National Defence committee  Good morning, everyone. My name is Jeff Hutchinson. I am the deputy commissioner for strategy and shipbuilding at the Canadian Coast Guard. As I start, I just want to say thank you for having us this morning. We're always happy to speak about the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard is

Government Operations committee  It's actually not Coast Guard vessels we're talking about, but DND vessels.

Government Operations committee  Absolutely, there's no question about that. The Louis S. St-Laurent is a safe vessel and it is extremely well built. It is nearing the end of its operational life, but with a vessel life extension, we will keep it operating for several years to come.

Government Operations committee  We have one icebreaker, as you've noted, in the plan for the Vancouver shipyard at this time. Funding has been announced for—

Government Operations committee  I have the dates for our vessel life extensions. I'll just take a moment to pull them out. Generally speaking, we do have a plan for vessel life extension across our icebreaker fleet.

Government Operations committee  That's correct. It's not an icebreaking vessel.

Government Operations committee  I don't have that number in front of me.

Government Operations committee  That's correct.

Government Operations committee  The Louis S. St-Laurent is not a vessel that we consider to be capable of overwintering.

Government Operations committee  The Louis S. St-Laurent is scheduled for a vessel life extension in 2019.

Government Operations committee  The first OFSV, offshore fisheries science vessel, was started in June 2015. It's a ship comprising 37 different blocks—

Government Operations committee  The current projected receipt is October 2017.

Government Operations committee  That's correct.

Government Operations committee  The boom-bust cycle exists in both the private and public sectors when you're building ships. Perhaps it's more likely to be exaggerated in the public sector because we do build specialty vessels. We may be looking for military off the shelf, but military off the shelf is not com

Government Operations committee  I do, thank you. Talking about the presence in the yard I think is really important, and I'm going to be really specific about it. We have a guy who spent 30 years at sea with the Coast Guard as a chief engineer. He knows what we do and how we do it. He knows how those ships ha