Here again we are dealing with a serious issue which requires good faith all around. We are all engaged in politics. We are members of different parties which have different visions. However, we are talking about the safety of people on some of the most dangerous waters in the world. Some of you might not even know the river. I have been sailing on the St. Lawrence River for 10 years. There are 10,000 traps on the river; it's a huge water lung. You may not know this, but every day the current switches direction. At the Saint-Roch crossing, the current changes its east-west axis at a speed of 10 km/h.
Not only does the Quebec centre offer bilingual services, but it also has an expertise with regard to local phenomena, and that is important. This summer, there were 1,500 distress calls. The people involved were not expert sailors. They were probably sailors like myself who headed out onto the water and who, at some point, were caught in a cross-current or in a katabatic wind, whatever. So their vessel would have become destabilized, they would have needed help, and they placed the call.
If I head out next summer and encounter major problems, I do not want to hear English spoken at the other end of the line. That's pretty obvious. The expertise was acquired in that area; it's a local expertise. This river is one of the most dangerous places in the world. So we cannot afford to lose this expertise.
I want the minister, if she appears before us, to tell me who will actually answer the phone. Will these people know exactly what is going on? If I call from the Saint-Roch crossing because my keel is broken, will these people know where I am? Will they know, at any given time, whether the current is flowing from east to west or from west to east? Will they have all of this data? Will they know if the cross-current will carry me to the north shore or whether it will keep me on the south shore? The Quebec centre has all of this information right now, and we don't want to lose it. The people in Halifax might not have all of this data.
The best evidence underpinning our argument is that for the last two years we have been looking for people who are not only bilingual, but who are familiar with the river, and we still have not found anyone. Actually, they already exist: they are in Quebec City. This decision will have to be rethought and these questions will have to be put to the minister.
If I go to the Magdalen Islands this summer and if I am in any kind of danger on my boat, will I have access to rescue services in French over the phone? That is my question.