Mr. Speaker, my friend has raised a very good point which has been raised by others as well. It has to do with the marine navigation services program. In the public accounts committee report, Mr. Adams, the Coast Guard commissioner, admitted:
We don't always get the buoys out of the water as soon as we would like before the ice comes in, and we don't always get them back in the water as soon as we'd like to when the ice goes out...some compromises are made as a result of the lack of funding.
That was said by the Coast Guard commissioner. I do not think the hon. member for Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore could have said it any more clearly than that. He may want to comment on that.
There is another issue on which I would like him to comment. I appreciated his remarks about the Coast Guard auxiliary. It does a marvellous and outstanding job. There are a couple of auxiliaries that operate in my constituency and I am very much aware of what they do.
However, with these funding cuts to the department, there is a fear that the government may be trying to replace the regular Coast Guard employees with the volunteers in the Coast Guard auxiliary. It is clear in my mind that there is not really a duplication of services. One complements the other. However, if they are trying to accomplish replacing the fine work that the regular force does, there may be some problems. I wonder if my friend has some thoughts on that.