Mr. Chairman, as I have indicated in the House before, I have had discussions with the responsible officer at search and rescue, Admiral MacLean, who indicated to me that he was quite aware of the procedures.
Our dive team operates under the Canada Labour Code. It is an open water dive team that does not do confined space diving.
Under the Canada Shipping Act, the commander has the authority to permit the divers to do anything reasonable to save human life, and I am paraphrasing here because I do not have the code in front of me. Under that act, if he had wished, if it had been requested and if the conditions had been right, he could have permitted the dive. He indicated to me that those conditions, in his humble opinion, did not exist.
We recognize weaknesses within the department, that those other procedures under the Canada Shipping Act were not part of our manual, and that there was a managerial communications problems that we are rectifying.