Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As to your first question, I don’t have any data pertaining to manpower allocation but we will be conducting a study of this question and the results will be forwarded to the committee.
As far as I know, there haven’t been many important changes over the last five years, except for the transfer of personnel to Transport Canada when the coast guard became an SOA. Some of the responsibilities and personnel were transferred to Transport Canada.
As to your second question, as I mentioned during my presentation, I think human resources are extremely important because the coast guard greatly depends on the professionalism of its employees. I believe that the challenge, over the next few years, will be to find a sufficient number of people who have the abilities required to do the job. We have to face more and more changes worldwide in the marine industry. Everyone is looking for experienced people.
Within a few years, the professional market will become more competitive. We emphasize personnel training. Of course, we also have to take care of the consolidation problem. For example, we have put in place a great number of initiatives in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland in order to modernize certain aspects of our activities without cutting back on human resources. We want to keep our employees as long as possible.