Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd just like to zero in, if I could, on the special operating agency. In April of 2005, the former government designated that Fisheries and Oceans would have a special operating agency within their system. I guess this change was intended to form the coast guard into a national institution.
I noted in your comments, Ms. Fraser, that in your view the coast guard still operates largely with five regional coast guard operations, instead of with the one national institution that was supposed to come from the SOA. I'm just wondering if you could elaborate—and maybe Mr. Da Pont may want to speak on it also—whether this status has posed particular challenges to the coast guard transforming itself into a national institution, notwithstanding the unsatisfactory progress in some aspects of that.
It seems there was some thought process at the time that the department was large enough to have maybe several SOAs, instead of just the one, and that it might be better off in regard to management if it had to do that, because my understanding is that the coast guard right now is the largest SOA within government.
I'm just wondering if you would—