Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise in the House today to speak to the first matter I dealt with at the beginning of my mandate. I am referring to the marine search and rescue centre in Quebec City. As members know, after exerting ongoing pressure on the Conservative government for over two and a half years, we have finally managed to save the marine search and rescue centre in Quebec City. That says a lot.
It says a lot about all the work that has been done. I must thank the people who also pushed the government to reverse its decision to close the marine search and rescue centre in Quebec City. Thirty-five or 37 years ago, this centre was created because the government wanted to have this expertise in Quebec City and because it was the only officially bilingual centre in North America. That is still true today. That is why it is important to keep this centre open.
Unfortunately, a sword of Damocles hung over the centre for two and a half years. It lost people and it lost expertise. At least the sword of Damocles is now no longer there. People can get back to work, without fear that the Conservatives will abolish the centre. That is a step forward. I am very proud of having successfully championed this file, especially because I asked a number of questions about it in the House. I also held a number of press conferences on the subject. I reached out to people in the field.
I still remember a time when all we had was a few resolutions about the issue. People did not know anything about it. Some people in Quebec City were even unaware of the existence of the marine search and rescue centre in Quebec City. By talking about it and meeting people on the ground, we moved forward. We sought out resolutions from a number of municipalities and fishers' associations. Shipowners were also on our side. The Quebec National Assembly unanimously passed two motions on the matter. We had the support of them all.
I would like to salute the extraordinary collaborative work done by the people in the centre and the 35 911 centres in Quebec. They work very hard with the search and rescue centre when emergency calls come in. With them, we achieved this success. As the federal member of Parliament for Québec, I would like to say thank you to them. This is no small success.
I am going to keep talking about it because I never want to go through such a tragic episode again. I never want another sword of Damocles to hang over that centre for no reason.
The file is not closed, quite the opposite. Personally, I would like to know how much the logistics competitions cost. I want to find out about all the competitions held that still did not result in people being found for Trenton. All those logistics exercises were done in order to come to the decision to move the centre from Quebec City. However, they never succeeded in doing so. We know that the money was spent for nothing. It was all for nought, actually. I want to know if the Conservatives know the numbers. Can they give them to us?