Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Most of my questions were going to be in relation to electricity in Canada, but I was surprised to hear Mr. Giguère advocate for a military industrial complex in Canada. I was kind of interested in that. I'd like to take that up with more discussion.
But I would like to talk about what Mr. Eyking mentioned in regard to Marine Atlantic in particular. I think it was his premier who identified Marine Atlantic in 2005 as being on life support. I understand that at that time the ships' on-time performance was a joke because there wasn't any. In fact, if I'm not correct on anything, Mr. Cairns, I'd like to say that in my constituency of Fort McMurray, most of my constituents who are from Atlantic Canada refer to Marine Atlantic as “maybe arrive” because it was so bad. For clarification, my information is that if we had ordered those ships in Canada, a made-in-Canada solution, they would not be operating until 2014-15. That was my understanding.
I understand there are some discrepancies on that. Maybe if a Liberal government had ordered them in 2003-04, they might have been done by 2010. I know there are some different things, but the biggest issue I think is that now we have on-time performance at somewhere around 85% or 95%, and the people of Atlantic Canada are actually receiving the ability to go back and forth as they require. The issue of Marine Atlantic in 2006 was an issue of safety, a real issue of safety. You're nodding your head, but I think you agree with everything I've said.
I do want to ask a question, if I can, in relation to electricity in particular, because this government did make some serious investments in electricity: the northwest transmission line project, $141 million; $71 million in Mayo B.