I guess I'll respond to the back end of the question first.
I think the committee heard from the stakeholders in the last couple of meetings that they did not feel that all lighthouses across the country were going to be designated under the legislation. I think that's fundamental to this.
We have a number of lighthouses across the country that are in remote, desolate areas. There are some in the Bay of Fundy that come to mind that are 50 miles from the closest community on an isolated island. I don't see a community group coming forward with a petition for that.
Under those circumstances, the access or the designation may not be an issue. In those instances when there is a requirement for an ongoing program operation for a lighthouse, we'll need to have access for health and safety issues for employees, whether it's a staffed lighthouse or our technicians are just going out to maintain the aid to navigation as part of the program. We as a department will be required to continue to do that.
In the time that I've been running the divestiture program in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, we have not had a community group fail. When we look at their business case, we look at all aspects of it. Yes, we will have to put funds into bringing lighthouses up to a reasonable level of maintenance before a community group can take them over, and that is money we do not have in our budget.
If Parliament deems that this is a bill they want to move forward, then we will have to come forward with a request. I believe my colleagues and I said a year or so ago before committees and this committee when we were discussing this that there would be an ask, because our departmental budget could not absorb the cost. But the community groups are all volunteers, for the most part, and they've been very good at doing a lot of the things that need to be done, with minimal resources.