Mr. Speaker, perhaps the hon. member knows something more about shipbuilding than most other people in Canada but to say that we could have had a ship designed and constructed within the last 18 months to put in service in the next couple of weeks on the gulf between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland just defies any logic.
The fact is, we had no choice but to acquire a ferry offshore. What I have just said is that for the future replacement programs of the Caribou and the Joseph and Clara Smallwood we will look to a Canadian built solution.