Fisheries committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, I've been in front of the committee several times, but for the new members, my name is Cal Hegge. I'm the assistant deputy minister of HR and corporate services. One of my responsibilities, obviously, includes small craft harbours. I'm joined

Fisheries committee  I have a copy here that I can leave, but we'll certainly make sure you get that.

Fisheries committee  It's a pretty big number, as you indicated. I guess if we look at it in the following way, the maintenance, which is the critical part that we're short, is, as I said, $35 million a year. That, over a period of time--and it would be probably a fairly lengthy period of time--would

Fisheries committee  I'm guessing here, but I would say 10 to 15 years.

Fisheries committee  That's right. Another way to look at it, and I'm not sure we could do this even if we had the money, but if you were to ask me--and maybe you were--how much money would you need to get the existing core fishing harbours up to what we would consider to be a safe, reliable conditi

Fisheries committee  Given the state of the construction industry and some of the issues we would probably have around implementation, it's debatable whether we could do it, even if we had the money over five years, but that's speculative.

Fisheries committee  I think it's probably closer to $475 million, but it's a big figure, yes.

Fisheries committee  If we didn't get the infusion, let's say, that big number over five years, then we would continue with the $35 million every year, and within maybe 15 years we would eventually get to where we would like to be.

Fisheries committee  I wouldn't be prepared to do that today, but we certainly can acknowledge the pressures on the usage of the existing harbours for the very reasons you've mentioned. I would add the different boat sizes that we're starting to see. We know there's growing pressure on the existing c

Fisheries committee  To be fair, I would say they were aware of those implications. Again, we haven't had any detailed discussions with our colleagues in fisheries and aquaculture management or policy.

Fisheries committee  No, those would be part of our planned expenditures. We would take the source from our existing budget, including the $20 million that, as the committee knows, was to have been sunsetted but is continuing on. These are all projects in our expenditure plan that were basically plan

Fisheries committee  I think we would be just starting some of them, probably, without any existing contractual commitments at the time, but I'd have to turn to Micheline to....

Fisheries committee  I don't think that's a—

Fisheries committee  I was simply going to point out that we have an annual expenditure plan that would include most of these projects, if not all of them. As Micheline said, I think there's sometimes a bit of a delay in terms of when the project is actually announced and when the work is actually st

Fisheries committee  I always prefer to be optimistic. It is true that we are have a clear and serious lack of resources, but we continue to work closely with central organizations like the Treasury Board. I feel that they are aware that this program lacks resources. I cannot say that we are going to