Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The question is a really interesting one for somebody who is in the business of delivering an asset that could potentially have a life exceeding my own right now. We're operating the Louis S. St-Laurent, conceived of in the early 1960s, and it is still in operation, still a vital part of our fleet.
There are a couple of ways you do that. One is in setting your requirements at the outset and in thinking through the design, you have to think your program long term. What might we need in the long term? To give a specific example, as we're designing the offshore fisheries science vessel, the trawler fleet of the future, we're thinking of three vessels. One of our requirements is to trawl at a depth that our current fleet can't trawl at. That has to do with going to places in Canadian waters where we haven't been before, to see what is there. Very simply, we can trawl at 1,500 metres right now with our current fleet, but we're thinking of a capability of trawling at 2,500 metres in case we need that capability in the future. Bear in mind what Admiral Finn talked about in terms of a cost-capability trade-off. Trawling at a greater depth means more power requirement, an increased cost of the vessel. So we always have to have those considerations in mind.
The second piece of what we do is we think of a good, basic platform that we're going to deliver. A ship is a complex arrangement of hull propulsion and systems aboard. We do have the opportunity, and in our forward planning we think about what we call a “mid-life modernization” partway through the life of the fleet, to adapt new systems to the vessel, to upgrade technologies, and to do significant repair and maintenance work at that time so that the vessel continues to be a vital part of our fleet.
So, two pieces: one is good fundamental design that defines your requirements, and the second piece is taking a point in the life of the vessel to say we need to renovate this thing.