Public Accounts committee  A similar centre is planned for the Great Lakes to be run by the RCMP. That's in its initial startup phase.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, it's still in the development mode. They're operational on both coasts, but there's still further development.

Public Accounts committee  We're working right now with the Treasury Board on a very specific submission to offset fuel price increases. Since about 2005 or 2004, our fuel price increase has been $24 million. So we are working with the board to at least offset a portion of that. Beyond that, as I indicated earlier, the one area where I personally feel we will have to make significant investment is around some of our maintenance work, where we may just not have enough people.

Public Accounts committee  We are certainly quite prepared to table with this committee all of the material that we tabled with the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. If I might be permitted, Mr. Chairman, to make one comment in relation--

Public Accounts committee  You mentioned the possibility of dredging, and I want to make a comment on that, because I do understand that there were some concerns going around that we would somehow have to dredge St. John's base to accommodate the Terry Fox. I want to say that the Terry Fox was tied up there earlier this year.

Public Accounts committee  I am not entirely certain what situation you are talking about.

Public Accounts committee  I'm not aware of any research project that's backed up at the moment. Our science vessels, where we've had the greatest difficulty, are among the oldest in the fleet. In the past seven years there have been 90 surveys planned. Of those surveys, only two were not conducted because of issues with the vessels.

Public Accounts committee  We do hire private contractors occasionally. That is one of the ways we backfill if we have a vessel that can't do the program it was intended to do. You can't do that all the time. It depends on what the program is.

Public Accounts committee  It is.

Public Accounts committee  The deputy commissioner mentioned a few minutes ago the specific local system on the St. Lawrence. We are feeding into the marine security operation centres that are run by DND on both the east and west coasts. So we are now feeding information from our vessel traffic system into those centres.

Public Accounts committee  I think significant progress has been made.

Public Accounts committee  In fairness, Mr. Chairman, that's the observation of the Auditor General. That was the plan we had in place when the Auditor General looked at the situation in 2006. As I indicated a little earlier, we did not complete the ITS strategy for March 2007. We have completed it this month and we are in the wind-down phase.

Public Accounts committee  We have completed a number of the elements. As I indicated in my opening statement, we have completed a strategic human resources plan that covers--

Public Accounts committee  We are actually working with the international community on introducing a long-range tracking system. I'll ask the deputy commissioner to provide you with a little detail on that.

Public Accounts committee  There are around 300 people, out of about 4,700 in the coast guard.