i think some of the reasons the City of Toronto , the Metro Police, Fire, Ambullance, TTC and other civilian groups put on this display was to see if they learned anything since becoming a one city service and wanted to see how they worked together.
History lesson here.
not too long ago there was not just one city in Metro Toronto, there was North York, Scarborough, Ebitcoke, East York, York, Toronto and I might have left one or two out, not trying to leave anything out. Metro Toronto funded the ambulance services, the Police services,9-1-1, and the TTC, they were the only city wide services that crossed the city limits and could freely roam from one city to another. Fire Services and Rescue was covered by each city on its own budget.
There was a major subway accident in the early 90's. Lessons learned there, one the police, fire, ambulance services , TTC , and other rescue services could not talk to one another as their equipment was not the same. They found out Police, Fire and Ambulance services could not talk to one another or with the TTC under gound as the comms system did not work in the tunnels . Made rescue efforts and other tasks very difficult and in effective in some offical minds.
Fast forward a few years and the Mega City of Toronto came into being, creating its own problems, Police and ambulance was already under the roof of Metro Toronto, they were just folded into Mega Toronto , but the fire services had to be studied and they had to figure out what comms system of all the ones already in use was to be used. they had to make it work with the rest of the city. they corrected some major problems, then they had redisbrute equipment and man power across the city, some fire halls closed ( in some cases there were 2 in a 8 block area , old city lines ) unified training system had toocme into play, roles had to be filled and moved.
Fast Forward to the exercise
It was the city if Toronto who wanted to see how their services and man power would respond to a major terror attrack, if your going to train, might as train and test for the worst case possible. Before a city can ask for help from another level of government they have to see what they have and what they have not. cannot request help till youknow your limits.
Should the military be involved in something like that, no , the likely hood of some military people being involved at a distance is good. Some where along the line I am sure they were some higher pay grade making a few calls for research to ask if this happened what could you provide in 12 hours, 24 hours, 36 hours and 48 hours and in 72 hours. I am sure that is covered somewhere on the training plan and in the diasater plan. ( for instances during the subway crash they borrowed field phones from some one so they could have comms from the accident site to the ops area who lent them i do not know or really care)
It was the city of Toronto money being spent on that training EX, not DND or Ottawa money so the military should stay out till requested. Before they can request AIDE TO CIVIL POWER , they have to know the limits of their men, equipment and find out what they can handle. Sometimes the military is not the right group to ask for help because the special equipment and people trained to run it is not in the military.
RES Persons from Toronto area units. Great group of soldiers i am sure, they can do what they are trained for. You have to look at the area in which the units are located and where the troops live and the commute time to the unit HQ before they could be sent out to help. Not like there is platoon or company level unit on 24 standby at the various training sites within the city. if a major event happened in Toronto, most of the res forces would be cut off from the downtown units because of traffic, distance and the fact the city might be closed down. Not much help there.
Reg Force
Time to decide what is being sent, who is being sent, transport, or lack of transport.
Base Borden has lots of troops, lots of training vechiles, but most of the troops are non combat arms or are troops under traiining at the QL 3 level, not great effective fighting force or aide to civil power force. Base Trenton, aircraft and airforcetypes are there, lots of planes and stuff but no troops to airlift in.
Base Petawawa, , lots of vechiles, lots of manpower, trained man power, problem with them is distance to move troops to Southern Ontario. a few helicopters stationed there, air lift maybe 100 troops total with basic equipment, still 2 hours plus to the city after lift off.
Those are just some of the basic factors that you have to think about before getting excited that the military was left out this TRG EX.
I am sure it will be a few months before all the reports are done and edited for mass release on how the various services reactted to the training, how they will correct the mistakes they found, I am sure some of it will never be released. I am sure you will see new equipment dreams from all involved. You will see new equipment purchases in future city and department budgets. Some of you might even see a another training exercise that has some uniformed military leaders at , seeing how the Canadian Forces can be of help, or what the military might learn from them.
What I want to see the feeling there is a plan, they know what to do and I hope never to see them have to use it in real life.
only edited for typos
