Mr. Speaker, the safety of mariners is foremost and always has been, but I will give some background.
Members of the defence committee travelled to the Maritimes and visited different bases because there was an issue regarding search and rescue. What we heard over and over again was that Maritimers were suffering as a consequence of the 1993 decision by the federal government, which it campaigned on, to cut the helicopter order. When that order was cancelled, it not only cancelled the Sea King replacement, it also cancelled the search and rescue choppers as well as troop movement. For troop movement, helicopters would have been very helpful in Afghanistan and may have saved a number of lives.
However, the real crux of what we were looking at with respect to the search and rescue helicopters is that after over a billion dollars in penalties and having to pay for other contracts for which we received nothing, we ended up getting the same brand scaled down for more money. As a consequence, we do not have enough helicopters to keep going. We are looking forward to correcting that error as we go on.