Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his question.
Indeed, the coast guard and the fisheries department in general are responsible for monitoring both our fish enforcement and certainly the coast guard services have been greatly stressed and underbudgeted for many years.
There was the tragedy with the recent sinking of the Cap Rouge II and the loss of five lives. It would be hard to describe what it was like for coast guard divers to be there but not permitted to enter this vessel because of labour code regulations. Why would the letter of the law prevent someone from trying to save a life?
It is apparent that risk is inherent in search and rescue operations. We have officers and trained divers. They trained the military divers that according to regulations they were waiting for.
It is time that our officers be free to use common sense in emergency circumstances to save lives, rather than being bound by the letter of a regulation while lives are endangered.
I wish to mention the coast guard infrastructure. The MCTS centres that we visited with the fisheries committee were understaffed, stressed, had stacks of documents of requests for the repair of equipment, with transmitters that were down in Prince Rupert and navigational aids that were not operational. This puts tremendous stress on the officers trying to do their job. There are thousands of miles of coastline that are not even monitored. We depend on voluntary communication for vessels coming into the northern part of our coast. Given the threats of today's world, the government has an obligation to do better to protect our coastline and our navigation.