Thank you, Madam Chairperson. Madam Chairperson, as the Minister has indicated, there are a number of agencies who work together when there is a search and rescue situation in effect in a community. The other group that is worth mentioning are the Rangers which I think the Member has also alluded to. The Rangers can also be used for search and rescue. There is a formal arrangement that is established in the Department of National Defence policy for military assistance to civil authorities. It is under that National Defence policy that Rangers assistance can be accessed for search and rescues.

There are local search and rescue committees established in many communities which include representatives of all of these groups. Our role, again, is to provide training for those local teams and to establish search and rescue as a component of their local emergency response plan. It is very much the local search and rescue committees that would make decisions about what should happen in a search and rescue situation. MACA's role would be to provide any additional assistance or perhaps help with coordination, for example, in terms of contacting the Department of National Defence on behalf of a local search and rescue committee that required some additional assistance or contacting the coast guard or Canadian Forces if there was a rescue for air search and rescue on coastal waters.

The role we play is one of training support and then coordination in an actual situation. Thank you, Madam Chairperson.