Yes, absolutely. It's not even a debatable topic. There's no doubt that the use of industry platforms when properly standardized, with proper engagement between the industry platform provider, the industry association engaged and DFO, you go through that proper exercise.... Coast Guard government research vessels certainly cannot match the cost-effectiveness, and I would argue they probably can't match the coverage and the reliability. There's data to back that up if the committee were so inclined to take a closer look.
Yes, I think it could easily be expanded. You're not sacrificing anything in terms of the legitimacy of the research. Again, I want to stress this point. This work is done with oversight and led by DFO. It's us providing platforms for the research and we're good at managing boats. That's what we do. We can provide boats on a time series basis, on a cost-effective basis, with good planning, and it can be as a contingency plan.
Obviously, investments have been made in new vessel capacity so it can be provided as a contingency plan. However, in cases where there are new needs because the vessels that are coming into the sector right now are filling existing responsibilities but there are still many gaps that exist across the country for that matter, I think it could certainly be utilized incrementally—industry platforms—to provide a cost-effective means with some good limited funding from government to make that work. I think it's a model that should be more closely considered in terms of a recommendation by the committee and certainly by the department.
We have raised it and there has been some interest in this. I'm not saying there's no interest, but there have been some challenges, obviously, in getting over the hump and actioning some of this as well.