Maria Canton
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jun 02/99) - The military is testing their ability to communicate this week for the roll-over period between December 1999 and January 2000, through a five-day training program called Exercise Vigilance 2000.

The Department of National Defence and Canadian Forces (DND/CF) are showing no signs of Y2K fatigue, as they continue testing communication and response systems to ward off potentially dangerous situations that may be a result of the Y2K phenomenon at the turn of the century.

The "paper exercise" simulates communication with Northern communities and tests the ability to transfer information back to the Yellowknife headquarters and then to Ottawa, but it does not involve the deployment of troops.

"Exercise Vigilance 2000 is an exercise of our ability to communicate," said Capt. Tom St. Denis, public affairs officer.

"At this point we're still getting our procedures honed and ensuring we are able to communicate effectively among ourselves."

Last week, however, members of CFNA were deployed to six communities throughout the North in order to test communications with high frequency (HF) radios, which will be used for communication during the transition December 1999-January 2000.

"The tests with the HF radios were conducted last week and it was confirmed that the systems work," said St. Denis.

"Knowing the radios work has allowed us to build that information into this week's exercise, allowing us to run a strictly paper exercise."

There are 40 military personnel at CFNA headquarters responding on a 24-hour basis to 15 exercise control people over the course of the week-long exercise.

The exercise control team is stationed at the airport at the Forward Operating Location (FOL).

"The FOL people have a master events list comprised of five days of incidents designed to test the procedures from each of the different areas within headquarters," said St. Denis.

The hypothetical incidents in Exercise Vigilance are triggers that will illicit a response in which DND/CF personnel react with appropriate and effecient measures.

For example, if there is an immediate need to move emergency measures organization people to a remote location quickly, and it isn't possible or effective for them to do it by their own means -- snowmobile -- they will ask if the military could help by supplying an aircraft, explained St. Denis.

The request to supply aircraft is then processed, DND/CF complete the necessary reports to get aircraft in the air to do mission, and the subsequent paper work is filed to Ottawa.

Exercise Vigilance 2000 is the second of three exercises to take place this year. All three are part of the larger Operation Abacus, which is the contingency plan of the Canadian Forces to respond with emergency assistance should it be needed when the new millennium begins.