It's a very interesting question, and thank you for it. It's one we are asked a lot in the Coast Guard. I'm not there any longer, but it's certainly something I was frequently asked when I was commissioner. The interesting thing about coast guards is that there are as many different models of coast guards as there are coast guards. The navy tends to be a navy is a navy, and they are all very similar in their function, structure, and mandate.
The coast guards range. The U.S. coast guard is one extreme. It is very much like a navy. In fact, many people consider it to be the fifth largest navy in the world. The Canadian Coast Guard bridges a gap between it and, for example, Her Majesty's coast guard in the United Kingdom, where they don't have vessels. They manage ship movement, they coordinate search and rescue, but they don't actually respond. We're in the middle between those two.
We do have two vessels that are armed. The Cygnus and Cowley are armed for the purposes of fisheries patrols. Our large ships, the icebreakers, are fitted for weapons but not with weapons.
There is opportunity to look at the role and function of the Coast Guard. There is more of a need for, perhaps, a constabulary authority than for a military authority for the Coast Guard. That's a bigger gap in terms of what's happening on the water in Canada's 200 mile limit.