Thank you, Chair.
I'm delighted that the committee has been able to come to Gander and hear what you've had to say today. It's extremely important to our work. I do know, without having you tell me--but obviously you told us in a very comprehensive report--the importance of this operation to the town of Gander.
It's also, of course, extremely important to people like Mr. Johnson, whose occupation, and those of many more like him, is dependent upon having a good-quality search and rescue service. That's what the service is for. I think the location in Gander has demonstrated that it's a superb one, and the pre-eminent one for that purpose in Newfoundland and Labrador.
I am also very concerned, and I guess you are too...when we started the study, it was sort of intuitively my concern that we had a “standby posture”. That was the term they used--an odd term. It was a standby system where there was a 30-minute window to get in the air between 8 and 4, for 40 hours a week, and a two-hour window after that, although it's obvious they're often in the air before that.
This study occasioned a whole lot of inquiry by members of the committee, and some research, some of which you've referred to. But I'm particularly concerned about the fact that one study, which is dated 2004, by Sean Bourdon and Mark Rempel for DND, using the same chart that Mr. Bachand just told you about, determined that if you look at the 30-minute standby, for eight hours a day, five days a week, which is what we have, in fact only 17% of the incidents that occur, occur within that period. That seems to be consistent with what we heard this morning as well.
I know Mr. Johnson might have a particular view on that as well. If you're going fishing 24 hours a day and you're out 100 miles from Bonavista for four or five days, you're obviously outside that 8 to 4 window, especially if it's on the weekend. It seems to me, as you mentioned, Mr. Tucker, the response to improve that requires probably more assets and perhaps more manpower. I'm delighted to hear the five recommendations that you have. I think that's a good basis for us to say, okay, let's look at these.
How does it strike you, first of all, as part of a council, to say, okay, we've got a search and rescue service that's fully operational 30 minutes in the air for 40 hours a week, when we only get 17% of your calls? How does that strike you as a town representative?