. Some of those fire trucks were, in fact, foam-equipped fire trucks. They had the capability to be both foam and dry chemical. I understand that in most communities which took over the firefighting equipment, they are now using these particular fire trucks for transportation and because of this the dry chemical in the container gets so compacted from vibration on the road that it is completely useless. Therefore the communities take out those dry chemical things and remove them from the trucks because, in fact, they are useless. I address this as a concern. The equipment was passed on but there was no incentive to pass on training to these people as well. Simply transferring airports does not necessarily mean that the staff available before went along with the transfer. In some communities there is firefighting equipment there but nobody who knows how to run it.

Mr. Chairman, before my time is up, I would like to know at what level MACA is involved in search and rescue? I have always understood that in the communities this was normally hunters and trappers, the rangers or the RCMP who were involved in this. It suggests here that MACA is involved in search and rescue. Could I get some explanation of exactly what level of search and rescue?