On the greater Vancouver area, I have to say, first of all, that our top priority is the safety of mariners in Vancouver, as well as elsewhere in Canada. We wouldn't put on the table any proposal that would affect the safety of mariners. When we develop proposals throughout the coast guard, we look at the level of service offered in every port and every major city in Canada. Obviously we thought we could achieve efficiencies in Vancouver. We have two lifeboat stations located in the port of Vancouver. One is Kitsilano and the other is Sea Island. We felt that by reorganizing the various services in the area, we could be more efficient by reducing the number of stations by one.
We have proposed closing Kitsilano station, and we are now in the process of doing so, but it is not a pure closure.
We have looked at the port of Vancouver and the services it offers and have compared the port with those in all of the other big cities and the services with the kinds of services offered elsewhere. For the busy season, for instance, we have decided to add an in-shore rescue boat that will operate from May or maybe late April to September. We're just finalizing the analysis for that now. We have added money to the contribution that we give to the coast guard auxiliary, also known as the RCMSAR, in B.C. They are moving around some of their stations, providing additional capacity.
There are a lot of vehicles of opportunity in the port of Vancouver.
We have 12 FTEs in total in Kitsilano. Closing it will not incur a lot of cost per se, but we will save about $900,000 per year, and we have already announced that we will provide the RCMSAR with $100,000 per year. The minister announced that in June. We will fund the inshore rescue boat station, which is operated by trained students at minimal cost. The net savings are in the order of $700,000.