Thank you very much for the question on submarines.
We are at the end of a long beginning. In fact, I can tell you proudly that HMCS Victoria sailed out of Esquimalt Harbour yesterday as planned, to commence a very deliberate series of workups, trials at sea, aimed at bringing that submarine and her crew to a state of high readiness early in 2012. These will include diving operations and full weaponization, meaning the firing and certification of that submarine on the Mark 48 heavyweight torpedo. This is great news.
Later in 2012, on the east coast, HMCS Windsor, six months after Victoria, will follow her in that path, such that by the end of 2012 we will have two high-readiness submarines operating on both coasts—which has always been intended.
HMCS Chicoutimi, currently in deep maintenance—the first submarine in deep maintenance through the Victoria in-service support contract on the west coast with the Canadian Submarine Management Group—will complete her deep maintenance in early 2013. She will ramp up to high readiness, so that we will achieve a steady state in 2013, which we have been working so hard towards for several years. We will continue to maintain one high-readiness submarine on either coast, a third submarine at a lesser degree of readiness but available for operations nonetheless, and a fourth submarine always in that deep maintenance, as the contract stipulates with the Canadian Submarine Management Group. We will run that cycle, sir, through to the end of class for that submarine. Those submarines will be available for operations first and foremost in our three ocean approaches, but they'll also be available for missions continentally.
For example, the Corner Brook was transiting around to the west coast earlier this year and participated in the Canada narcotics mission in the Caribbean basin and the east Pacific, and actually played a key role detecting and tracking what the adversaries had been able to bring to that illegal activity, that is, fully submersible self-propelled vessels carrying tonnes of cocaine. The Corner Brook was able to play an effective role in the east Pacific as she transited up. This is the sort of mission she will be able to participate in, as well as being ready to be deployed anywhere for Canada.