Mr. Speaker, I count the hon. Minister of Defence as a dear friend.
I want to very quickly put this forward, and I am sorry if it sounds hypercritical. We transferred the Coast Guard into the defence budget to reach the 5% target, and I am hearing from Coast Guard folks in my riding. They used to be able to do the work to remove derelict vessels that were hazards to navigation by picking up the phone and calling someone they knew was competent, like a local contractor, to say, “Come and get this vessel out of our waters.” They are now forced through the defence contract and procurement process, which slows them down tremendously. I think every time we change regimes and the way the bureaucracies work, whether in civil society or in the military, we slow things down.
Is the minister aware of this problem within the Coast Guard, and what can be done to ensure they can move quickly?