Mr. Chair, before you start the clock, I just want to quickly revisit the point that I raised yesterday in the House. I'll be very brief. It's unfortunate that you didn't take the opportunity to apologize yesterday for the derogatory characterization that you used towards me. Regardless, I don't really care one way or the other, but I was looking around this room and knowing the history here.... During World War II, cabinet met here every morning to talk about the situation in Europe and the war and how to best organize the military people who fought for our democracy. As I said in the House yesterday, one of the responsibilities of the chair is to act in an even-tempered manner, in fairness, and you're to make sure that we have order. The one power that the committee has here is the issue of relevance, but at the same time, you're also there to ensure that our rights and privileges are respected. Although you may not respect me, I do request that you at least respect the institution and guarantee the rights of all members of Parliament who sit on this committee from time to time to freedom of speech, and to the ability to put questions, and sometimes difficult questions, to the appropriate witnesses. With that, I move on.
Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. I'm a prairie boy, and a lot of people don't realize that in Manitoba, there is Coast Guard on Lake Winnipeg at Gimli and on the Red River at Selkirk. I appreciate all the work that those brave sailors do in protecting and responding to crises that occur with our commercial boaters and transporters, as well as our commercial fishers in that area.
The one thing I think we're interested in, which we've been skating around a bit, is exactly how the Coast Guard does work with the Royal Canadian Navy, with the RCMP, and with the U.S. Coast Guard when you're dealing with some of those issues that are very much security matters.
When you're operating in the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence Seaway, and near the U.S. waterways of both the Atlantic coast and Pacific coast, how do you interact when you come across vessels out there on patrol that could be dealing in drugs, or doing human trafficking, or maybe transporting illegal firearms? How do you actually interact with the navy and use the Maritime Security Operations Centres—which are amazing when you get in and see how all that information is fed together, for those of us who have the opportunity to be in those centres? How does that all get coordinated, especially with our American counterparts?