Certainly. In relation to the numbers, I think we've heard in testimony in the past the number $500 million or something. The small craft harbours directorate would probably be best suited to providing the actual numbers in terms of dollars. What I mentioned earlier today was that just in projects we could potentially complete at harbours in the Maritimes and gulf region, the amount would be in the range of $600 million to $700 million for about 1,500 to 1,700 projects, if you wanted to do everything that needs to be done over the long term.
I don't think we'll ever have enough dollars to address it all. We're just fooling ourselves if we sit around here and think we will. We're trying to be as creative as we can be. That leads into the second point you're making, which is that wherever we can, we need to do preventive maintenance. There are several initiatives we're doing nationally with small craft harbours staff and regionally. We're coming up with harbour authority maintenance manuals and checklists for the volunteers, or paid staff, where we have them, so they can get out there to check our facilities to try to catch something.
It's no different from your house. If you have a minor leak and leave it alone, a little while later, if you don't deal with it, the whole wall is gone, and you're into major repairs. We've seen that over a number of years when we didn't have sufficient dollars in the A-base to deal with it. If we deal with something today, it might be a $40,000 repair. If you leave it alone, you could have ice damage and storm damage. It gets undermined, and the first thing you know, the whole wharf collapses.