Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to welcome all our representatives here as well.
I think the chair, in his brief intervention, actually highlighted something. He highlighted an issue there that perhaps is the elephant we don't talk about that's sometimes in the room—that is, the delicate interchange, the circles of influence. There are the fishermen on the ground and the harvesters, there's the circle of scientists trying to gather information, and then there's the circle of politicians. These worlds are certainly not mutually exclusive. The influences are all intertwined.
We all want science to drive our decisions, yet often I think the scientists are frustrated because the politicians are trying to respond to the needs of the fishermen, and the resource suffers as a consequence.
In this dialogue, though, somehow we really want the best science to drive things. I think that's what most of us want, but I simply want to acknowledge the frustration that scientists must feel at times because of the other influences that get in the way.
You started the story here about the untold story and some of the communication challenges that are related to that. I think DFO has done some excellent science. Out in our part of the world, we have the Pacific Biological Station, which is one of the world's foremost scientific institutions. I do want to ask about that. We have some world-class scientists there, Dr. Dick Beamish and others, and I think, frankly, we don't sing our own story well enough.
Because the whole concept of ocean science is so huge, frankly, not only do the scientists not know everything, but the public at large is even more ignorant about what's in there. I live on the coast, and it's amazing the number of people who live there who haven't been out on the water, who drive along and take a peek at the coast.
There's so much that we just don't know. I did my first scuba dive on the coast. As soon as you go under the water, there's a whole other world. I think everybody should visit under there for a little bit; they might appreciate what's going on a little more. Even the fishermen probably should take a look under there.
The bottom line of what I'm driving at in these comments is that with so much that we need to know to appreciate better ocean ecology, the delicate interactions, what's really going on in there, we want our scientists to have the resources to do the job right, and we also need to be able to listen. So I think we need to look at the communications strategies.
You outlined another challenge here, and that is the expanded mandate. It used to be all just fish and stock management. Now you've suddenly been tasked with healthy and productive aquatic ecosystems, as well as the sustainable fisheries, as well as safe and accessible waterways, and the hydro-geographic tasks, and so on. It is a huge, huge mandate, and I feel that we've really been underresourced in trying to tackle this mandate.
So we want to be of assistance in trying to make sure that our scientific community has the tools to move ahead on this thing and also that we are able to communicate our successes. We know, too, with the challenges the oceans are facing with climate change and so on, which has been referred to here, that there are other groups also using science to drive other agendas and to represent issues that influence decisions, that sometimes manipulate science for their purposes as well. Ultimately, we need information to make the best decisions, and we all have an interest in trying to get there.
I want to go back to the money question that Mr. Stoffer mentioned. I would just ask if you could explain. You mentioned that vessel numbers were included there. I think what you meant by that was not the number of ships on the ground—unless it was—but the cost of running vessels. Did we acquire new vessels? Is that what's part of that? Could you please expand on that for us?