Official Languages committee  Once again, according to the standards and procedures, I can tell you that the information is communicated to the police, whether it be Sûreté du Québec, the RCMP or another police department. They send people who are able to inform people and deal with these delicate situations.

Official Languages committee  Mr. Chairman, in this case, there was a situation that had not previously occurred. Normally, when transactions are conducted with the police department, whether it's the RCMP or Sûreté du Québec, generally, and to our knowledge, those transactions, those communications are done normally.

Official Languages committee  Thank you, Mr. Da Pont. As I indicated at the start of my presentation, we have noted that some issues were raised in the media in the days following the capsizing of L'Acadien II about the language of service provided to the mother of the missing sealer, Carl Aucoin. As I indicated, we have brought the audio tape exchanges with Ms.

Official Languages committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We thank you for this opportunity to be with you this morning. We'll be making a few preliminary remarks, each in our turn. I will begin and will be followed by Lt. General Dumais, then Commissioner Da Pont. We're going to explain the roles and responsibilities of our various components and provide you with an overview of how communications for search and rescue operations function.

Official Languages committee  Yes, sir.

Official Languages committee  Concerning the broadcast?

Official Languages committee  We don't have a written document. We obtained her oral consent.

Official Languages committee  I don't believe that was the case. If you permit the recording to be broadcast, Mr. Chairman, you're going to hear the conversation. In an emergency situation, we can't tell the person that the conversation may be recorded.

Official Languages committee  Pardon me, Mr. Chairman, I—

Official Languages committee  I think we simply gave her that opportunity. She said she would like it, but we also explained to her that it wasn't for certain. She said she agreed in any case.

Official Languages committee  Yes, it would be public if that was the committee's wish.

Official Languages committee  The recording was made by the people from the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre. We don't normally make those recordings public, except in an investigation for investigators, which is not the case here. We requested Ms. Aucoin's permission to broadcast the recording for the purpose of the committee's business.

Fisheries committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. While I would be pleased to come back next week with the minister, unfortunately I will be out of the country. My colleagues will be supporting the minister in that regard. I wanted to take the opportunity to let you know that. Thank you for the opportunity to come before you today to respond to your questions.

Fisheries committee  If I may, I think the final numbers for the expenditures in 2007-08 are still being compiled. We will have them, I would imagine, fairly shortly. They are generally published in the public accounts. I would say, if you're looking at a basis of comparison in terms of planned spending and estimates for last year, there is a significant increase in the order of probably close to $200 million, assuming that the supplementary estimates are also accorded to the department between the mains and the final planned expenditures that we would be looking at for this fiscal year.

Fisheries committee  And then if you add the elements that would be decreased and then increased, we end up with a net, probably, once we take all of the various adjustments, in terms of an increased capacity.