This issue is obviously very important on the Atlantic coast, but it's also of significance on the Pacific coast, and increasingly is emerging as an issue of importance in the Arctic.
The government has recognized the importance of ensuring we have funding to be able to address some of the issues that you talked about. Since 2016-17, we've spent almost $680 million in the small craft harbour area. That included $250 million over a two-year period that was allocated in budget 2018 in B-base funding to ensure we had sufficient resources to address some of the critical issues.
Let me say a couple of other things. On a go-forward basis, we certainly are facing new challenges in the area of small craft harbours. Climate change is certainly a variable that we must account for now, both in terms of the damage that's caused through extreme weather events and the types of construction that we're going to have to think about on a go-forward basis to ensure we're preparing new facilities for that kind of interaction. We have to address the fact that the growth in the aquaculture industry is putting a significant number of additional boats on the water, and as you said, there is a growth in the size of the average harvester boat. All of these are creating challenges.
I do think we need to continue to look at this, and certainly, our department is seized with it at the present time and looking forward to what the requirements are going to be, because the requirements going forward are certainly going to be a bit different from what they have been in the past. Significant investments have been made; significant funding is going into this critical area. But I am quite cognizant of the fact that we need to reflect on what we need to expect and what we must plan for on a go-forward basis.