Thank you very much.
If I understand you, you're talking about the incident with the Acadian II and where we go from here. I thought there might be a specific request there that I missed.
Immediately after the incident, as I said in my opening remarks, we sent people from the coast guard—and there were other people there also, including some of my own staff—to the Magdelans to make sure we were on site, that people had someone to go to and talk to as all of this unfolded.
We committed at the time—and we have not changed that commitment—to find out exactly what went on. The first thing we found was their concern that the search for the missing fisherman had been called off quickly. We immediately, as you well know, because you worked with us on it, got that search going and did a complete, extensive search well above and beyond the area involved to make sure that nothing was missed.
I personally talked to representatives of the family, to the mayor, etc. We said we would do three things. One, we knew the Transportation Safety Board would carry out their regular thorough safety, long-term check, looking at everything involved. The RCMP were involved, and I think we should soon hear their report, because theirs is probably the one that will take the least time, to see if there was any wrongdoing. They will be reporting on that.
We, ourselves, did the internal...well, from within, but covering all aspects, a study that is usually done internally by the coast guard. Because of the involvement of the coast guard in this, we wanted to make sure it was transparent and objective, and we arranged, after a thorough search, to find somebody who knew how to deal with people, who understood marine life, and who was competent enough to make such a study. As I mentioned, we got Mr. Roger Girouard, to head that independent study.
From my own observations and our discussions with people, I think they understand fully that we are covering every base possible from every angle. The question is, what happens when we get the final details? That is strictly hypothetical, but I assure you and I assure the people that there is nothing here...there is no fooling around, there is no covering up. We are making an open, objective series of studies, and not only will we not interfere, but if we hear of anybody interfering, we will take action. We will make sure the people will have the truth of what happened, and after that we will continue to work with them.