Madam Speaker, I do not think shipbuilding will have a big impact on my riding in the near future, so I will comment on the other two.
First, in relation to the helicopters, I am delighted that the bidding has been put into one package. That will speed up the process which is, I think, what all members in the House want.
I would be disappointed, however, as there is always a cost to everything, if the cost of not splitting that bid ended up reducing employment in that industry. I and I am sure Canadian workers would be disappointed if that were to happen.
I was delighted to hear the member mention the Coast Guard because I can again mention the comment I made when we had the debate on the Coast Guard, which had to do with northern sovereignty.
Some countries do not accept that all the islands north of Canada, beyond the mainland, are part of Canada. The waters are opening up and ships are going through there. My colleagues from Nunavut and NWT have mentioned examples of ships just showing up. They can be polluting with oil. They can be dropping immigrants. They can be infringing on our sovereignty if we do not make a presence. I know we have increased it some but the use of military or the Coast Guard is not the simple solution.
In the north, because resources are so limited, we need a strategy to increase them all. We have wonderful support from the Canadian Rangers, who quite often are aboriginal people, who patrol there. I totally agree with my colleague opposite that we need to increase those resources so we can protect Canada's north.