Finance committee  Yes, certainly.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Giguère. I certainly agree with your observations. The demand for coast guard services not only in icebreaking but also in other areas of search and rescue, and in many other sectors of the economy, is increasing as the use of the waterways continues to grow and n

Finance committee  I understand that the coast guard is looking at their fleet renewal plan. The issue is finding the financing to address that plan into the future. That's the key issue this committee should be looking at. Thank you.

Finance committee  --and there's nothing in the plan to—

Finance committee  It's quite a range of cost. If we look at the icebreaker that's being built for the Arctic, it ranges up to $1 billion for something with that capability. For something in the south that doesn't have the kind of requirement as is needed for arctic ice, I would say it's somewhere

Finance committee  I think the key point I was trying to make today, and Howard made earlier, is that you need a significant planning period, design period, specification tendering period, in order to get one of these icebreakers in the water. That's probably a three-year to four-year period before

Finance committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My name is Bruce Bowie. I'm the president of the Canadian Shipowners Association. Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you today to speak about icebreaking services provided by the Canadian Coast Guard and the need to provid

Transport committee  I just represent the Canadian shipowners. We are based in Canada and we're easy to get hold of, and if you want to get paid you know where to find us, essentially. That's why we don't feel there's a need for a very powerful tool when there are Canadian laws that deal with going t

Transport committee  That is not likely, no. We're not likely to buy our ships in Norway, and those agreements would phase out tariffs over 15 years. By the time that's phased out, we're out of business already, sort of thing, because of the age of our ships. The main concern with respect to Norway

Transport committee  Yes, surely you do.

Transport committee  Yes, I couldn't really give you a number in terms of the quantity. Certainly in my discussions with the ship suppliers, they report significant numbers of cases where the ship has disappeared and they have not been able to get paid. That, clearly, has had a very adverse impact on

Transport committee  In terms of the future of the Canadian shipbuilding industry, I really don't think it lies with the commercial markets. And I think that's the issue you're raising: can we generate a commercial market in the Canadian shipbuilding industry through the use of the duty and that sort

Transport committee  I'm sorry, I didn't mean to put a bit of a red herring in the discussion of this bill, because the duty policy is not a part of this bill at all. I simply wanted to make the point that anything that further impedes the ability of Canadian shipowners to finance a fleet that is agi

Transport committee  That's right.

Transport committee  Yes. Our perspective is from the shipowners, not the shipbuilders.