Yes, I appreciate Mr. Hardie's sentiment. On the surface, what he says makes sense. However, this is a very complicated issue.
Also, this committee has set precedents in the past. With the Canfisco fish plant, we interrupted our program to spend a day on that, and on the Comox situation, I think we had two meetings. This particular meeting that we are requesting, a stand-alone meeting, is very consistent with what this committee has done in the past.
This is the first time this side of the committee has asked for anything like this. As a Manitoban myself, I can't overemphasize how dangerous Lake Winnipeg is. It's a shallow lake. The waves kick up. There are also lots of cottagers. Its proximity to Winnipeg means it's very highly used. The aboriginal communities on the east side of Lake Winnipeg absolutely require those vessels to service their communities, and those vessels need the support of the Coast Guard.
This is a pretty significant issue, and very much along the lines of the Comox issue we studied before, so I would request that we do this in a separate meeting and have a fulsome discussion of the issue.