Mr. Chairman, my colleague from the Toronto area recently became the chair of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. I take this opportunity to congratulate him.
I would like to address a problem that concerns the Great Lakes region, as well as the St. Lawrence River. I am talking about cost recovery for the Canadian Coast Guard.
What the industry and the Canadian advisory council, as well as the five advisory councils that make up the larger council, are saying is that this has had a significant negative impact on marine traffic on the St. Lawrence River, and even on the St. Lawrence Seaway and into the Great Lakes.
We are told that worldwide marine traffic is increasing because of globalization, of course. In our region, inland, on the St. Lawrence Seaway, however, traffic is declining because of the fees charged by the Canadian Coast Guard, among other things.
Here is how shipowners react: they touch in at port as seldom as possible, because each time they are charged the equivalent of $3,700, if memory serves, from December 22 to May 5, or something like that.
The industry made a proposal that would give us an agreement for 10 years at least. Would my hon. colleague agree to approve the Marine Advisory Council's proposal to phase out marine service fees and to a term of 10 years on the proposed agreement?