Thank you so much.
Yes, it was indeed a pleasure to be in Newfoundland and Labrador last week to make the announcement, because what we're trying to do with this announcement is to ensure there's a steady supply of new vessels, along with the repairing and the ongoing maintenance of the small vessels used by the Canadian Coast Guard. This will eliminate what has heretofore been a sort of boom-and-bust cycle of all of a sudden all of the vessels being aged out and needing to replace the whole lot. This is a really good plan to ensure those vessels that just need repair can go out and do what they need to do. It's to maintain that service and, also, obviously, to bring on new vessels as we need them.
There are 61 new vessels, 34 search and rescue lifeboats, another speciality vessel related to scientific research and another group that are going to be what are called multi-mission vessels. This opens the door for smaller shipyards. This is the type of work that is exactly what small and medium-sized shipyards can achieve. Many of them are already involved in repairing these Coast Guard vessels, but this also gives the opportunity for them to actually bid on constructing some of these new vessels.
While I was in Newfoundland, you will recall that we had the opportunity to visit Harbour Grace Ocean Enterprises, an example of one of these smaller shipyards. I know there are many across the country that are currently repairing Coast Guard vessels but would be in the market—potentially—to bid on contracts to actually construct them.
It was really quite inspiring to see this very small town, Harbour Grace, with a shipyard in the heart of the old village with so many vessels under construction. Obviously, there are commercial vessels that this shipyard has been retained to construct. There's also the fact that 100 employees have steady employment just from that one shipyard.
This is a tremendous boon to the shipyards of this size across the country. We know that it obviously will contribute to the local economy and provide good jobs. There are lots of skilled trades involved, especially electricians. I think we were quite stunned to see the types of controls that are necessary in order to actually get these vessels out to sea.
It was a great announcement and very well received by both the Canadian Coast Guard and the local shipyard we visited.