Thank you. I'll address the easy question first and then the hard one.
As to how the cost has changed over time, I can only talk for the Quebec and gulf regions. I don't have the details for the other regions, although I have some idea.
In both Quebec and the gulf I can tell you—and DFO and Public Works have all the details on this—that the costs of the observer program between 1995 and now have diminished by 10%, if you take into consideration the consumer price index. There are many reasons this decrease happened, and one of them is that the bidding process was competitive. That's for sure. I don't know many services can demonstrate a 10% decrease in 10 years.
I can tell you also that the prices in the Quebec and gulf regions are very competitive when you compare them with all the other observer programs in the world, except those in Africa. If you compare our Canadian observer program total price per sea day with those for American, European, Australian, or New Zealand programs, our price is very competitive. It's the lowest you will find in the world.
As for the other aspect, which is how to share the price of the program between the government and the industry, my feeling is that it is not my business to determine this or to comment on it. That is between the government and the industry to decide.
All I want to say here today is that the present system is not perfect, but it's based on fundamental principles that ensure the best price. With the proposed reform, those fundamental principles will be thrown overboard, and anything can happen with the price.