Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the efforts by the hon. member for Gatineau and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Services and Procurement and Accessibility regarding the shipyard, but announcing that existing icebreakers will be getting three coats of paint is not going to create jobs.
He mentioned his frigates, but that represents just a few hundred jobs in three years' time. It is not going to put bread and butter on our workers' tables any time soon. He could do that by having the Obelix built.
I want to come back to the icebreakers. The government was meant to buy the heavy icebreaker Aiviq. It would have been nice to have that ship on the St. Lawrence over the past few weeks. I am not sure if my colleague has picked up the phone and talked to his friends in the Canadian Coast Guard, but they are overwhelmed. Ice jams on the river have forced the coast guard to use ships from Newfoundland here and there. It is a mess. They need boats. The shipyard is ready and they have the expertise and knowledge. We are not going to get into the numbers, but compared to tens of billions of dollars, $1.5 billion is a drop in the bucket. The shipyard—