Yes, I do.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen and Madam Chair. I would like to thank you and members of the committee for your invitation to the meeting today.
As background for those of you who are unfamiliar with Marine Atlantic, we're a crown corporation that was created to fulfill Canada's constitutional mandate to provide a freight and passenger ferry service between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. We report to Parliament through Transport Canada.
Our objective is to provide a safe, reliable, and efficient ferry service. We operate on two routes. Our primary route is between Port aux Basques and North Sydney, which is about a 200-kilometre route. We also operate a seasonal ferry service between Argentia, Newfoundland, and North Sydney. That covers approximately 500 kilometres.
In budget 2016, the Government of Canada announced $21.7 million for improvements to Marine Atlantic's terminal infrastructure in both North Sydney and Port aux Basques that would improve the safety, reliability, and efficiency of its operations. The infrastructure funding covers three projects.
The first is the replacement of a storm sewer system in the Port aux Basques terminal. This project was required to replace infrastructure that was at the end of its useful life and created periodic interruptions to our operations. The budget for this project totalled $5.3 million: $1.7 million in 2015-16 and $3.6 million in 2017-18. This project will be completed on time and on budget.
The second project involved the replacement of dock fenders in both North Sydney and Port aux Basques. Fender systems protect both vessels and dock infrastructure from damage caused by vessels when docking. The older fender system was inadequate and created unnecessary risks for the corporation. The budget for this project totalled $8.4 million, with expenditures of $2.4 million in 2016-17 and $6 million in 2017-18. This project will also be completed on time and on budget.
The third project, which is the subject of these supplementary estimates, will provide an automated mooring solution for the primary docks at both North Sydney and Port aux Basques. Our current mooring operations involve a significant amount of manual intervention, and this creates safety risks that can be mitigated with the new automated system. The initial budget for this project totalled $8 million: $2 million in 2016-17 and $6 million in 2017-18.
Automated mooring systems are highly specialized and engineered to meet the requirements of specific vessels and specific dock configurations. Upon initiating the project, we realized that we had underestimated the time required to engineer a solution and select the supplier. Because of these delays in selecting an appropriate system, we have been unable to spend any of the budgeted funds for this project in 2016-17.
As such, in supplementary estimates (B) for 2017-18, we're requesting re-profiling of $2 million for this project from 2016-17 to 2017-18. The remaining $269,000 requested to be re-profiled was regular operating capital not spent in 2016-17 that will help supplement the mooring budget in 2017-18. Our intention is to finish this project completely by the end of 2017-18.
Madam Chair, I would be happy to answer any questions related to our requests.