Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Cumberland—Colchester asked an extremely important question on the coast guard. What the minister did not answer was that the only thing that kept the coast guard's budget from being cut sooner in 1998 was the crash of Swissair flight 111. If this tragedy had not occurred, the coast guard boats would have been laid up much earlier in the fall of 1998.
The issue here is safety. Is it the Minister of Transport's intent to ignore the safety of our fishermen and boaters in the same way the minister of defence ignored the safety of our pilots?